Meet Our Millionaire Mentor, author, speaker and coach – Stuart Ross here!
I’m sure you’ll agree that success isn’t measured in solely monetary terms. A true measure of how successful someone is can most often be found in how happy they are in life.
With that said, here are 20 ways to succeed at life in general. 
1. Let go of the past. Just as a balloon filled with helium can’t rise into the sky with a weight attached to it, neither can you move forward in life without letting go of what holds you back. The past is the past; leave it there, and look towards the future. For example, if you didn’t achieve your goals in 2013, now is the time to let that go and start looking forward. 2014 is a new year and you have the opportunity to use what you learned in 2013 to make 2014 your best year yet!
2. Know what resources you have. Keeping a close eye on your financial and emotional resources will allow you to go far. If you’re more patient than most, take on a tedious task that might frustrate others. Use your abilities to your advantage.
3. Always be grateful for what you have. Your abilities, your situation in life, and everything else at your disposable is something to be grateful for. By never losing sight of that, you guarantee that you’ll never take it for granted.
4. Take responsibility for your actions. If you do something well, lay claim to it. But on the same note, if you mess up, claim responsibility for that. Not only will it make you look better in the eyes of those around you, but you can rest easy knowing that you have integrity.
5. Dream big or go home. Everyone has dreams, but few have the courage to fight for them. Dream big and work towards them; the worst that can happen is that you don’t quite make it. The only thing worse than not making it is never trying to begin with.
6. Identify what beliefs are holding you back and change them. Do you believe you can’t do something because you aren’t skilled enough? Then tell yourself each day that you are skilled enough. Beliefs hold man back more than anything else, and by removing these self imposed limits on our abilities, you can succeed at anything.
7. Make a commitment to change. Be flexible. Change happens everywhere. By flowing with the change, and having the awareness that you have to change with the situation, you won’t be caught off guard.
8. Set goals and pursue them. Setting goals, both long and short term, will provide you with a road map to follow towards success. When it feels as though you aren’t making any progress and are floundering in place, you can always look at your goal sheet and see how far you’ve come.
9. Cultivate your vision. Have a clear picture in your head of what you want your future to look like. If the end of the path you’re currently on doesn’t look like that, find a new path. Make every action you take a step towards that vision.
10. You must feel free to want. Some people, despite having set a goal, feel guilty for wanting to reach it. Whether for economic or spiritual reasons, these individuals inhibit themselves from ever reaching their goals because of the guilt. You must be able to want to reach your goals – without guilt, without regret.
11. Stay motivated. Motivation must come from deep within you. All of the inspirational quotes, life coaches, and easy answers in the world won’t help if you can’t find it within yourself to keep pushing forward, even when you don’t feel like it.
12. Use a methodical approach. When you know what your goals are, do the research necessary to know what must be done next. Set steps in the pattern to follow until you reach your goals. These steps will prevent you from getting overwhelmed and make it easy for you to know what step to take next.
13. Focus on the ‘now.’ While it’s important to keep end goals in mind, you cannot sacrifice the present for the sake of the future. Keep the ‘now’ in mind, and exceed at all tasks you undertake. This will enable you to be well prepared when the future does arrive. Just as you must let the past go, you have to worry about the future only when it arrives.
14. Take purposeful action. Don’t let life push you along towards straying from your path. Use the steps you’ve created, and be purposeful in following them. Do whatever you want, but be sure what you do is what YOU want, not something you’re doing as a result of someone else. Be proactive, not reactive, towards reaching your goals.
15. Use your time wisely. There are 86,400 seconds in each day. You spend a third of that time sleeping. Don’t waste the other 2/3s on meaningless activities that don’t help you reach your goal. Using your time wisely will allow you to accomplish much more in a short time than you might have ever thought possible.
16. Don’t sweat it when you fail. Along the way, you will fail at some things. It’s not a matter of if, but when. The key is to not sweat the failures; learn from them. Figure out what went wrong, and how to avoid it in the future, and keep moving forward. Use the mistakes to improve yourself, not to beat yourself up.
17. Cultivate self discipline. To accomplish any goal, you must have the discipline to stay on track and work towards it. If you lack that discipline, it can be learned. Each time you feel yourself wandering from your task, remember what it is you want to accomplish, and ask if you’re working towards that. Soon, your focus and discipline will be strong enough that it is like second nature.
18. Make a decision to always improve. Each day you should become better than you were the day before. By consciously deciding to always improve yourself, you can make sure that you make the best use of your time and effort. Conscious, deliberate actions will improve your ability in that task more than doing it out of habit, whether that task is writing, painting, computer coding, or anything else.
19. Have faith in your goals and yourself. Believe in yourself and in your goals. Work towards them tirelessly, and don’t allow yourself to be swayed. If you do this, you will almost certainly achieve them. The reason most people fail to succeed in life is because they don’t have faith that they can.