“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplacable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.” Ayn Rand.

Everyone wants success in at least some if not all areas of their life. And because success means different things to different people, your idea of success will be different from my idea of success and from anyone else’s, but the fact remains that you, just like everyone else, wants to be successful.

You may be looking for success in business, in relationships, in your health, in your body image, in sales, in confidence and personal skills, in your ability to influence others, AND you may find that it eludes you wherever you look and however hard you try.

But you know, success is really quite simple once you understand how your mind creates the results you see in your life!

So what makes the difference in being successful, and being unsuccessful or even in being mediocre?

To achieve outstanding results we must start with a realisation that each of us is responsible for the life that we have, that we attract into our lives the things that we focus on the most, and if we do not like the life that we have or the results we are seeing, then it is up to us to change it.

In many relationships there is an accounting – what you do for me vs what I do for you. Whenever there is a surplus on one side, there is often a deficit on the other. The play of relationship will then be to get these sides into equilibrium. Along the way, there may be unhappiness, arguments, stone-walling, or even worse, a state of complete indifference. How did we get to this?

What is your experience of fear?

Is it fear that you will fail, or arguably more common, that you will succeed?

Is it keeping you small, feeding itself on the negative self-talk of 'not good enough', 'not accepted', or 'not loved'?

What if, instead of STOP, whenever fear showed up it meant GO FOR IT!

A successful leader needs to win the hearts and minds of those that she leads. In order to do this successfully, she needs to be willing and able to inspire, understand, empathise, and motivate her managers/teams/employees. Perhaps most importantly, the leader must be congruent in her expectations and behaviour – the standards that she holds to her tribe must be evident in her own values and actions.The ability to tackle problems and projects from both a top down and bottom up approach is useful of course, and a formidable leader will also add to this a flair for lateral thinking. But what separates the outstanding leaders from those that merely wish to lead is a genuine interest, humility and mentoring capacity where their charges are concerned – they truly grasp the larger vision and hold that vision for all involved.

What is the most important quality in a leader for you?

© Copyright Estelle Williams 2011

Guest post by Carol Finlayson of Carol Finlayson Coaching

“I am bored “. Whilst teaching a workshop yesterday a woman approached me during break, with the words, “Carol I am bored”. The workshop was called Finding Your Life`s Purpose, and she told me she felt her life had little purpose. She couldn’t find a man, she hated her job, and she felt tired all the time and she asked me for help. By the end of the day she had the break through that she came looking for and left with a wonderful clear map of what her journey would be and a few new tools for stress management too.

Many years ago I met a woman through an online forum for women seeking recovery through creativity. She lived in small town America and had no sense of purpose. During her time in the forum she shared she wanted adventure and her real passion in life was food. So she borrowed a lump of cash from her bank, moved to Florence for a year, leant to not only cook wonderful food but to write and photograph wonderful food, fell in love, got married and went home a changed woman.