In the past few weeks I’ve given you the strategies and tools on how to work out your purpose, target your big shiny goal and how to plan the tasks to accomplish your dream future.
Why you need softer skills to succeed
There are other ‘softer’ skills that you need to have and/or develop in the background if you want to stay on track with your main strategy and these I am going to deal with in the coming series of articles. I call this the Success Compass.
Just like a compass there are 4 key skills which, when joined and used together, make you almost unstoppable in anything you choose to accomplish in life no matter what the situation or circumstances:
- Motivation
- Resilience
- Patience
- Positivity
These softer skills combined are key to successfully navigating life’s tricky waters. Sometimes you may need one of these at a time or, as most often occurs, there will be an amount of overlapping to make you truly remarkable and let you stand out from the crowd.
Sounds simple? Well it is, and it isn’t.
Softer skills need developing
We may think we have these softer skills within us already (and many of us do) but you never truly know to what depth they run until you are really tested. Take it from one who has been tested to the extreme, you are not going to appreciate how much of each you have within you or how crucial it is that you can bring them to the fore and use them in the most difficult of circumstances, until the situation where you must call on them arises.
I discovered that though blessed with all four points in my compass there was work I had to do on each to hone them to the level where they really helped me move forward, upwards and onwards.
Just like an unused muscle that is suddenly called upon, the stamina you have in each of these softer skills can be pretty feeble. However, if appreciated now, while they are not needed to any great level, and exercised regular you can develop each skill into strong, resistant, life enhancing and, even life-saving, skills.
I am going to take each of the Compass skills in the following articles and suggest some simple, non-time-consuming ways in which you can develop them, so they stand you in good stead in the future, whenever you decide you need to apply them.