My New Year Resolutions for Success in 2012 - Audacity, Resilience, Traction

So here it is, 2012.  I hope this year doesn’t go as quickly as 2011 did - it went by in the flash of an eye.  It was a good year in comparison to the ones preceding it, and it was the beginning of a trend.  I had hit the bottom of the pit the year before, and 2011 was the first part of coming out of it.  I swear with all my heart and soul and by all the gods that I will never let myself go back there.

I feel optimistic and hopeful for this year and determined to hold onto and build on that hope, that faith, with as much audacity as I can muster.  I think that’s going to be one of my buzz-words for the year – audacity.  The other one is resilience.  They both create another word that I’m going to plaster all over the walls of my room and my mind - traction.

Everybody’s always debating what the secret of success is.  I don’t know what it is for anyone else but I do know what it’s going to be for me this year – getting stronger and stronger in my belief that my book is just fine, Jack, the way it is.  That’s where traction comes from, not letting the doubt in when I get rejected, no matter by whom.  For one thing doubt is a spoiler, it will ruin a perfectly good day, cast a blight on a perfectly good life, and annihilate prospect.

It’s not even the truth, so how ridiculous is that, to listen to it?  But also, it will stop me from acting, putting myself and my book in front of as many people in as many ways as I can think of, all over the world.  Frankly I don’t want to be stopped any more by a bully living in my head, or by somebody else’s opinion.  Especially since so many people who have achieved great things were told by self-styled authorities that they’d never get anywhere.

Our local TV is showing reruns of Piers Morgan at the moment, and the other night I watched an interview of Kelsey Grammar.  He talked about how getting onto the world stage needs massive resilience, inner strength and the willingness to take the risk of putting yourself, at your most vulnerable, right in the firing line.

It’s not hard to think that celebrities are flaky, because it looks as if their lives are so easy, and their private affairs are often such a mess.  But we don’t see their resilience, how much they have to draw from within themselves every time they get rejected. How often it happens.  We don’t see what a huge price they pay, or how they just don’t give up.  I’m very clear this year that wanting success means I have to be willing to pay that price.  And I am.

Success comes to some because of the environment they were born into, or their incredible talent, or they got the “lucky break”.  But for many they just ploughed on through a lot of rejection, adversity and hardship, building traction within themselves.  I'm sure we all long to have had the nurturing environment in childhood and the big break, but if it hasn’t happened success is still possible.

Audacity.  Resilience.  Traction.