Everyone wants success.

Some people spend their every waking moment pursuing it, to the detriment of all else.

For others, attaining success seems impossible. They conclude that it is destined for a select few. The rest of us are to remain "content with such things as we have". Having it all is not "in our stars".

However, the above assumptions couldn't be further from the truth. When you strive for success with the wrong assumptions, you will never reach it.

It's like travelling somewhere with the wrong map.

Zig Ziglar says that, "Success is a process, not an event," "a journey, not a destination."

Jim Rohn describes it as "?a condition that must be attracted not pursued."

Do you see the pattern?

"?a process, not an event."
"?a journey, not a destination."
"?a condition that must be attracted not pursued."

You can't hurry success, catch it, or find it by chance. You can't inherit it, gate-crash on it, or take it from some one else.

Success is something you must work hard and long to earn, for yourself. It has a price, sometimes a very high one. And most people aren't really and truly ready to pay that price, to do what success demands.

If success has eluded you so far, perhaps you should try changing your assumptions.

You need to accept that:

(1) You must go through a growing process, which will require time and patience, in order to achieve success. There are no short cuts. Anything else is a temporary illusion.

Success that will remain with you, and bring you joy rather than sorrow, requires a learning process, a time to grow out of old habits and into new ones, a time to learn what works and what doesn't.

And you must pay your dues, in full, in advance!

So don't be in a hurry.

(2) You will need to acquire traits and skills that attract it.

What does success mean to you? Identify, in specific terms, what you regard as success. What traits or skills will you need to achieve this goal? Set clear, written goals.

Devise plans to acquire the needed traits and skills. Learn to do what you need to do, to get where you want to go.

What kinds of people have what you want? What do they do, or not do, that helps them get and keep it?

If you do what they do and avoid what they avoid, there's a good chance that you will end up with what they have.

Find 2 or 3 people who have what you want. Write down the habits that have made them successful and resolve to copy them.

Starting now!

This is called mentoring, learning from others who have arrived where you want to go.

Mentoring can cut out the heart-aches of trial and error. A mentor can keep you focused and on track.

Once you learn to do what it takes, you qualify. And when you qualify, success comes looking for you. You just can't be denied!

What a relief from the days when you ran after it! You fulfill the requirements and attract success to yourself. Opportunities open up to you, and when they do, they find you ready to grasp them.

(3) You must be ready to travel the road to success, oftentimes alone. It's been said that, "At some point in time, the pursuit of your goals becomes secondary and what you have become in the process?..is what is most important. It's not the distance you go?so much as the going itself" (Les Brown).

Parents, remember when you tried to teach your children to crawl? You put their favourite toy in front of them and teased them forward, inch by inch. They were after the toy, which kept them motivated.

But you wanted to strengthen their muscles and teach them a new skill. When they became good at reaching the toy, they had learned to crawl. After that, they could reach any destination they wanted, without you and the toy!

The DESTINATION was less important. They became champion crawlers in the PROCESS!

That's what the journey to success does to you. It causes you to learn habits and skills that make you "full of success", or "successful".

Because you have now mastered the skills and the process, you can keep on reproducing success. You now have what it takes. But if you try to "gate-crash", you don't get to learn the process and the skills.

You cannot reproduce success, in the same or different scenarios. You do not have the tools for acquiring it; you only have a mirage. In other words, you have not become successful.

Should calamity strike, you are back to square one, and you'll quite likely be there a long time.

Anyone can identify what success means to them and go after it. If you don't mind the hard work and waiting, success can be yours. You can become the kind of person who attracts what he or she wants rather than running after it.

Funny enough, when you are ready for success you attract it, with little effort.

When you are not, it runs from you, no matter how hard you chase. In other words, you repel it!

Most likely, this is the reason that success eludes people.

Now that you know how to attract success, why not get started on the journey or process that will take you where you want to go? Any one can succeed, but unfortunately not every one will. It's your decision to choose. Fate does not foist it upon you. You can have anything you want in life, if you're ready to pay the price. But if you consider the process too hard, too slow, or the distance too long and lonely, you have qualified your self as a looser; painful but true.

So don't short-change yourself with short-cuts and counterfeits. You can have the real thing.

Go out there today and start attracting success.

It's literally yours for the taking!

Oma Edoja is a motivational speaker, writer, and infopreneur. She enjoys running inspirational programs for kids and teens, and motivational workshops for adults. Visit her web log: http://omaslounge.blogspot.com (for motivation and inspiration).