Your primary goal should be to increase the likelihood that you will be one of those remarkable people who achieves greatly and makes a real difference with his or her life. And this is very much in your own hands.

To realize your full potential, you must focus on your career goals, hard work and success factors. Free yourself as much as possible from randomness and uncertainty. You must organize your life in such a way that the probabilities of achieving your career goals are extremely high.

You must learn the cause and effect relationships between what you want and how to get it through hard work and goal planning. You must take complete control over every part of your life and create your own future. You must leave nothing to chance.

Luck or Hard Work?

When people achieve great success faster than others, they are immediately accused of having “good luck” and rarely attribute it to hard work. When people make a mess of their lives, largely due to their own shortcomings, they dismiss it as “bad luck.” 

One of the reasons for this confusion about the reasons for success and failure is that most people don’t understand the difference between “chance” and “luck.” Chance refers to gambling, to casinos, to blackjack, poker, slot machines and horse racing. In games of chance, the outcome is almost completely out of your control and has nothing to do with success factors in life.

Luck, however, is something completely different from chance. What we call “luck” is really the Law of Probabilities in action. The “lucky” individual has done many things that in combination dramatically increased the likelihood that his or her desired career goals would be achieved. If you examine the history of any great success, and review the many actions that preceded it, you will see that the success factors precede it; you will see a definite pattern emerge. You will see that the successful individual did many little things, sometimes for years, which made the final success possible.

The Basic Principle of Achieving Your Career Goals

Here is a rule: There is a direct relationship between the number of different things you attempt and your likelihood of eventual success in achieving your career goals.

If a new salesperson gets up early each morning, works hard, plans his day, works steadily all day long, talks to as many prospects as possible, follows up persistently, and continually works on himself to improve his selling skills by reading, audio learning and regular attendance at sales courses and seminars, he is going to be far more successful than another salesperson who fails to do these things. His high earnings will not be a matter of luck but rather of design and hard work.

Success factors in life and in your career goals are as follows, if you get a good education, thoughtfully match your career choice with your natural talents and abilities, and continually work to upgrade your skills and the value of your contribution to your company, your eventual success by achieving your career goals will not be the result of luck.

Create Success Factors for Yourself

An additional luck factor is The Law of Averages, which is an extension of the law of probabilities. This law says that, “Although you cannot predict which one of a series of events will be successful, by the Law of Averages, you know that by doing a certain thing a certain number of times, you will achieve your career goals.” 

If you read more books, you are much more likely to read something that can help you in your work or personal life and you are adding to your success factors. If you put in hard work by making more sales calls, you will be much more likely to meet the prospect who has an immediate need for what you are selling and you are adding to your success factors.

Achieve Your Life Goals

If you continually innovate and try new methods to achieve your goals or solve your key problems, you are going to be vastly more successful than someone who plays it safe and tries nothing new or different and you are adding to your success factors. If you wish to achieve success in life and reach your career goals, you must put in hard work and invest in the success factors that will get you there.