Another month’s gone and life continues to grow towards what you want to achieve or the other way round.

Did you set a goal early this year? Well, did you get what you want by now after so many months of working hard for it? Apparently, most people don’t and that’s the problem with setting goals.

We cannot be setting goals with the intention of trying to get what we want because that will become a chasing game which will wear you out. Maybe not for you, but I know I will when I’m chasing ’something’. The goal must be a part of us — to become who you want and where you want to be mentally and physically.

Your goals must be something that you achieve internally so that you can see it, taste it, smell it and feel it.

Wealth. Love. Connection. Knowledge. Experience.

If you were to think what success is, it drills down to being happy.

I’m not trying to be a personal self development guru here but to stress the statement how we make our lives complicated without understanding the true purpose of our action. Life doesn’t have to be that way.

There are a few things I’ve learned from my life and I’m glad to share them with you today…

i. Your mind attracts what you want. This year, I have my fair share of enjoying successes and experiencing setbacks in life. And when I sit back to think about it, they come in ’sequences’. Once I’ve gained success, I’ll have the momentum to get another one. When I failed and stay in that state, another failure will come again. I don’t know, some called it Law of Attraction. To me, I strongly believe that you get what you want based on what your mind thinks because it ‘attracts’.

ii. There’s one time Grandma falls sick and stayed in the hospital for a week. When I visited her in the hospital, I felt blessed that she’s still in this beautiful world. Although it’s nothing critical, but my heart tells me one thing- nothing in this world will give me the same love and relationship I have with her.

There are only 2 factors that will remove your love with someone you care about- when he/she is no longer here or you have ignored the love you have today for something that is less valuable but perceived to be valuable. Let me warn you– once you lose them, you lose them. You should know who to call, hug or kiss by now.

iii. Know your roots. If you’re successful today, you’re probably once a ‘nobody’. Always be humble because it will give you more success in times to come. Knowing your roots also means remembering those who have supported you when you’re growing and stayed by your side through thin and thickness. You can master all kinds of personal improvement course out there, but I think it’s useless if you’re an arrogant person and not being respected.

iv. Explore life like there’s no ending. Listen to new music. Visit new places. Play new sports. Meet new people. And an endless list of things you can do regardless of whether you’re wealthy or not. Always remember this– money doesn’t stop you from exploring life because there are easily hundreds of things you can do with what you have today.

v. Life is great. You have a wonderful life whether you want to admit it or not. There are people sleeping on the streets today, begging for food and so on. Because you’re reading this, you’re under a roof and are an educated person. You have eyes to read and a wonderful brain to think. For that, life is already wonderful. The rest that you got, are bonuses. Some might complain about being financially broke. You can be broke but you can never be poor because being broke is a temporarily state that can be changed.

Do you have your own principles to be successful life? List it here.

Patric Chan

P.S: You can get hundreds of free personal self development articles, tips and videos at www.successandlife.com. If you have your own self improvement course, share them there to get free publicity and exposure!

No woman is worthy to be a wife who on the day of her marriage is not lost absolutely and entirely in an atmosphere of love and perfect trust; the supreme sacredness of the relation is the only thing which, at the time, should possess her soul. Women should not “obey” men anymore than men should obey women. There are six requisites in every happy marriage; the first is Faith, and the remaining five are Confidence. Nothing so compliments a man as for a woman to believe in him nothing so pleases a woman as for a man to place confidence in her. Obey? God help me! Yes, if I loved a woman, my whole heart’s desire would be to obey her slightest wish. And how could I love her unless I had perfect confidence that she would only aspire to what was beautiful, true and right? And to enable her to realize this ideal, her wish would be to me a sacred command; and her attitude of mind toward me I know would be the same. And the only rivalry between us would be as to who could love the most; and the desire to obey would be the one controlling impulse of our lives. We gain freedom by giving it, and he who bestows faith gets it back with interest. To bargain and stipulate in love is to lose. Perfect faith implies perfect love; and perfect love casteth out fear. It is always the fear of imposition, and a lurking intent to rule, that causes the woman to haggle over a word it is absence of love, a limitation, an incapacity. The price of a perfect love is an absolute and complete surrender. To give a man something for nothing tends to make the individual dissatisfied with himself. Your enemies are the ones you have helped. And when an individual is dissatisfied with himself he is dissatisfied with the whole world and with you. A man’s quarrel with the world is only a quarrel with himself. But so strong is this inclination to lay blame elsewhere and take credit to ourselves, that when we are unhappy we say it is the fault of this woman or that man. Especially do women attribute their misery to That Man. And often the trouble is he has given her too much for nothing. This truth is a reversible, back-action one, well lubricated by use, working both ways as the case may be. That form of affection which drives sharp bargains and makes demands, gets a check on the bank in which there is no balance. There is nothing so costly as something you get for nothing.

