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Your Success Depends on Your SCOPE

Those who achieve success are aware of the power of their thoughts, emotions, and instinctive reactions.

They are also aware that their thoughts, emotions, and instincts can either work for them or work against them. But here is the key:

Successful people intentionally and purposefully direct the power of their thoughts, emotions, and instincts to their benefit.

They are deliberately thoughtful. They are emotionally centred. They are response-able.

They create a vision of who they want to be and what they want to achieve. They fire their enthusiasm and determination. They formulate a plan, are disciplined in sticking to that plan, and create habits of success.

But they don’t get to this point at a click of the fingers. As they say, overnight success takes 20 years to develop.

Rather, as Arnold Schwarzenegger advised, they create a vision of who they want to be and what they want to achieve, then grow into that vision as if it were already there.

It takes time. It takes intention. It takes vision. It takes SCOPE.

Broadening your SCOPE is simply broadening your:

1. 1. 1. Self-Assuredness and Self-Belief
      2. Courage and Confidence
      3. Other People Thinking
      4. Planning, Preparation, and Perseverance
      5. Energy, Effort, and Enthusiasm

Your SCOPE contains the 5 essential ingredients you’ll need to live the life you want, the way you want, how you want. You can have your cake and eat it too because broadening your SCOPE is a continual process of personal growth, of being better today than yesterday, and being better tomorrow than today.

Take, for instance, the ingredients of a vanilla sponge cake—flour, eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla essence. On their own, they are edible and taste fine. But when mixed together, the result is greater than the sum of their parts.

Likewise, when you mix the 5 ingredients of your SCOPE and nurture the process of continual growth, the success you create is greater than the sum of your parts. Think, then, of your SCOPE as your ‘success ingredients’:

S: Self-assuredness and Self-belief—successful people do not allow self-consciousness or past failures to get in their way. They know that failures are just stepping stones to their success. They are secure in who they are, what they do, why they do it, and how they do it. They have unshakeable self-belief.

C: Courage and Confidence—successful people develop confidence in their abilities and character, and they build courage; they fight the good fight and take action in spite of any fears that assail them. They know that fears never go away, so they learn to face their fears and in doing so their courage and confidence grows.

O: Other People Thinking—successful people treat every moment as an opportunity to serve others and create value. Their ambition is to find out what other people need and then help them fill that need, irrespective of what outsiders say or general lack of encouragement. They have a win-win attitude, knowing that the hand that sows is the hand that reaps the harvest.

P: Planning, Preparation, and Perseverance—successful people know that the process is more important than the result. Why? Because the process is the only thing that can be done in this moment and the result is still in the future: the process leads to the result. They know that if they take proper care in planning for what they want and preparing for any eventuality, the results will come. They know that to focus too much on the result is to lose sight of the path and thus lose their way.

E: Energy, Effort, and Enthusiasm—successful people know that faith without works is dead, that success is a culmination of vision, planning, and effort. They therefore focus on the things that will maintain their energy and enthusiasm. They exercise. They eat healthily and in moderation. They meditate and pray. They have an attitude of lifelong learning and deep respect for education. They keep their mind focused and active. They avoid toxic relationships and energy-sapping friendships. They look after their physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing.

Before we discuss each of these success ingredients in greater detail, we just need to mention one more important factor that will help gel these ingredients together and help you rise to your full potential—the art of completion.

Begin, Persist, Complete

Have you ever noticed that successful people are really good at finishing things? And that people who don’t achieve the results they want have a lot of half-finished tasks on their hands?

It goes without saying that people who are effective and productive just get things done. They finish the things they say they’ll do. They don’t have a hundred things half-started and half-completed. They have worked on their SCOPE and, because of this, they have developed the successful habit of completion. They show up and do what they say they will.

It’s been said that, for the great majority of time, success is as simple as just turning up. As Woody Allen is quoted as saying:

“Showing up is 80% of life.”

You could go one step further and say:

“Completion is 80% of success.”

Whether you’re an employee or an employer, you’ve probably noticed that the main difference between the colleague who is always considered for promotion and the colleague who is left languishing at the same desk for years is, more often than not, reliability.

Although promotional desirability is multifactorial and not based on any single character trait, the successful colleague can nevertheless be relied upon to get things done. The other colleague, although well-meaning and polite, can’t be relied upon as readily.

No publisher ever published a manuscript only half-written. They may well have bought the rights to publish an uncompleted work, but they certainly won’t ask the printer to run off a few thousand copies while they wait for the author to complete the book. No, the manuscript has to be finished before it can be published.

Most homebuyers won’t be allowed to move into (or wouldn’t want to move in to) their newly built house until the house is complete. There would be no point moving in without a roof, electricity, plumbing, or furnishings. No, the house has to be finished before you can move in.

You wouldn’t pay the taxi driver who stops halfway to your destination and tells you you’ve got to get out and walk the rest of the way. No, like any mode of transport, your fare covers you for the completion of the journey.

Integral to any success is therefore completion. Finishing the job. This goes not only for publishing, house building, and public transport, but for anything you do. This includes anything at work, at home, in your relationships, education, health and wellbeing, even your leisure and adventure activities.

Because if you have developed a habit of not finishing what you set out to do, you’re like a hot air balloon weighted down with sandbags unable to lift off and soar into the sky. All those half-completed and never-finished tasks hold you back. They are mental sandbags that weigh you down and prevent you from being the person you are capable of being. They prevent you from getting from where you are now to where you want to be.

