Increase Your Ambition

Have there been times when you feel you didn't push hard enough? When you felt you perhaps lacked ambition, or could have done with some more motivation to make a real success of something ?

Maybe you have been partially successful but know deep down that you can be even more successful with a bit more motivation..

Avoiding failure is not the same as focusing on success.

Many people retreat into 'safety mode' when it comes to opportunities or challenges, but avoiding failure is not the same as strong focus on success. Just trying to not make mistakes is not the same as having strong motivation to succeed; to do your very best.

Success depends on many things. Aptitude and opportunity alone are not enough. To achieve success you must possess a genuine and intense desire to excel.

Programming Success

The first computerized checkers player could compute all possible outcomes of a given move but it was only an average player. Why? Because it made only 'safe' moves that prevented it from losing. When it was programmed to play to win (not just to avoid losing) the machine started winning. Think about that for a moment.

Being success focused lowers stress

Research has also found that not only is a genuine desire to succeed strongly related to eventual success, it has the added benefit of making the goal less stressful!

The constructive feeling that you are going somewhere, taking things forward and making a difference (or going to make a difference) through your success is fantastically satisfying. This is very different from just feeling that you want to avoid failure.

Success: Richard St. John (from TED)