In a recent article, I wrote about how to define success in terms of your own online home business. That’s OK from a business viewpoint, but what about your personal feelings on success?

Success – Feelings or Facts?

Many people find it very hard to measure their success in life. For some it’s good feelings and pleasure that makes them feel successful. For others it’s the quantity or quality of personal relationships. For many its a materialistic concept, how many things they possess.

There are feelings of success and there’s “evidence” of success. The guy with the big house and fast car may appear successful as he flashes money around and can have almost anything at a price. But what are his feelings? Pleasure? Security? Great continual happiness? Fear of loss? Isolation? Health issues? Deep inner Loneliness? Or what??

Wealth can hide a variety of problems. Wealth can overcome many problems. But there’s so much in life that wealth is powerless to solve or overcome.

It’s All About People

The human race thrives on social interaction. Anyone who say’s they’re a ‘loner’ is denying one of the main driving forces of life itself -  mixing and reacting with other similarly minded people.

John Donne’s well known poem begins:- “No man is an island, Entire of itself.” We are interdependent, one on another.

So how does this relate to personal or home business success? Again I say -  it’s all about people!

Ordinary people are your customers. Give them a poor deal or bad experience and they’re gone. But give them a great deal, over-delivered, pressed down and running over; give them a wonderful positive experience and they’ll be back, time and time again. Oh yes! That’s obvious! But few businesses seem to have grasped this key fact of human behavior.

Real lasting success depends on making other peoples’ lives better in some tangible degree. You can be the one who changes lives for the better. Yes I mean that seriously!

Real Life

I recently watched a film in which a husband and wife volunteered to go out to a war-torn African country as missionaries. When they arrived in the midst of a bitter civil war, all they found in the capital was 13 people who already believed. The film showed the poor conditions and the serious difficulties surrounding this couple. Most of us would have turned back to the airport and got the first flight out of there. Not them. They had gone for a purpose and were determined to fulfill their calling and purpose.

Over a decade, they worked hard, building up schools, churches, hostels, and clinics. Street children were loved and helped, some becoming university graduates and taking important positions in Africa and the USA. Child soldiers responded to the care and love, becoming model citizens. So the list could go on.

But the main thing that most impressed me was the final scenes of this film. From a straggly poor group of just 13 people the farewell parade marched 4 wide and stretched along the highway to the horizon!

That couple changed the lives of a few people initially, but this spread until their work had positively affected the lives of tens of thousands. That is how true success can be measured. The couple were not materially richer for all their efforts, but  they were millionaires in terms of the positive influence they had brought to bear on so many thousands of personal lives.

How Successful Can You Be?

How many people have you, or will you affect in a positive way to enhance their lives? Bring some positive benefits through your home business activities, laced with a good measure of care and love. This way you will change lives, touch hearts, and become a real success in the social world of humanity, of which we are all an intricate part.

Real lasting success is measured by the positive input you have to others, making their lives more pleasant, more safe, more happy, or improving their lot in life.

Make one person happy and they will tell another – its catching – it can be viral. You can be the starting point in all this.

A simple ebook has the power to change someone’s life if it contains good workable information that the reader can put into practice to improve their own life.

Real success? It’s all about people.

Lance Hallingford

Why don’t more People Succeed in their Online Home Business?

To become very successful  in any business, especially online, can take years of trial and error. It’s exceptional for a newbie to become highly successful fast. The big question is:- how many people really do succeed with an online home business?

Several well respected experts estimate that only around 1% to 2% of people starting an online work from home business succeed. Would you agree with this?

Commitment Long Term

Most newbies, and many further down the home business route, cannot expect to discover instant riches, nor even modest income in the early stages. It takes a lot of trial and error in the beginning, as well as a lot of time and research. There has to be the initial learning experience that provides a foundation for future success. Commitment along with proper mentoring will bring success – but it’s not a quick easy journey.

The word “JOURNEY” is quite descriptive of the process in starting an online home business that culminates in success. There has to be a beginning – a point of departure. There has to be an overall vision – your ultimate destination. And there’s the journey – short, medium, or long, in between.

Imagine you’re driving along the various highways towards your destination. Sometimes, it’s smooth, easy and relatively quick. Reason:- you know exactly where you’re heading, you know exactly which routes to take, you travel at the time of least congestion and delays, and you have a totally reliable vehicle. — Great! –

This is a picture of quick home business success, but notice all the positive things in favor of a fast easy journey to reach your target or destination.

Reality more often is that you’ve never been to the intended destination or even seen it for real. You have a route map and you need to choose the best highways. But you don’t know what congestion you’ll find along the way and which routes will get you there in the fastest easiest way. To get to the end, you may have to face delays, traffic queues, diversions; you might get lost a few times, find your map is outdated or your sat-nav is not reliable. All kinds of problems.

If you’re going to reach your destination, you will have to keep going with determination to get to the end and succeed in reaching your destination. That requires both commitment to keep going and determination to overcome the delays and problems along the way. Usually timescales for the journey have to be adjusted and even the route varied to get around obstructions. Sometimes people turn back and give up; others turn aside and settle for a different destination;  but to get to your chosen destination you have to be flexible and stick with your ultimate vision of your chosen destination.

Avoiding the Inevitable Distractions

The vast majority of those who fail either are distracted or they blame their failure on others, or bad advice, rather than evaluating whether they have actually put in the proper effort needed to succeed.

Over the years, I’ve come to learn that success is the mastering of the small steps we have to identify and complete on the way to reaching our goal. The more “small steps” you collect, the faster you reach your destination. It’s so easy to get distracted by things aside from our main route. What happens if you’re driving and then look to one side? You veer off course and risk a big crash. That’s what happens to so many home business start-ups. They look here and there, away from their aims and goals. Result? Of course: Failure – temporary delay or permanent abandonment of their business aspiration.

So if you’re not where you want to be, consider whether you’re complaining about the road, being distracted by the latest plug-n-play short cut, dazzled by the great new get rich quick one click solution.

Success comes to those who work hard and are persistent. Society, especially online, seeks instant gratification, but that’s not possible in starting or growing an online home business. Success almost never comes quickly for the newbie or inexperienced business person.

People are used to getting everything online fast and don’t think that they’ll need to work to have the money roll in. Having a business is hard work and you need to do the work to make it successful. You’re going to get back what you put in!

Make commitment a priority, expect disappointments and hindrances – these are great learning opportunities. Have great patience and resolve to succeed eventually. Most important – don’t give up!!

Lance Hallingford