Since Steph started the Flip This Book Club back in November of 2009 (yes, it’s been awhile!) we’ve read and discussed quite a few books in the personal development niche — Million Dollar Habits, The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle, No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs, Think and Grow Rich, The Power of Focus, and HARD Goals.
This month’s book was a monster of a personal development book – The Success Principles: How To Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield.
Holy smokes!
When I picked up the book at the library I was shocked to see that it was over 400 pages long and I began to wonder what I was getting into.
In a nutshell, The Success Principles is like an encyclopedia of nearly any success trait and habit that you’ve ever read or heard about. Canfield covers 64 principles in the book and gives you a plan for how you can take what you’ve learned and put it into action a bit at a time.
There’s no way to cover all 64 principles, so I thought what I’d do is kick off our discussion by sharing four of the principles that resonated with me primarily because I haven’t heard them repeatedly in other books in this niche.
Become An Inverse Paranoid
I think “inverse paranoid” is a great term. What this basically means is that instead of believing that the world is plotting to do you harm, chose to believe that the world is plotting to do you good. Always expect that there are people who are eager to help you and be partners with you in your vision. Expect that even when you’re faced with challenge or significant obstacles, be encouraged that it is an opportunity to stretch, grow, and change.
Acknowledge Your Positive Past
Our brains more readily remember events that are accompanied by strong emotions which unfortunately means that we all tend to underestimate and underappreciate our successes relative to our failures (which tend to lead to much more intense emotion). In order to combat this, we have to recognize that we have WAY more successes than we have failures in life and consciously celebrate our successes. Here are a couple of the exercises that Canfield suggested that we do:
- List 100 Successes - the purpose of this exercise is to really convince yourself that you’re indeed a successful person already
- Create a victory log – this can be a scrapbook or simply a notebook that keeps a running list of anything you do that is a success, whether it be small or large. Then whenever you’re facing a challenge or lacking self-confidence you can go back to that log and remember your victories.
Clean Up Your Messes and Your Incompletes
The Cycle of Completion is like this…
Basically what happens is we get through the finishing stage but leave just one last thing undone. Canfield emphasizes that 20 things completed have more power than 50 things half completed, so we have to delveop a completion consciousness and see things through.
We’re not just talking about business or things related to your goals….we’re talking about the smaller, more annoying things too: unpaid debts or financial commitments, closets overflowing with clothes that no longer fit or were never worn, “junk drawers” full of unusable items, half cleaned bathroom/bedroom/kitchen, filing left undone. You get the point.
Canfield suggests completing one major incomplete every 3 months and even being willing to schedule “completion weekends” to handle a much larger number of items.
Practice Uncommon Appreciation
Have you ever heard of someone feeling overappreciated? I haven’t. Most people feel underappreciated and if we take the time to appreciate people even in the smallest of ways, it makes a huge difference. One of the things Canfield talks about is how you have to learn how people who are special to you want to be appreciated. You have to speak their appreciation language:
- Auditory: People who need to hear it out loud that you appreciate them
- Visual: People who need to receive something they can see – letters, cards, flowers, gifts, etc.
- Kinesthetic: People who need to fit it – a hug, a handshake, a pat on the back
Becoming a pro at appreciation is a secret of success and since you always get more of what you focus on, the more appreciating you do, the more you will receive things to be grateful for.
So What Did You Think?
For those of you who also read The Success Principles, I’m curious to know your thoughts on the book and what – if anything – really stuck out for you.
I thought I’d close with a couple quotes from The Success Principles that have made it to my list of favorite quotes:
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
~Abraham Lincoln
The secret to my success is that I bit off more than I could chew and chewed as fast as I could.
~Paul Hogan (actor from Crocodile Dundee)
P.S.
Next month’s Book Club choice will be Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury. We’ll meet back here same time next month to discuss! :)
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