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Point out a man who isn’t aware that success in life takes an intentional effort and I might be able to prove to you a man who has probably blamed the world for his failure. To blame people for your situation is to reject responsibility for where you ought to go and who you want to be. Nobody grabs a degree and says he doesn’t know how it happened. No one wins a marathon without first defining what winning it means to him, where to win it and how. Answering the “How” in this equation is the reason athletes train rigorously before every competition. To every sprint, there are many sprinters but one winner can only emerge. It takes a focused definition of your chances to win. Success however has a different definition and to a large extent means different things to different people. From my exposure, success could be understood from personal purpose. This means, when you understand your God giving assignment, it will be easy to define who you should be and what to have that will translate to success. This is why some people will tell you success is when you have big cars and money; others will tell you it is when you can help the homeless, motherless or aged. Others may see it as living a legacy or building a corporate empire that outlives the owner. Since it is difficult to have a straight definition on success, you can perhaps understand what it is when you understand it’s opposite. Failure is the opposite of success but an interesting school of thought argues the opposite is quitting. They argue that when you keep trying at achieving something after each failure, it may turn out successful. You only become unsuccessful when you quit, that’s when you can never succeed on it again. Success then is when you refuse to quit on achieving something even after recording several failures before you eventually succeeded. The determination not to quit trying is however intentional. Although you failed on it once or more than once, you refuse not to quit in your pursuit. You can’t become successful until you count the cost of success and give yourself to it wholly. Success is not the destination, but a phase in a journey. To get to each phase you obviously must know where you are going, how long it may take you then consider the fuel and energy it will take. To be successful, I recommend you are intentional about it and understand what your purpose is in life. Tie your efforts in life to your purpose. If you are purposed to be a great artist like 2face, working tirelessly as a chartered account is a waste of time. Learn what it will take you to be successful in your purpose. Ask questions, read books and research. Plan your activities, don’t always be where you won’t learn except once in a while when you have to unwind and have fun. Use your time wisely; you and Dangote both have 24 hours. Some habits and friends will go, others must be inculcated and new friends befriended. You have to surround yourself with people of like minds, especially people you can learn from. Believe in your ability to succeed. Humans succeed not gods so you can. The only difference between those that do and don’t is the mind. The first stab at success is when you think it is not possible. Write down your goals. In Pastor Sam Adeyemi’s book, (THE SUPER ACHIVER’S BREAKFAST) he analyzed a research done in America that only 13% of the respondents had goals, others were drifting in life without a goal. Out of the 13%, only 3% had their goals written and over a period of 25 years, it was discovered that the 3% who had their goals written accomplished fifty to one hundred times more than the 10% who though had goals but didn’t write it down. Write down your two, five, ten, fifty years goals. Start now. About the author: Adesola Ogunmuyiwa is a life developer and strategist with great interest in life, career and personal growth. He is a facilitator and an entrepreneur. He works and consults as a customer service personnel at Multichoice Nigeria. Adesola finds fulfillment in the expression of the power of his mind. He is a writer and poet, as well as the winner of the first LacaseraApple story. His pen name is manueladesola and you can tweet at him @manueladesola