How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be: The 25 Principles of Success by Jack Canfield
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book presents the following 25 principles

1. Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life
   • You have to give up all your excuses.
   • Event + Response = Outcome, blaming an event for a lack of outcome is a pointless waste of energy so the only things you can do is change your response.
   • You have to give up blaming and complaining.
   • People only complain about things they can do something about (e.g. never gravity) – situations you complain about are, by their very nature, situations you can change. People don’t because it involves risk – of being wrong, failure, confrontation which could leave you unemployed, alone, ridiculed or judged by others.
2. Be Clear Why You’re Here
   • What is the why behind everything you do?
3. Decide What You Want
   • Decide what you want.
   • Having a big vision is as easy as a small one – so think big.
   • Don’t copy anyone else’s vision and don’t let them change yours.
4. Believe It’s Possible
   • It will only happen if you believe it is possible
5. Believe in Yourself
   • You have to give up “I can’t”
6. Become an Inverse Paranoid
   • Believe that the world is out there to help you. See the opportunities.
7. Unleash the Power of Goal-Setting
   • Be very clear on the goal and review it regularly
8. Chunk It Down
   • Break the goal down into tasks and tackle the toughest first.
9. Success Leaves Clues
   • Learn from people who have already succeeded in what you want to do
10. Release the Brakes
    • Unlearn the things which have stopped you doing things.
11. See What You Want, Get What You See
    • Visualise the future, make it vivid.
12. Act As If
    • Act as if you are already where you want to be e.g. the 5 year party where you celebrate your future successes as if they had already happened.
13. Take Action
    • Talk is cheap, only with action can you succeed.
14. Experience Your Fear and Take Action Anyway
    • Everything which is worth doing is a risk, you have to acknowledge that and do it
15. Ask! Ask! Ask!
    • Many people reject themselves, rather than are rejected by others. You need to ask and see what happens rather than not asking because you think you already know the answer.
16. Reject Rejection
    • There will be rejection, but that is fine just say “next”
17. Use Feedback to Your Advantage
    • With feedback people tend to cave in and quit, get mad at the source of the feedback or ignore the feedback.
    • Ask “On a scale of 0-10 how would you rate our relationship/product/service?” “What would we need to do to make it a 10?”
18. Commit to Constant and Never-Ending Improvement
    • The margin for greatness is small, so continuous small improvements will make a big impact
19. Practice Persistence
    • To do something which is tough needs persistence – you need to keep going that one more lamp post
20. Practice the Rule of Five
    • If you do 5 things every day you will eventually reach your goal – as if you keep swinging eventually the biggest tree will fall
21. Surround Yourself with Successful People
    • Some say you are the average of the people you have around you – so surround yourself with the best people and you’ll get better yourself.
22. Clean Up Your Messes and Your Incompletes
    • Complete things, a few things complete are better than lots of things partially done
23. Develop Four New Success Habits a Year
    • Evaluate your bad habits – like:
      • Procrastinating
      • Paying bills at the last minute
      • Not delivering on promised documents and services in a timely way
      • Letting receivables get overdue
      • Arriving late for meetings and appointments
      • Forgetting someone’s name within seconds of being introduced
      • Talking over others’ comments, instead of listening
      • Answering the telephone during family time or spouse time
      • Handling the mail more than once
      • Working late
      • Choosing work over time with your children
      • Having fast-food meals more than 2 days a week
    • Focus on changing one habit every quarter.
24. Stay Focused on Your Core Genius
    • Identify your core and delegate completely everything which does not align with that
25. Start Now!… Just Do It!