But at least you have one thing that’s working in your favour—if you have a lot of half-completed tasks or endeavours, then this means that you have at least started. There are many reasons for non-achievement, but by far one of the biggest reasons is the failure to begin.

The Chinese parable tells us that the journey of 1000 miles begins with the first step in the right direction. So at least you can get encouragement by knowing that you’ve at least started, which is actually the hardest step.

But if you get started but don’t finish, you need to think about what stops you along your journey. You need to think about why you put down your tools and walk away from the job.

Is it a lack of commitment or motivation? Fear of failure? Self-criticism? Mental tiredness? Too much distraction? Lack of know-how? Overwhelmed?

All of the above?

Imagine failing 10,000 times before you happened upon success. That’s what Thomas Edison did. He tried 10,000 different ways to create the electric light bulb before he discovered the right way to do it. But he didn’t let failures get in the way of getting what he wanted. Rather, he used his failures to propel him towards success. He had unyielding faith in what he wanted to achieve, and in doing so he created one of the largest corporations to have ever existed, General Electric.

As Edison said:

“I didn’t fail 10,000 times. I just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.”

He had an adaptive mindset. He had faith. So did Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketballers of all time, who claims he missed 10,000 shots and that’s what made him great.

So too Colonel Sanders, creator of Kentucky Fried Chicken. His idea for fried chicken and his recipe of secret herbs and spices was rejected 1009 times by the people he approached to back his venture. But he didn’t give up. He too had faith, and in keeping his doubts and despair at bay he created a billion-dollar global business even after he had retired at age 65.

Thomas Edison wasn’t the only inventor trying to perfect the electric light bulb at the time. Nor was Michael Jordan the only basketballer. Neither was Colonel Sanders the only person with a great idea for fried chicken.

But whereas others failed to progress and succeed where they did, Edison, Jordan and Sanders had unyielding faith and self-belief. They kept moving in the direction of their goal and eventually arrived at their destination. They knew the difference between failing and success—the difference between arriving at your chosen destination or not—is to keep moving forward in spite of anything else that may be happening around you. To have a vision of who you want to be and what you want to achieve, and have faith to quell the doubts and despair.

So what then is the X-factor? What do successful people have that others don’t? How do they strengthen their faith where others weaken theirs?

They have broad SCOPE. As such, they fully embrace this mantra of success:

Successful achievement comes to those who keep working toward their destination, to keep moving forward at all times.

This is usually achieved through unyielding faith in what you are trying to achieve and trying to become. Faith, in this sense, is the antidote to doubt and despair. As such, you need to keep taking big doses of faith and self-belief, because doubt and despair will always be a part of living in this world and persistently work to undermine you. Which is the first ingredient of your SCOPE: Self-assuredness and Self-belief.

Doubt and despair won’t ever go away; they are part of life. But you can control them. You have the power to limit their effects on your state of being and annul their negative influence over your efforts to succeed.

Successful people know this. Unsuccessful people probably don’t. Which is why, despite their doubts and despair, successful people know they must keep focussing on their faith and keep putting one foot ahead of the other, one step forward at a time, to keep striving for what they want and believe in.

Just like climbing a mountain: you don’t fly to the top or get there in one giant leap—you get there one step at a time. This takes courage and it takes confidence, which is the second ingredient of your SCOPE: Courage and Confidence.

You also need other people on your climb toward your worthy goal. Nobody ever got to the peak of Mt. Everest on their own. They had a team, and it was their team that got them to the top.

Likewise, you need a team to get to the top of your mountain. You need others as much as they need you. You can’t do it alone, and neither can anyone else.

Success is a team game, which is why those who go the furthest are those who take into consideration everyone else around them. They care about others. They coach others. They help others climb their own mountain, which is the third ingredient of your SCOPE: Other People Thinking.

What’s more, nobody ever just turned up at the base of Mt. Everest and said, “Let’s see if we can make it to the top.” You will need to plan for the trip to Nepal and prepare for the climb. You will probably face many obstacles before you can even begin the climb—physical, financial, bureaucratic, logistic—so you will need to persevere despite the setbacks and keep moving toward your ultimate destination. Which is the fourth ingredient of your SCOPE: Planning, Preparation, and Perseverance.

Finally, you will need to boost your physical, emotional, mental, and even spiritual energy levels when you start to flag and get worn down by the climb. None of us are robots. None of us have unlimited energy resources. The climb up the mountain is wearisome, and we all need to acclimatise and to rest. We all need to recuperate before we pick ourselves up and restart the climb.

So you will need to look after yourself. You will need to look after your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy levels so that you can continue putting in the effort to keep ascending toward your worthy goal, to maintain the enthusiasm when the dark clouds move in and threaten to scuttle your endeavours. Which is the fifth and final ingredient of your SCOPE: Energy, Effort, and Enthusiasm.

Your SCOPE, therefore, is your X-factor. Because when you get all the ingredients of yourself right, everything else will fall into place and you will successfully climb your mountain.

Let’s now discuss each ingredient in more detail and how you can broaden your SCOPE so you can become the person you always hoped you would be.

This article is an excerpt from Dr. Scott Zarcinas’ upcoming book, The SCOPE of YOU!

Why Success in Anything You Do Depends on Your SCOPE (and Your Failure Too) 

Increase Your SCOPE. Take the First Step to Create the Life You Want Today!