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Setting
Yourself Up For Success
by
Carter D. Womack
 Setting people up for success is the business philosophy of Leadership At Its Best. As a college student your focus must be on Setting yourself up for success. Someone asked me what is success and I replied,
"Success is whatever each person defines it to be for himself or herself!" Someone may defines success as: getting all
A's in college, just graduating, getting a great job, or just getting a job, making a great deal of money, live in a big house, owing their own company, having a happy family and home life.
As a college student I would hope that setting yourself up for success would first include your getting
A's, B's and graduating. As you focus on your college years and preparing for the world of work and setting yourself up for success be prepared to work for what you want to achieve. As you focus on your college years and preparing for the world of work and Setting yourself up for success, I want to share some of my thoughts with you.
Setting yourself up for success means thinking and acting like a winner. If you are going to focus on being successful then you must think and act like a winner. I ask that you take a moment and list people you know who are winners, people in sports, business, government, education, etc. Think about why you listed the people, what made them WINNERS in your mind and how do you compare yourself to them.
To Think and Act like a Winner you must:
1. Eliminate Distraction and Baggage. If you have things, people, and issues in your life that cause you not to be focused, you must take actions to put them in the past and behind you. If you need professional help seek it out through your university counseling office or outside the university.
2. Become Focused. In order to become focused there are three things that you must develop: Vision, Mission, and what I call Smart Goals.
Vision Statement – "Vision a mental image, and imaginative
contemplation." What do you see for yourself short term and long term? When you close your eyes in a quite place and think about you and your life what do you see in your mind and feel in your heart. Your Vision Statement must be short, but it will change over the years as you grow and develop.
Mission Statement – "Mission the special duty, function or role one defines for their
self." What do you see as your mission in life? What do you want to accomplish in life? Your mission can be defined in time frames of in the next XXX years or it can be far reaching. The development of your Mission Statement will force you to look within and define yourself.
Goals "Smart Goals" –
"Goals an objective or end that one strives to attain" The establishment of your goals will not be an easy process but one that is critical for your success. Thus I suggest you establish SMART Goals. Specific, Measurable, Attainable Relevant, Trackable. As you find that quite special place to start you goals setting process keep SMART in mind. I suggest that you do your goals in time frames, the next two months, six months, two years, etc. I would suggest that you review your goals at least monthly while you are in college and at least quarterly when you graduate.
The establishment of your VISION, MISSION AND SMART GOALS will help you begin the process of thinking and acting like a winner. Make sure you post your Vision, Mission and Smart Goals so you can see them each day.
3. Choose Your
Attitude – As written in the book FISH one of the keys to success is the ability to choose your own Attitude. Choosing your attitude is key to how you treat others, and perform your daily task. When you get up in the morning you have control over you are going to operate that day. You must get up and tell yourself that this is going to be a great day! I am going to be positive, excited about all that I have to do. I am going to have a smile on my face, etc. Your attitude is yours, so make positive choices each day about it and you will be well on your way in Setting yourself up for success.
4. Accepting
Responsibility–"response – ability the ability to choose your response."
You must accept responsibility for your actions or lack there of. You are responsible for your own success. You cannot hold others responsible for work that is not completed, the grades you get, over sleeping and missing classes. Highly proactive people are very successful and recognize that responsibility is key to their success. As you focus on Setting yourself up for success it will very important that you become very proactive and not reactive. Reactive people wait for things to happen and Proactive people make things happen.
5. Identification of a Mentor. I am encouraging you to seek out a mentor,
someone you can talk with and discuss issues related to you. Your mentor would be the person you can share your mission, vision and smart goals. Your Mentor should be a person who is older than you, out of school and has a proven track record of success. As you seek out your mentor be prepared to have open and honest discussions about where you are and what you are expecting from them. You must also talk about what they can expect from you in return.
I always say, "Success is not about A Brilliant Strategy
it's about A Brilliant Execution." As you continue Setting yourself up for success please keep that in mind and always THINK and ACT LIKE a
WINNER.
Carter D Womack is president & CEO of Leadership At Its Best,
LLC, Columbus, OH www.LeadershipAIB.com.
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