Date Posted: 9/18/2012 3:47:07 AM
Posted By: ombaba Membership Level: Gold Total Points: 1110
Success in life as well as in business, sometimes does depend on having the technical skills in doing a certain job or activity. Apart from your education and technical skills, your life experiences, long term success more importantly depends on your personal character. There are several attributes that make up personal character. I will refer to these attributes as life skills. Out of the many life skills one could learn and develop, here are the most critical:1. An attitude of success - having the right attitude in whatever you do gives you a great advantage over someone doing the same thing with the wrong attitude. An attitude for success entails maintaining positivity, perseverance and willpower. A famous golfer who had only one hand was once asked how he was able to beat many other golfers who had two hands. His reply "One hand with the right attitude is better than two hands with the wrong attitude."2. Dressing for success - how you dress reflects your character and self image. Being clean and dressing smart helps create a good impression. When you are smart you also feel good about yourself boosts your confidence, and confidence is a critical component of success. 3. Overcoming personal fears, doubts, and lack of self confidence - fears, doubts, and a lack of confidence are a result of low self-esteem. If you have low self-esteem you will not be able to go out and seek what you want. Some people will not go out to ask for a job for example, because in their mind they do not measure up to the task. Though its good to be realistic, do not put yourself down too much.4. Overcoming the fear of rejection - related to a lack of confidence is the fear of rejection. Knowing that people will reject you or your ideas some of the time, anticipate and accept rejection as normal, is a great step towards overcoming your fears. Here in Kenya for example, our own president Mwai Kibaki was rejected twice in the elections before his third attempt was successful. Rejection does not mean you are bad or wrong, just that the time is not right and you should keep trying.5. Communication skills - knowing how to communicate your ideas effectively is essential. Any person who has achieved significant success in his/her field must have played a leadership role. Leadership entails, communicating your ideas to those below you and allowing ideas from those you lead by creating effective and open upward and downward communication channels. 6. People skills - as a leader you need people skills for you to interact well with those you are working with. People are the most important assets that one has in building a long-term successful business or life. Hence the necessity for treating them right. 7. Time-management skills - time is money. If you know how to manage your time well then you are on the right path to success.8. Accountability skills - people loose out a lot in the long-term simply because of lack of accountability and a lot of greed. It could be a potential long-term customer, a business partner, or a friend. For a bank for example, if they treat a young person badly now, because he doesn't have money. Ten years down the line he becomes very successful, do you think he will do business with the bank that treated him badly. Your guess is as good as mine. 9. Practical goal-setting skills - I cannot over-emphasize the importance of goal-setting. What i would add though is their practicality. You cannot for example say am going to buy a car next month when you don't have any money now, nor a plan on how you'll get it. 10. Money-management skills - money is an integral part of a successful life. A quote i read says "Money does not make a man grand, but a man cannot be grand without money." For a person to be truly successful he has to know how to manage his finances well. We've all heard stories of riches to rags. 11. Investing skills - the purpose of acquiring wealth is so that you live and maintain a comfortable life for you and your descendants. This can be best achieved by investing. However for you to be a successful investor you must have the skills, otherwise you will lose a lot if not all of your money. Hoarding money on the other hand is not useful to anyone, not even you, because money stored away in say a hole in the ground is loosing value to inflation. Investing it helps you grow more of it, creates employment for others and helps the economy in general when its in circulation.
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