A summary of my best 5 rules for focusing on success - from my blog 'Success Psychology'.

1. My 5 Best Rules for Focusing
on Success by Nicholas Davies

2. WELCOME TO THE FIRST OF THE
SUCCESS PSYCHOLOGY POWER
BRIEFINGS!
This is the first in a series of visual
briefings from ‘Success
Psychology’, a blog dedicated to
investigating the psychology of
success.
Success Psychology aims to
understand the principles required
to master the success mind-set and
present them for the benefit of
others. The aim of the Power
Briefings are to make them available
to an even wider group of people.

3. Focusing on success can be
difficult at the best of times.
It’s very easy to set a
goal, motivating yourself to
actually achieve it can be an
entirely different thing
altogether.
Here are some my 5 best rules
which I’ve used in the past
which you can try to really give
the pursuit of your goals a
power boost:

4. One of the best ways of focusing on your
goal is to find a way of keeping it visible
as much as possible. One that I learnt
from Jurgen Wolff years ago, this tactic
involves writing your goal on a post-it
note or index card (available from most
good stationary shops.) Display the card
in a prominent place where you’ll see it
everyday. This could be a mirror, mantle-
piece (if you have one!) or maybe a
prominent picture. You could attach it to
the fridge with a fridge magnet. Use
your imagination, but find somewhere
where you’ll see it on a regular basis. The
net effect of this little tactic is that it will
keep the task or goal at the fore-front of
your perception so you won’t forget it.
Jurgen Wolff:
http://www.timetowrite.blogs.com/

5. It’s always a good idea to plan your
progress towards your goal and
break it down into sections or
stages. This is technique commonly
known as ‘chunking’ For
instance, let’s say you want to write
a novel in two months. In order to
do this, you need to work out how
much you need to write a day. Based
on your calculations, you should be
writing at least a 2000 words a day
to complete the novel. Each of the
2000 word sessions would be a
section or ‘chunk’ towards
completing your novel. All you need
to do is set aside time each day to
write, maybe an hour or two, if
realistic? This is an important point –
KEEP IT REALISTIC!

6. It’s important to keep a record of
your progress towards your goal.
This is why I’ve recently developed
the habit of keeping journal to
assist with my goals. This journal
can be something as simple as a
note-pad or notebook which you
can carry around with you
wherever you go. You don’t have
to use it just for recording your
progress, of course. You can also
use it to jot down ideas and
inspiration, as well as any
reminders about tasks or actions
you need to complete to move
you towards your goal.

7. If you are, like me, keen on using IT, a great
way to record your progress towards a goal
by recording it in a spread-sheet. The best
way to do this is to use the table function
within whichever programme you are
using. To illustrate this, let me use my
example of the spread-sheet I’ve created
for my article writing at present. For this, I
simply labelled a column for the date I
wrote the article, the next for the website
it was published to followed by a quick
over-view of the article section, a notes
section and a section to cut-and-paste the
link to the article for quick reference. This is
a great way of being able to track progress
with the goal quickly and accurately. Of
course, if you are not happy with spread-
sheets, you can always create a table using
a word document if you prefer. (More on
this rule at a later date.)

8. If you really want to maintain your
focus and motivation, you can declare
your intentions publically in order to
ensure that you stick to them! I’ve
used this rule quite a lot recently, and
it certainly is a major motivator in
making sure that you get things done.
In my case, I use my personal blog at
http://nicholas-davies.com/ to record
the progress of my 30 day
challenges, providing posts regarding
my declaration of intent, mid-way
progress and final result through-out
each challenge. You don’t have to set
up a blog, you could merely post your
progress on social media such as
Facebook or on an online forum you
are a member of. The most important
thing is to make yourself publically
accountable.

9. So, those are my five best rules for
maintaining focus on success!
Interested in finding out more?
Check out ‘Success Psychology’ blog
on the link below for more
interesting posts and articles on the
‘psychology of success’:
http://psychologyofsuccess.org.uk/
(Picture credits:
http://www.wpclipart.com/ )
© 2013 Success Psychology