Success is in the blood. There are men whom fate can never keep down they march forward in a jaunty manner, and take by divine right the best of everything that the earth affords. But their success is not attained by means of the Samuel Smiles-Connecticut policy. They do not lie in wait, nor scheme, nor fawn, nor seek to adapt their sails to catch the breeze of popular favor. Still, they are ever alert and alive to any good that may come their way, and when it comes they simply appropriate it, and tarrying not, move steadily on.

Good health! Whenever you go out of doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of the head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in the sunshine; greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every hand-clasp.

Do not fear being misunderstood; and never waste a moment thinking about your enemies. Try to fix firmly in your own mind what you would like to do, and then without violence of direction you will move straight to the goal.

Fear is the rock on which we split, and hate the shoal on which many a barque is stranded. When we become fearful, the judgment is as unreliable as the compass of a ship whose hold is full of iron ore; when we hate, we have unshipped the rudder; and if ever we stop to meditate on what the gossips say, we have allowed a hawser to foul the screw.

Keep your mind on the great and splendid thing you would like to do; and then, as the days go gliding by, you will find yourself unconsciously seizing the opportunities that are required for the fulfillment of your desire, just as the coral insect takes from the running tide the elements that it needs. Picture in your mind the able, earnest, useful person you desire to be, and the thought that you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual you so admire.

Thought is supreme, and to think is often better than to do.

Preserve a right mental attitude the attitude of courage, frankness and good cheer.

Darwin and Spencer have told us that this is the method of Creation. Each animal has evolved the parts it needed and desired. The horse is fleet because he wishes to be; the bird flies because it desires to; the duck has a web foot because it wants to swim. All things come through desire and every sincere prayer is answered. We become like that on which our hearts are fixed.

Many people know this, but they do not know it thoroughly enough so that it shapes their lives. We want friends, so we scheme and chase ‘cross lots after strong people, and lie in wait for good folks or alleged good folks hoping to be able to attach ourselves to them. The only way to secure friends is to be one. And before you are fit for friendship you must be able to do without it. That is to say, you must have sufficient self-reliance to take care of yourself, and then out of the surplus of your energy you can do for others.

The individual who craves friendship, and yet desires a self-centered spirit more, will never lack for friends.

If you would have friends, cultivate solitude instead of society. Drink in the ozone; bathe in the sunshine; and out in the silent night, under the stars, say to yourself again and yet again, “I am a part of all my eyes behold!” And the feeling then will come to you that you are no mere interloper between earth and heaven; but you are a necessary part of the whole. No harm can come to you that does not come to all, and if you shall go down it can only be amid a wreck of worlds.

Like old Job, that which we fear will surely come upon us. By a wrong mental attitude we have set in motion a train of events that ends in disaster. People who die in middle life from disease, almost without exception, are those who have been preparing for death. The acute tragic condition is simply the result of a chronic state of mind a culmination of a series of events.

Character is the result of two things, mental attitude, and the way we spend our time. It is what we think and what we do that make us what we are.

By laying hold on the forces of the universe, you are strong with them. And when you realize this, all else is easy, for in your arteries will course red corpuscles, and in your heart the determined resolution is born to do and to be. Carry your chin in and the crown of your head high. We are gods in the chrysalis.