
I think we can all agree that if asked, everyone wants to be successful. Success might look differently to different people but at the end of the day we all want to succeed. Whether it’s on our job, in school, in a relationship, in sports, in business, in physical fitness, in ministry, in politics, in our finances, in court, you name it.
Ultimately, if you ask anyone if they want to be successful, without even stopping to think about it the answer is a resounding, “Yes”! I have lived a good part of my life offering people opportunities to be successful. It might have been the opportunity to make money, read a book (yes, that’s an opportunity), connect them to the “right” person, or housing them while they get on their feet. I have gone so far as to fly people to my city at my own expense, which I’ll never do again, with the guaranteed opportunity for success if they worked the plan I laid before them. Some, not willing to take advantage of the opportunity, returned to their home and back to their same situation but never becoming successful. If you asked them today, they would still say they want to be successful but yet when presented with the opportunity for success they rejected it.
Success is defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose; the correct or desired result of an attempt. In other words, you first have to give effort to or make an attempt at something in order to attain success. Yes, that dreaded four letter word that makes us cringe...work! Success takes action and when you are given an opportunity to be successful in whatever area you say you want success and then reject it, what you in essence are saying is, “What I really want is a genie in a bottle to grant my wish to be successful”.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our genie could wave his magic wand and all the fat melts away to reveal a perfectly sculpted body? What if he summoned millions of dollars to appear in our bank account? Or maybe he can wave his wand and voila’, our spouse is the “perfect” mate? Sounds wonderful, right? Only problem is success is earned, it’s not magic. And by the way, genies are not a fairy tale. That’s right! Genies are real people who have taken advantage of opportunities to make their wish come true. Your genie is you. So make your wish and get to work!