How to Be A Super Achiever: 10 Strategies for Unleashing your Success

The day that I became a firewalker (walking on red-hot coals about 2000∞F), I had first to believe that I could do it. While I was getting ready to walk, I had to look straight ahead beyond the coals.  I saw myself reaching the other side of the hot coals and I saw myself celebrating what I had accomplished. I just had to believe that I could achieve my firewalk and that I was going to succeed. No matter what could happen, no matter what my brain kept telling me, I was committed to walking about on 20 feet of fire and reaching the other side.

To be a super achiever, you need practically the same strategy. Once you set a goal, you must live that experience in your head and see yourself successfully reaching that goal. Then you come back to the present time, choose to take action and without looking down make your first step, than your second and so on.

These 10 strategies will guide you, step-by-step, to how you can accomplish and reach any outcome you desire without any hesitation.

1. No Fear, Just Goals

“Others can stop you temporarily,
but you’re the only one who can do it permanently.”
- John C. Maxwell

What stops people from taking action toward their goals and their dreams? For most of us it is fear. Fear of being rejected, fear of failure.

What if you could accomplish anything in your life without failing? Would you then go after your dreams with a different approach, or maybe a stronger attitude?

Of course you would. Once you eliminate the word fear out of your vocabulary, nothing should stop you from reaching your goals. Take babies for example: How many chances would you give a normal and healthy baby to learn how to walk before you give up on him? Is there any number of times? I doubt it very much. This is why all babies learn how to walk. Babies go after their goals (walking, etc.) with no fear. They keep trying over and over. They may first learn to crawl and then learn to stand up. Finally, they learn to walk and even to run all over the place. Babies have no fear and this is why they accomplish most of their goals no matter how many times they fail.

Most of us live a lifetime controlled by certain fear that stand between our dreams and us. Learn how to control these fears and while you’re crawling, focus on how soon you’ll be running.

2. Back to the Future

“Create mental pictures of your goals,
then work to make those pictures become realities.”

What you need to do before creating your goals is to go back in time and remember a day when you were a kid. Imagine yourself one month before Christmas, sitting at the kitchen table, writing your Christmas list before you sent it to Santa. Do you remember that list. It was a very long letter and an outstanding list. You probably wrote some crazy stuff in that letter. I bet you asked for some incredible and almost impossible things. I bet you believed that you would be getting most of these things no matter what anyone kept telling you. Why don’t you close your eyes for a minute and see what you saw. The whole family and yourself sitting surrounded by all those gifts. Hear what you heard at that moment, all the exited noises coming from unwrapping those presents. Feel what you felt, the joy and happiness while playing with all those new toys. Great, now go ahead to the future where you achieved most of your goals, and see what it looks like, hear what sounds you will hear and feel what you will feel at that moment. Can you describe how it feels? 

Well this is how you must feel every time you create a new goal in your life. First you create a mental picture of these future goals, then unleash these feelings and finally work to make these pictures realities.

3. Live with Passion

“There is no passion to be found in playing small, in settling for a life that is less than what you are capable of living.”
- Nelson Mandela

To become a super achiever, having passion for your goals is a must. Passion is the fuel and the energy that will empower you to reach your pinnacle.

In the early '70s, as a teenager, I had a passion for photography. I wanted to become a professional photographer. On my 16th birthday I got my first camera, a tripod and a couple of photography books. At that moment I knew what I had to do to be ready for one of my biggest adventures. My passion for photography gave me the energy to get up very early in the morning and drive around to catch beautiful sunrises. A few years down the road, I took a job as a studio photographer in a mall during the Christmas holidays. The pay was very low, but the experience was outstanding, so I learned studio, kids, couple and family portraits. I kept training myself. I learned glamour and wedding photography. I studied the work of some famous photographers and watching other photographers in action. In less than a year, I became one of the best photographers in that studio and got promoted to manager. I then decided to start my side business as a professional photographer. Twenty years later my passion for photography still keeps on growing everyday.

4. Make a Decision

"In real estate it’s: location, location, location.
In real life it’s: decision, decision, decision."

Decision: the act of making up one’s mind or the conclusion reached.

When asked, most of people can’t make up their mind as to what they want, but very often complain about not getting what they want. It’s all about deciding what you want first. Then to become an achiever, you need to find out why you want these things. Finally how are you going to get the things you want?

Although decision-making is reaching a certain conclusion, you’re still the one in charge of making these decisions. The choice must be yours if you are willing to take charge of your own destiny.

