5 ways to climb the ladder of success

Life is a ladder of success, a series of steps to get to the place that you want determined by the calculative ascension effort that you make. Some people fail to succeed because of lack of planning, lack of vision, lack of support structures, unbelief, giving up and picking the wrong ladder, hence never achieve success.

1. Identify your Ladder

This simply involves identifying your ladder of success, which is why when we are growing up we identify what we want to be when we grow up. Some want to be doctors, pilots, writers, artists and the list goes on and on whilst some just want to get married. As simple as step one is, most people never really identify their ladder until they are too old. The fortunate ones realize it later on in life after years of wasting their time, whilst some simply forget. Everyone in life is either climbing a ladder, sitting at the beginning of the ladder wondering how to climb it or watching others climb their ladders, whatever the situation life is full of ladders. The other ones unfortunately identify the wrong ladder and get stuck somewhere in the climbing, instead of getting off or getting down and going to the right one they stick out to an unending climb. So which ladder are you climbing and does it really have an end in sight or have you lost the plot?

2. Get in Shape

Now step two is also simple, it is about being in shape. Truth be told, we all want to get to the top, for some their top is buying a house, some buying a car, for some owning business, for some being managers and the list goes on. Each ladder has a time and a speed by which you can climb it and therefore requires a certain amount of effort. In other words you must choose the ladder that you are in shape for. Some ladders require certain qualifications, some require capital, some require good ideas, some require good social networking and once more the list goes on. If you are not in shape then the ladder you are climbing could be a lifetime journey, which is why some people take decades to buy a house simply because they are not in shape when it comes to their income, and they are also not in shape when it comes to their qualifications. If you are not in shape, good advice would be that you get in shape.

3. Know what you up against

Step three it involves knowing the height and therefore knowing the speed you must climb at. Most people identify the ladder but forget about the height of the plan. Instead of writing a good business plan for the next twelve months they only think of the first one month, instead of finding out about the career path they are worried about the salary. Instead of understanding marriage they are more concerned about the wedding ceremony. We then hear about divorces, multiple career changes, and failed businesses simply because people failed to reach the top as they never measured the length of the ladder. Every ladder can be climbed within your life time, if you find that it takes you your entire life it just means that you were not in shape. The rule of life is simple, if someone else could achieve what you want in a certain time then it means you can do just as well in the same amount of time and even better. It is that simple.

4. Don’t Look down and Go down

Don’t look down to go down but only look down to appreciate your progress and assess how far you can still go up. Don’t fall for the Look-At-What-I-Have-Achieved disease. You might be stuck living in the past. Each ladder takes you to a certain achievement but reaches you to the base of a new ladder, that my friends is the heart of success. Those who get comfortable with climbing and finishing one ladder forget that they are other things to do in life. If you get comfortable with one success then time will soon catch up with you and your success becomes yesterday’s news. Naturally we must all have resumes (CVs) which are current and still increasing. If you are still making the same resolution every New Year it is probably because you are always looking down. Look up to see where you are going.

5. Put up a good support structure

Always climb a ladder with a good support structure. If you climb a career without the necessary qualifications when retrenchment comes, guess who is the first person to go? If you start a business without a good structure, guess whose business falls as fast as they started it. Whatever you are doing you must have a strong supporting structure. Your supporting structure may not need to be material all the time; it can be patience, faith, love, understanding, peace and much more. If you choose your support structure to be a person then make sure that person is in it to complete the race not for the romance of the idea.