Successful people tend to put themselves in a position to succeed.

There you have it! One easy step! I suppose I could just leave it at that and make this my shortest blog post ever. I also suppose that some people are probably wondering how to put themselves in that position. Perhaps I should explain.

Once you’ve put yourself in the position to succeed almost everything about success appears easy. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say success is ever easy but if you’ve made the effort up front, the right effort, then success is going to happen. It’s only a matter of time.

I guess I’ve gone about as far as I can go in this post without writing the word that most people reading this post won’t want to read. I know how this blogging stuff works and I’ve pulled a good number of people into this post by putting succeed AND easy into the same title.

I hope you’ll hang around and continuing reading after you see the word. In your heart of hearts you know it’s coming. You know within yourself that nothing worth having is really easy. So brace yourself, the word is WORK!

You put yourself in a position to succeed by working at it. You lay the groundwork for success with effort, planning, and skill building. Sometimes this work is done in almost complete anonymity, without recognition or immediate reward. It’s hard work, it’s long hours, often filled with despair and thoughts of quitting. At times, the work can seem endless and pointless too.

Yet, successful people continue on. They know that almost every “overnight” success worked long and hard for “that night” to arrive. Successful people smile knowingly at each other when less successful people say they “lucked” into their success. Successful people know that even their “luck” was hard earned. They know that while people seldom get what they want, they almost always get what they’ve earned.

The good news is that while putting yourself in a position to succeed might be a long journey it doesn’t have to be a lonely one. In fact, it shouldn’t be.

Most successful people also have this in common: they were not afraid to ask for help. Mentors help. Successful people, even the most successful, have mentors. They have people in their life who will tell them the truth. Mentors will tell them when, where,and how they have screwed up. Mentors will also point and their strengths and help them to maximize them.

Everybody loves a winner but not everyone hangs around when the winner stops winning, mentors hang around through thick and thin. If you want to put yourself in a position to succeed then find yourself a mentor.

Another way to put yourself in a position to success is to develop a plan. I’ll call it an honest plan. Some people would say “realistic” is a better word than honest but I use honest because too often we lie to ourselves about what we are willing to commit towards our efforts at success. Which leads us to the absolute key to success which also happens to be “that” word.

Work hard! Work harder than you think you can. Work longer than you think you can. Work better than you think you can. (Your mentor will be a huge help with this) Risk making supreme effort and failing anyway. When you stumble on your way to success make sure you know why you stumbled. Make your next stumble smaller. Work harder still!

Never tell yourself you can’t succeed. You will come across plenty of people willing to tell you that. Never add your voice to that off key chorus. No one needs to tell you that the sooner you begin your journey to success the sooner you will succeed.

What exactly are you waiting for? Once you have your plan, set some goals and work your tail off.  Success is easy – just do it!