Most people want success without any kind of risk.  Sounds stupid when you read it I know but think about it.  How many people talk about starting their own business one day?  A lot.  How many do?  Very few.  Why?  Very few are willing to take risks.  And to the risk takers goes all the rewards.  Now A reward for taking a risk might not be success, it could be just learning a new life lesson.  Sometimes such lessons can only be learned by taking a risk.

Now I guess I should clarify by risk I don’t mean doing something that put you in physical danger, rather a logical risk.  A good example is leaving a steady paying 9 to 5 job to start your own business when you have no idea whether you’ll succeed or not.  The truth is, even if you had a bullet proof business plan, it can fail.  But you’ll never know until you take the risk and try.

This doesn’t just apply to business but all areas in ones life.  You’ll never know if that hot guy or girl will go out with you until you approach them and introduce yourself.  It might workout or it might not.  Certainly the more risks you take, the higher your chances are of succeeding in life.

While this is a personal development blog it was brought to my attention the other day that not everyone knows what the hack “personal development” is? Well I would like to break it down.  Personal development is really all about self improvement.  Now this can be broad since one can improve any area of his or her life.  But I found that most personal development topics generally fit in three categories: better health, better finances, or better relationships. The common factor in most personal development posts or topics is making progress or acheived some kind of success.

Most people live their life hoping not doing.  Many people hope they can win the lottery, hope they can get a raise in their jobk, hope they can find a good partner, blah blah blah.  Now I’m not saying I’m any different, I do this to.  It’s so easy to hope that luck or chance will line up and everything will work out.  yet in real life that very rare.  In fact most people who get what they want in life generally make it happen.  They don’t hope they do.

Throughout my life, and every little step of progress I’ve made I’ve always came back to the same conclusion hard work is a prerequisite to success. The more I’ve accepted that I need to work hard, the more progress I made toward my goals.

Often we look for the shortcuts. Now there are great tips and tricks that can help in one’s journey towards success. However to even use such tips and tricks requires work, learning, effort and I think you see where I’m going. Even learning tricks and using them requires hard work.

I always found it humorous how movies make the criminal lifestyle seem easy. Some movies don’t a good example is Scarface, where towards the end of the movie he was so stressed out and paranoid that even if he didn’t get killed he was basically killing himself from the inside out. Even being a criminal, a thug or a con man is hard work.

Productivity is a requirement for success and success is a requirement for productivity.  It might be obvious why you need to be productive to be successful.  In today’s busy life you are constantly getting bombarded with new info.  Most of the info is a waste of time.  However there are little gems in between that will create lots of opportunity for you.  For example, if you read 20 different posts about how to make money online, you’ll usually find that there is only one post that’s really good and that you can apply.

Being productive is a skill that one builds.  As you become more productive you become better at judging info.  You can quickly see whether a piece of information is useless (and therefore you can ignore it) or is useful (and therefore you can concentrate on it).  Productivity is also important when it comes to your thinking.  Often most of our thoughts are useless and most of our worries are a wast of time since they never come true.

Becoming mroe aware of your thoughts, your worries will help you get red of the useless ones.  It will free up your mental energy so that you can focus and concentrate on the important things in life.

By now you are probably wondering how success is a requirement for productivity.  Well if you are successful you are often rewarded for it, most commonly through money.  You can then use this money to outsource mundane tasks and therefore increase your productivity.

It’s the reason why most wealthy business men have an assistant to take care of mundane tasks for them.  However you can start being more productive without being successful.  If success is your goal then you should start trying to be more productive and efficient starting today.