Technology helps us find things faster. But it doesn’t help us find out what is important and what is not.
Unless we understand what is important to us, we will always be looking and running the risk of never finding. It is rarely something that will appear to you in a flash of inspiration. My colleague Duff Watkins, a Cornerstone International associate in Sidney, Australia was writing recently on the subject of luck.
“Life is not a lottery,” he noted. “Our luck comes from the way we interact with the world and the people in it.”
Successful people prepare themselves. In both their personal and working lives, they have identified what is meaningful and they are focused in pursuing those goals. They also know that they will not attain their goals unaided.
We must recognize that, as we continue on our own individual paths, our success will be shaped by the ability to successfully interact with others.
After you have identified what is important to you, and have written it down, your actions will begin taking this into account. You will also quickly recognize that the fastest way to attain your goals is with the help of others. How will you get that?
Let’s say you have just moved into a new job and you want to meet new people. Most people will think first of people who can help them. But suppose you set out to meet people that you can help. Chances are you will meet more people and be better regarded – thus meeting your own goals faster – if you make a point of trying to help others first. The same is true if you are in an active job search.
Like the ripple effect of a stone thrown into a calm pond, we have the opportunity to impact others every day. It is how we accept this and how we approach these relationships that determine what we accomplish.
Do you contribute at every opportunity? Do you help whenever you can? Do you feel positive about the success of others and support them? The saying “what goes around comes around” has become one of the most widely known and used, and not by accident.
Make your contributions meaningful, make your relationships significant, make your commitments important and deliver on them. For people who do this, their success usually takes care of itself.
