Yes, you heard right. It’s all about the formula for success. And, surely, we all want to know what that is right?

So, I had this epiphany moment only the other day, and as with all the best epiphanies, it came out of one of my own challenges; something I’d been working through for some time. Let’s put it into context…

Prior to this big lightbulb moment, I’d reached a point where I was being rather hard on myself; I’d done a sterling job of getting myself into a bit of a ‘pit’ that focused largely on the problem at hand, with little mindspace for the ‘growth’ and ‘opportunity’ mindset that I so often bang on about. And that’s when I decided to take a step back and reflect.

The F Word

What I realised is that I was getting myself into a headspace of “You haven’t achieved this yet, therefore you are a failure.” That’s a winning speech if ever I heard one. Well done Lauren.

Of course, this isn’t useful. It doesn’t achieve anything. So, coming back to that age old question of “What IS more useful?” the answer came in the form of two rather marvellous mantras. Firstly, “if you don’t get it the first time, you get up, you do it again until you do,” and secondly, “there is no such thing as failure, only feedback”

Now the key sentiment to note here is that, every time you find yourself thinking, “well that hasn’t gone the way I wanted it to,” you do not, I repeat, DO NOT, use it as an opportunity to scold yourself or tell yourself, “That’s the end of the story.” Instead, you use it as an opportunity to say:

“Aha! How interesting, what can I learn from this?”

Now when I asked myself this question, BAM! That’s when I realised that somewhere along the way, piece by piece, I had indeed come up with the formula for success. Well that seems like rather a grand statement indeed. But, my friends, it is indeed the truth of the matter. There are very clear differences between the times in our lives where we excel, and those that take longer to achieve our goals. And herein lies the answer…

The formula for success

Intention: Every incredible change starts with the power of intention. And, in my opinion, there’s one key driver in setting a strong enough intention, and that’s the conviction of ‘Why?’ Why do you want this change so badly? What is it that’s driving you?

The stronger your ‘why’, the easier it is to hardset your intention. This could be something bigger than yourself. A life mission perhaps. Unfortunately, a lot of people leave it to the point where pain becomes the why. But why leave it this late? What could be your motivating factor that fuels you to a strong and sturdy intention?

Decision: Once you have your intention, you cement that with a strong decision. The decision to act – in whatever, way, shape or form that may be.

Vision: When you connect with your intention, you automatically connect with a bigger picture; that bigger vision. And you keep connecting with that vision. Day in. Day out.

Trust / knowing / certainty: Now I can’t emphasise this enough. It’s soooooo important. And it has no basis in logic or rationale. There is no room for analysis or overthinking. These skills will not serve you here. This is about you trusting that no matter what, this will happen. You trust in life, you trust in yourself; whatever it needs, you just know that you can make this happen. You might not know how but you know it will happen. Part of this also includes conviction; no matter what anyone else says, you have enough conviction in yourself and your mission that the views of other’s do nothing to deter you.

Commitment: You have a commitment; day in, day out, that no matter what it takes you will continue to pursue your vision. You start, continue and end every day thinking and acting in ways that align with your bigger purpose, fulfilling the intention you set at the beginning of this journey.

What else?

Now these are the five ingredients required for success. But as we all know, the road to success is not always smooth sailing (and I’ll be controversial here and say sometimes it can be – if you go in at 100% on all of the above factors). But in the more bumpy, and perhaps more common, cases, there are two extras you need to sprinkle your journey with:

• Kindness
• Openness & curiosity

When you ‘season’ your journey with kindness, no matter what happens along the way, you know you are doing the best you can. On the flip side of this, if you start scolding yourself and judging, you are only activating your fight or flight stress response, and that goes hand in hand with ‘contraction,’ and ‘limitation’ behaviours. Similarly, when you come from a place of curiosity and openness, you ask yourself questions that allow you to learn and grow from the experience. Which brings me back to my starting point, and the point which led to this epiphany moment.

So there you see, good things really do come out of a growth mindset; when you allow yourself to open to life and be inquisitive about what you can learn from your experiences, everything else will follow suit. And remember, “Nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished,” You are the same my friend.