5. Take Action

“It’s time to start living the life we’ve imagined.”
- Henry James

Have you ever heard the story of the crow and the pitcher? Well one hot morning, a crow was very thirsty and looking for water. He found a tall pitcher with some water at the bottom, but his beak was too short to reach the water. The crow decided that to drink some of this water, he needed to take some action. So with his beak, he picked up a small stone and dropped it inside the pitcher. He kept doing this until the water reached the brim. Finally, the crow dipped his beak in the cool water, while realizing the importance of taking action. Knowing what to do and doing what he knows is what helped the crow to satisfy his thirst. So my question to you is very simple: Are you thirsty enough to start taking some action?

6. Scooby Ears

“Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.”
- Henry Ford

After six months in the U.S., I applied for a technical position in a well-known dental company. I didn’t get the job because of a lack of experience and knowledge of different products. Shocked by the rejection, but commit to excellence, I knew what had to be done. The journey would be long but worth the effort. I studied the American dental market. I worked harder to get better experience. Finally, I got trained with different products available on the market. Ten years later, I applied once more at the same company. This time I was ready and thirsty for the job. I successfully got the position and managed to climb to the top of my department in less than a year.

When taking action, things don’t always work out in your favor. This is when you put on your sensory antenna and notice if you are getting closer or further away from your goals. In NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) we call it sensory acuity.

7. Take More Action

“I always know what’s happening on the court.
I see a situation occur, and I respond.”
- Larry Bird

Once you realize how far away you are getting from your goal, you must change your approach. Try something else, be flexible and take more action. To be successful, you have to watch where your actions are leading you. If you feel that your actions are not producing the desire outcome, just change your strategy and keep taking more actions until you get closer to you goals. Do you remember the example with babies when they are learning to walk? They keep trying no matter how many times they fall down. They keep taking more and more action. They are committing to walk sooner or later. Their strategy is simple; don’t give up no matter how many times you drop.

8. Don’t Quit

“The price of success is much lower than the price of failure.”
- John Wooden

Let me give an example. My son Alex was trying to learn how to ride his bicycle without his training wheels. One of his problems happened to be that I was his teacher. Although we tried different approaches, he wasn’t getting it and I was getting a backache from bending down to hold the wheel. I could see that he was trying very hard to do it right and most of all to please me. I wasn’t very supportive of his accomplishment and I never gave him any positive reinforcement. We were both ready to quit and to call it off for a while. Luckily for Alex, we tried it one last time. We took one more action. This time I tried a more encouraging approach. First, I started giving him more positive feedback, then we created a better rapport between us and, finally, our open communication took us to a new a higher level of accomplishment. In less than an hour, Alex was riding like a champ. He was as happy as you can be. He felt great and we were both on top of the world.

9. Know When You Reach Your Goal

“It’s never finished. There’s always the next objective, the next goal.”
- Moya Lear

Very often people set certain goals in their lives and forget to notice when they’ve reached them. Instead they keep on changing them and adjusting them to their new needs.

 By doing so you are just robbing yourself of the pleasures of accomplishment. It is all right to create new goals once you’ve reached the goals you have already set. Why don’t you stop, take a break, enjoy the moment, refuel and start from scratch on a new and separate journey.

When Alex could ride the length of the parking lot, he knew that he reached his first goal. At that moment that’s all he cared about. The next day, with new energy, he started going after longer rides. It was so magical the way he kept on going to reach newer goals noticing the accomplishments, taking breaks, refueling, setting newer goals and kept on going.

10. Celebrate

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”
- Walt Disney

Last year, during our family vacation at Disney World, my daughter Hanna and I were sitting side-by-side watching the fire works right above the Magic Kingdom. She was gazing at the fireworks with disbelieve and astonishment and her heart was beating to the sound of the music in the background.

At that moment, my wife and I noticed her expression and starred at our happy angel for a while. Later on we left the park to celebrate one of our greatest goals that we could ever have accomplished. That evening, we all believed that dreams do come true.

Do you remember in the beginning of this chapter, my firewalking experience? Once I reached the other side of the hot coals, I did celebrate my accomplishment. It is almost like anchoring this great and amazing experience into my nervous system. Now, every time I feel down or unmotivated, I just close my eyes, think about the firewalking experience for a moment and bring back that celebration feeling.

A super achiever is no different, once he reaches his goal; he needs to stop, takes a moment and celebrates.