Fundamentals of Success: Do You Merely Have Potential?

The knowledge you hold or the knowledge you gain is a fundamental requirement for success. That knowledge only represents the potential you have to succeed. Knowledge alone will never in and of itself make you succeed. It’s how you use it and what you do with it that will make you succeed. There are many people who are more knowledgeable than their more successful counterparts who will never achieve similar success because they don’t know how to turn that potential into success.

A vast wealth of general knowledge is virtually worthless in the currency of success. Success requires specialized knowledge. When the specialized knowledge you have is related to something you’re passionate about, or something that comes naturally to you it is much easier to use that specialized knowledge to achieve success. You may think the specialized knowledge you have is worthless and holds no value or potential for success, but you’d be wrong. We live in a knowledge and information starved culture. We want knowledge and information, and we want it fast, and we want it in a condensed easily digestible format. Or we want to allow those who hold that knowledge to guide us in our decisions. Or we want those who hold specialized knowledge to do things for us, so we don’t have to learn that information to obtain the value from it.

As you think about the specialized knowledge that you already have or that you want to obtain think about the way you want to use that knowledge. Ideally you want to use that knowledge in a way that fulfills the wants of people in your market. Plus you have to find a way to package that knowledge into a marketable benefit that people want. When you do that you have the concept that turns potential into success.

Concepts like knowledge represent potential, but you want results that lead to success. Both remain nothing more than potential until you take action. All success happens as a direct result of the actions you take. Putting together a plan for how to use and package your specialized knowledge prepares you to develop the action steps you will need to take to actually attain that success. Without actions your specialized knowledge and plans are nothing more than dreams. Dreams don’t come true for those unwilling to take actions.

The first action you take is the first step to success. But success is a long and sometimes arduous journey so you must realize that those who achieve success consistently and persistently take the right actions. You know your actions are right when they align with your plans. But there will be twists and turns along the way and without your commitment to yourself to consistently and persistently take actions, it’s all too easy to give up and never achieve success. Because your focus is on the development and implementation of your specialized knowledge realize that it’s in your best interest to actively pursue outside help so you can maintain your forward momentum, and not lose time and energy getting caught up in things that distract your focus from where it should be.