As individuals strive for professionalism in every career, the standards remain the same for business, governments, NGO and practitioners. The press is filled with job adverts that require certain skills set and person requirements ranging from strong team players with interpersonal skills to high good integrity.

No matter the yard stick for success, there are some key elements to academic success. The attitude of an individual is critical. Negative thinking can be the ultimate success inhibitor. A complaint free diet can do miracles and it will wake the individual up to how much energy is spent on negative thinking. Rene Descartes – “I think therefore, I am” mentions that a thinking thing is a thing that doubts, understands, conceives, affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also, and perceives.”

There is a lot to learn. In my first job I worked as both an accountant and sold myself as a salesman, but in truth I had no idea how to sell. I learned by watching, by listening to the sales pitches that worked and the ones that didn’t, by modeling my demeanor on some of the more successful salesmen we had in the field.

The good ones displayed a quiet confidence. They were never desperate to make a sale, which I eventually learned was because desperation never closed the deal. Their confidence came from knowing they had a good product at a good price. And because the deals they were offering were profitable all round. It is a lot easier to sell when you can stand behind your product or service and know you’ve got the goods.

It is also important not to be rigid in individual goals. Fixating on one thing and allowing nothing to dissuade the individual may be a negative indicator of worse things to come. Many employers seek flexibility and adaptability among their prospects. With the ever changing global economy and increase in worldwide competition via the web, companies and organizations’ must respond to change quickly and easily.

It is good to be focused but realize that being so focused that you lose sight of the ultimate goal – to be successful – can prevent success. Academic just like career success may require going sideways, in a diagonal or changing path completely instead of forging straight ahead with blinders on.

There is this young man I trained on job to support clients; when approached to provide reference to someone to be in his permanent employ the young man turned down the offer on grounds that the remuneration was low by his standards and academic level of achievement. There is need to identify the goals individuals have for their life’s if they are to succeed and also know how to get there.

Most often than not we get frustrated easily and give up. Everyone has academic and/or career setbacks but it is how the individual responds to those setbacks that determines their ultimate academic and/or career success. If the individual wallows in self pity for weeks or months it is time to seek professional help to get them out of their academic huff. They should learn to accept setbacks as par for the course as they experiment with what works and what doesn’t. Small wins as they say lead to big wins.

Successful people understand that it is their power of choice that determines their success. They are not victims. They don’t blame others or other things for their success or failure. They seek out every opportunity to use their power of choice and never say I don’t have a choice.

They understand that whatever they choose to do, there are inherent risks but they feel the fear and do it anyway. They also prepare themselves for possible failure with plan B in mind and always look at failure as a learning experience. Marriage however is not one of those unions for plan B. Life is all about choices and when you cut away all the junk every situation is a choice.

Arthur