How do you measure success? Do you measure it by standards set by your parents, peers, teachers, coworkers, bosses or your spouse? Do you let others tell you that what you’re doing will count for nothing in the long run, even though they have no idea what your long term vision or intent is?

Do you measure it to your own standards? If it’s a business goal, do you compare to this time last year? If it’s a personal goal, have you improved over the last self-assessment that you did on this subject? If it’s a health goal, are you moving toward your target? Only you can truly answer these questions. Let the evidence of your efforts be your guide. You’ll know if and how much harder you’ll need to work in order to attain that number that you’ve selected, whether it be reps, pounds, cholesterol levels or a target weight.

Does the fact that we’re all trying to survive, let alone get ahead in the midst of the greatest economic recession in human history stand in the way of your plans for the future or are you unflinchingly pursuing them without heed to criticism or prejudgment?

Don’t be dissuaded by naysayers ad ne’er -do-wells that have given up on their own dreams and given out on their own ability to see past their failures. Use these as examples of what to avoid on your way to your own personal achievements.

Would we have light, let alone these computers we’re using to read and write this article if it weren’t for Edison’s countless failures on his way to successfully creating that first incandescent bulb? Would we have the theory of relativity if Einstein had listened to his teachers early in his education that told him that he had a problem with mathematics?

The list goes on and on of some of the greatest minds in human history only having succeeded after what most would consider catastrophic or debilitating circumstantial failures.

Success is a measure of human spirit. It can not be quantified or measured by electronic or other equipment. It can, in fact only be speculated upon by the criticism of others. True success is only measured in the eye, heart and soul of the individual who set out to and attained that goal.

Be that go-getter. Be the Goal-Getter! Take your hopes, dreams and aspirations and work them down into manageable tasks that, when put together, will surpass your hopes. Done properly, the end can in fact be much more than the sum of its parts. The “You Factor” is what makes the difference. It is why YOU are the only one that can truly measure the level of your success.

If you’ve read any of the spiritual best sellers in print today, you’ll notice a familiar thread amongst them. They all ask us to look inside for our answers. This flies in the face of most organized religion which have exclusionary creeds and tenets which chastise us more than edify us.

Through introspection, so these books imply, we can find our purpose on the planet and begin to move toward creating a world where everyone knows and has their part and all take responsibility for it and themselves. A place where there is actually peace on earth and good will toward men. Is it a fantasy or is this not only possible but attainable in your lifetime?

The majority of people existing on this earth today, never begin to understand why they are here and what they should be doing with their lives. They continue to trade their time for money, and never receive anywhere near what their true worth is.

The answer lies in being able to determine or divine your true purpose in life. The key to finding your true purpose lies in your passions. By looking at the things in your life that you’re most passionate about, you can gain a good insight into what you life’s work might be.

Being successful is virtually guaranteed if you love what you’re doing. Long hours and grueling conditions seem to hold no significance to you if you’re completely focused on your goal and achieving it in the shortest time possible.

Look inside yourself  for your answers. You have all of the tools that you’ll ever need to be successful right within you. Take the time to get to know yourself better than you ever have and you’ll gain even more insight as to your life’s calling. Whether you love kids, teaching, fishing or collecting stamps; you can both earn money and enjoy what you’re doing at the same time.

People like Jack Canfield, Dr. Joe Rubino, Tony Robbins and many others can tell you the same thing. It’s as simple as making a choice and following through with it. When you condition yourself properly, you make winning and success a habit.

Once you realize the awesome rewards that come with successfully completing projects on time and under budget you’ll see that there’s no other way to do things and you fall into a winning, successful and profitable habit. These types of habits positively reinforce themselves thereby perpetuating the reward and gain from the effort put forth.

Taking the time to really know yourself, to really trust what your attitudes, reactions and expectations will be in any given situation is one of the keys to being successful in anything that you do.

More and more business people are doing their own form of “restructuring”, except that it has nothing to do with the business that they’re in. Writers like Ekhart Tolle, Don Miguel Ruiz, Alberto Villoldo, Dan Millman and many others are influencing and changing the way that many business people view themselves and their lives.  Increased self knowledge will only help you make better business decisions.

Before you set out on the rising path toward success, you have to be sure that you know who you’re working with.

You are both your own best advocate and your own worst enemy. It all depends on your attitude and intent. If you allow yourself to fall into the corporate mentality that profit is the ONLY thing that you’re in business for you may be missing out on your true purpose and calling.

Just because you’ve always been an underachiever, doesn’t mean that you can’t turn those habits around and begin to trend toward choices that will provide more and better opportunities for you and your business. Begin right now to make the choices that will positively effect your tomorrows.

