If You Can Dream, You Can Have the Cream

By A Horton

Napoleon Hill, renowned personal development Guru once said "Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve". This is such a powerful statement and when explored a little further. It shows that if you allow yourself to have huge expectations and you can find it within yourself, to see yourself actually living them; nothing is beyond the realm of possibility for you.

The super achievers I have studied, all had these two elements present. They all held really big pictures of possibility in their minds. Their vision of what they saw for themselves in the future was massive and they all believed without exception that they had what it took, could learn what they needed, or could get someone, with the necessary skills to support them, so that they would achieve their huge expectations. There was a complete belief that they would eventually succeed, they did not doubt the possibility for a second.

Understanding Your Expectations and Belief

• Where do you see yourself five, ten or twenty years from now?
• Do you have huge expectations and dreams?
• Can you actually feel and see yourself living those dreams?
• Do you believe what it takes to achieve the huge dreams you hold in your mind?
• Do you feel the fire of inspiration burning in your belly?

Explore your answers above. If you want to finally break out of average and start to realise all you are capable of achieving, then allow yourself to have huge expectations and find a way to believe that they are not only possible for you, but that you can actually already see yourself living the meaning and fulfilment they will bring.

My research has shown that super achievers all have a number of crucial elements present.

These are:

• A crystal clear vision, which they think about regularly and can easily and passionately articulate and communicate to anyone who will listen.
• 150 % belief in their ability to bring their vision to life.
• An Understanding about exactly why they want to achieve their vision.
• They were all inspired from within and showed incredible passion and a deep rooted desire to succeed.
• A remarkable ability to network and build mutually beneficial relationships with people.
• An incredible commitment towards lifelong learning.
• An unbelievable work ethic and self-discipline, where they schedule time and carry out goal specific actions daily.

Principles of extraordinary achievement

The principles for success as stated below are said a little differently by Napoleon Hill, but ostensibly his seven principles of extraordinary achievement are very similar to my research findings.

He believed the following:

• Definiteness of Purpose: He believed that if everyone had a clear plan and purpose they then had a solid foundation for inviting extraordinary achievement into their experience.
• Mastermind Alliance: He saw working as a collective mind, where more than two people worked together in harmony with each other, as a crucial element to success and super achievement.
• Applied Faith: He felt that with sufficient faith, people could turn their aims and desires into plans and purpose and finally, their tangible physical or financial reality.
• Pleasing Personality: Napoleon Hill felt that being likable was a crucial factor for success. He saw the sum of one's spiritual and physical traits or said differently a great personality, as the secret to success.
• Personal Initiative: All super achievers showed staying power and completed everything they started.
• Positive Mental Attitude: All super achievers are free thinkers, who hold onto a positive mental attitude.
• Enthusiasm: Enthusiasm is faith in action. All super achievers have a burning desire to succeed, which comes from within.

I hope this article has been of value to you. I have shared both my own research and the wisdom of one of the greatest personal development leaders of all time, with you in this article. You now have all the information you need to achieve remarkable success in your life. The only thing standing in the way of you achieving greatness is you. Dare to pull the trigger and allow yourself to make it happen for you.

Andrew is one of the most sought after Motivational Speakers and Sales Training experts in South Africa. You can trust him to deliver a motivational message that will re-energise your team and help them to ignite the fire of inspiration in their bellies once again. Should you want to inspire or re-energise your team, visit my website for details on one of the best Motivational Speakers around.

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Why is it important to improve yourself?

Sometimes, when all our doubts, fears and insecurities wrap ourselves up, we always come up with the idea of “I wish I was somebody else.”  More often than not, we think and believe that someone or rather, most people are better than us.- when in reality, the fact is, most people are more scared than us.

You spot a totally eye-catching girl sitting by herself at a party, casually sipping on a glass of Asti Spumanti. You think to yourself, “she looks so perfectly calm and confident.” But if you could read through her transparent mind, you would see a bunch of clouds of thoughts and you might just be amazed that she’s thinking “are people talking about why I am seated here alone?... Why don’t guys find me attractive? …I don’t like my ankles, they look too skinny… I wish I was as intelligent as my best friend.”

We look at a young business entrepreneur and say “Wooh… what else could he ask for?” He stares at himself at the mirror and murmur to himself, “I hate my big eyes… I wonder why my friends won’t talk to me… I hope mom and dad would still work things out.”

Isn’t it funny? We look at other people, envy them for looking so outrageously perfect and wish we could trade places with them, while they look at us and thinks of the same thing. We are insecure of other people who themselves are insecure of us. We suffer from low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence and lose hope in self improvement because we are enveloped in quiet desperation.

Sometimes, you notice that you have an irritating habit like biting off your finger nails, having a foul mouth, and you – of all people, is the last to know.

I have a friend who never gets tired of talking. And in most conversations, she is the only one who seems to be interested in the things she has to say. So all of our other friends tend to avoid the circles whenever she’s  around, and she doesn’t notices how badly she became socially handicapped – gradually affecting the people in her environment.

One key to self improvement is to LISTEN and TALK to a trusted friend. Find someone who you find comfort in opening up with even the most gentle topics you want to discuss. Ask questions like “do you think I am ill-mannered?”,  “Do I always sound so argumentative?”,  “Do I talk too loud?”,  “Does my breath smell?”,  “Do I ever bore you when were together?”.  In this way, the other person will obviously know that you are interested in the process of self improvement. Lend her your ears for comments and criticisms and don’t give her answers like “Don’t exaggerate! That’s just the way I am!”  Open up your mind and heart as well. And in return, you may want to help your friend with constructive criticism that will also help her improve her self.

One of Whitney Houston’s songs says “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.” True enough. In order to love others, you must love yourself too. Remember, you cannot give what you do not have.

Before telling other people some ways on how to improve themselves, let them see that you yourself is a representation and a product of self improvement. Self improvement makes us better people, we then inspire other people, and then the rest of the world will follow.

Stop thinking of yourselves as second-rate beings. Forget the repetitive thought of “If only I was richer… if only I was thinner” and so on.  Accepting your true self is the first step to self improvement. We need to stop comparing ourselves to others only to find out at the end that we’ve got  10 more reasons to envy them.

We all have our insecurities. Nobody is perfect. We always wish we had better things, better features, better body parts, etc. But life need not to be perfect for people to be happy about themselves.Self improvement and loving yourself is not a matter of shouting to the whole world that you are perfect and you are the best. It’s the virtue of acceptance and contentment. When we begin to improve ourselves, we then begin to feel contented and happy.