When the economy isn't doing as well as it has in the past, your personality is vital to your company's success.

Compare your brain to a hard drive. It stores all of the information you know and all the things you know how to do. For every action – whether activities or statements – we need to recall the information from this hard drive. But, we can only recall information that's already been stored. This means if you'd like to know more and be able to do more, you have to store more information on your hard drive. This happens naturally when learning new experiences.

But many people are afraid of making mistakes and this fear inhibits them from trying new things and expanding their hard drive. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that the world is full of blamers, nay-sayers, and nit-pickers. This is one of the biggest negative factors of living and working together in a society. These people thrive on the mistakes of others. They play the "error game" and it forces many people into becoming stagnant.

Developing the personality of success touches many areas.

FIRST, STEP OUT OF THE "ERROR GAME" - BOTH ACTIVELY AND PASSIVELY
The passive exit from the error game means not listening to every negative that comes your way. Some are valid but many are not. You must be in charge of deciding the direction of your personal path in life.

The active exit from the error game means to stop being negative yourself. Whether it's directed towards others or towards yourself, negativity is a destroyer. Negative self-talk is one of the biggest inhibitors of success there is.

SECOND, SET YOUR OWN GOALS!
Only if you set your goals for yourself, will the necessary enthusiasm develop to accomplish them. Highly successful men and women have one thing in common: they have specific predetermined goals which they work toward.

If you want to win big in life, your first step begins with you, a piece of paper and a pen. No one puts out extra effort to achieve someone else's goal. High-performance behavior comes only when people are working toward a goal they have set for themselves and want to achieve. But how many people have a clear-cut view of their goals? Imagine you meet a genie and are offered three wishes for free. But they have to be very concrete and you have only 10 seconds to list them. Write them now! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, over.

Were you able to come up with three concrete things you want, when you want them, and how you want them? Very few people are able to do this. If we don't even know what we want, how are we supposed to know how to get it?

THIRD, MAKE THE TIME AND EFFORT
After you know where you want to go, you have to check what effort will be necessary to get there. If you don't take this aspect seriously, you risk failure. It's better to over-estimate the effort required because if you have to make use of a larger effort than expected, you may rapidly lose the joy of working on it. It's much better if it turns out that everything is simpler than expected. Your willpower will grow and your energy will increase.

Here's a good way to keep your goal at the forefront of your mind. Take a sheet of paper and write your goal on it. After that take this sheet and crumple it up, don't fold it nicely – you have to crumple it. That's now the so-called "will ball." Now put it in your pants or shirt pocket. Carry it from now on as long as it takes to achieve the goal. The "will ball" will rub with every movement you make and you will constantly be reminded of the goal you set yourself.

Setting and achieving goals can become a habit. Everybody can choose which habits they want to have and which they want to change. Take some quiet time and think about which of your habits lead you to success and which don't. It's up to you to change the bad habits for good ones. It won't work overnight but it will definitely work.

Do you want to assess whether or not you're the person you want to be? Try this. For one full day, imagine a TV station called you and asked you if they could follow you around with a camera crew for a series called "24 Hours in the Life of a Successful Person." They will accompany you with their cameras from the time you get out of bed until the time you go to bed.

Try to observe yourself very accurately. What are the things you do differently because the camera is present? These represent the difference between what you are and what you would like to be. If you say certain things differently today or if you move differently, if you look and act more friendly, if you are more helpful or more understanding, than this is the kind of person you know has the personality to be more successful. Now it's up to you to make those changes permanently in your own actions.

Follow these simple but very important rules and you will strengthen your personality, and it will be much easier for you to emerge from every crisis a winner.

About the Author
Eric Adler is a trainer and mastercoach in the fields of communication, motivation, and mental training. He is an Austrian-based, best-selling author who developed a unique method for measurable and verifiable personality development. A public study that consisted of 800 adults and teens documented that Eric's unique form of personal development training had a very effective impact. His know-how is widespread in the licensing system in Europe, and he now issues licenses to trainers, speakers, coaches, and consultants in the U.S. as well. For more information, visit Adler Social Coaching® at www.asc12.com or e-mail adler@asc12.com.

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