As they say, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow’s a mystery…today is a gift, that’s why they call it the “PRESENT”. Don’t miss the opportunities that arise each and every day. Don’t get caught up in the rhythms of the masses.

By the same token, just because you’ve always seemed to be in the right place at the right time for opportunities to “fall into your lap” doesn’t meant that the same will continually hold true. No matter what label you put on it, whether you call it karma, kismet, fate, destiny or luck, the fact is that what IS won’t necessarily always BE.

How secure can any of us feel in these trying times?

Millions of Americans are out of work right now. If you consider the scale and the value of the dollar, the chasm of this recession makes the great depression look like a golfer’s divot.

People want answers. They also want direction. Many have been in the same career positions for decades, only to find themselves now faced with a forced early retirement and a pension that won’t support them; if they were lucky enough to not lose that too.

Those same people are now having to look inside for the answers that they relied on their employers to provide. Simple questions that get taken for granted like; how will I pay for my groceries next week or how will I pay the mortgage?

What they’re discovering after looking within is that they have the strength and motivation to do whatever it takes to provide for themselves and their families.

As they re-evaluate and begin to re-structure their own lives many realize that there are things that they LOVE to do, but their corporate or factory job prevented them from ever enjoying them. That tinkering in the garage workshop or knitting afghans now becomes not only something that you love to do, but you begin to see it as a viable option for your future.

Therein lies one of the keys to success.

Make a living doing what you love and you’ll never WORK another day in your life.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Don Miguel Ruiz, Bestselling Author of “The Four Agreements”, In Toronto April 9 to 11, 2010 (newswire.ca)
• 9 Secrets Toward Stress Free Living (capecodholistic.com)

There’s a dark cloud looming on the horizon. It’s gathering in energy and getting bigger as we speak. It’s as destructive as a tornado and just as indiscriminate.

What I’m talking about is the next G-Slap; be ready for big changes from the monster of search engines around the first of the year. They’ve already been tinkering with the algorithms and are definitely trending away from current PR and content rich based results.

Early next year, though you may have noticed it already if you’re sharp enough, the big G will display rankings based on the intent of the searcher.

This means that your content will be less relevant if you’re not:

1. Geo-targeting (G is doing this already based on users IP whether the user is signed in or not)
2. Relevance – generically speaking, if a room full of searchers were to type java into the query box, some would be looking for software, some would be looking for drinks and yet others would be looking for travel sites.
3. Using video on your site
4. Preparing for the changes NOW.

(Video Courtesy of http://videos.webpronews.com/2008/11/17/pubcon-bruce-clay-ranking-is-dead/)

Getting prepared for the next ominous  G-slap is an adventure in speculation. One line of thought says that if you concentrate your marketing on single keywords you may want to offer content for the other possible synonymous uses of your keywords.

It means a shift in methodology, but for the studious and adaptive marketers out there that can make the necessary changes and move ahead of the trend it can be the difference between having top ranking for you kw’s today and being off the chart completely overnight or keeping your top listings by adapting and overcoming.

The proliferation of “scraper sites” and “spam sites” that steal the top rankings by virtually scraping the content from its competitors and republishing it, most times without proper credit to the original authors, has prompted the change. They have managed to skew the results based on current trends at G and the other major search engines.

When you think about it, this change will mean even more success for the marketer that is savvy enough to ride the wave. It’s kind of like the analogy for marketing to baby-boomers; the bowling ball in the garden hose.

Baby-boomers make up the vast majority of the demographic of buyers that Internet Marketers target. When those boomers pick up on a new trend it’s like a bowling ball in a garden hose, thus the .com millionaire boom of the 90′s. Get in at the upswing of the trend and you’ll ride a very profitable and somewhat predictable course.

Transfer that thought over to this looming change and you can see how the change SHOULD actually bring even MORE targeted traffic, intent on BUYING your products.

As the video describes; in a room full of people searching the term java some would want software, some would want information on coffee and yet others would want travel information. Wouldn’t you rather have the searcher that was looking for your new java software product be the first at your site?

This change will ultimately alter the way that Internet Marketers promote products. The question is whether or not we should do anything at all. This new way of presenting search results only make a difference by weeding out those less targeted results for a particular searcher based on their search and usage histories. I think it will be a win/win/win situation.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Optimize your WebSite for Local Search to Increase Business (web-workathome.com)
• Get Ahead Of the Google Game With Top SEO Software (marketingonlineinternet.com)
• Proven Internet Marketing Strategies (lazerpromotions.com)
• Photos – Share, Geotag & Map Them on Your Site (realestate.about.com)
• The Death of the Professional, Brought to You by Google (searchengineguide.com)