Below are four simple steps to success from the late Jim Rohn, who was an entrepreneur and motivation speaker. I thought these would be especially helpful to highly sensitive people, as we can always use more inspiration to help us succeed. Also, these thoughtful tips leverage things most of us are already good at, such as information gathering, planning, problem solving, and perserverance.

1. Collect good ideas. Jim Rohn’s mentor taught him to keep a journal when he was 25 years old. If you hear a good idea, capture it, write it down. Ideas that bailed you out of hard times, the ideas that helped you become successful. It’s challenging to be a student of your own life, your own future, your own destiny. Don’t trust your memory. When you listen to something valuable, write it down. When you come across something important, write it down. Take the time to keep notes and keep a journal.

2. Have good plans. Building a life, building anything, is like building a house; you need to have a plan. What if you just started laying bricks and somebody asks, “What are you building?” You put down the brick you’re holding and say, “I have no idea.”

So, here’s the question: When should you start building the house? Answer: As soon as your plan is finished. Plot your course, and from there on, it’s simple time management.

Don’t start until your plan is pretty well finished—at least the major outlines of it. Leave some room to improvise, leave some room for extra strategies, but finish the plan before you start. Don’t start the week until you have planned your daily tasks. The same goes for the days and months ahead.

And, the big one, don’t start until it is finished on paper. It’s not a bad idea to sit down with your family for the personal plans, to sit down in your business for the professional plans, to sit down with your financial advisor to map out money plans. Plan out your calendar, your game plan, for all of life’s moving parts.

The reason why most people face the future with apprehension instead of anticipation is because they don’t have it well designed.

3. Give yourself time. It takes time to build anything. It takes time to make changes. It takes time to learn, grow, change, develop and produce. It takes time to refine philosophy and activity. So give yourself time to learn, time to start some momentum, time to finally achieve.

4. Challenge yourself. Learn to solve problems—business problems, family problems, financial problems, emotional problems. Change if you have to, modify if you must, discard an old philosophy that wasn’t working well for a new one.

The best phrase Jim Rohn’s mentor ever gave him was: “if you will change, everything will change for you.” He took this to heart, and sure enough, the more he improved, the more everything improved for him. Below are some other thoughts that have helped him.

• You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.
• The degree of our success is directly related to the degree in which we excel in and balance certain segments of our life.
• Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines practiced every day.
• Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying basic fundamentals.

I really benefited from these tips. How about you? Did you find them helpful? What are some things that you can do to better your chances of success?  I’m interested in any thoughts or comment that you have.

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