The principles of success seem to have many common denominators. They seem to apply in many different endeavours in life. Applied diligently, they can make a huge difference to our lives, enhancing what we do, making how we do it easier and more meaningful and satisfying. If success comes as the world sees it, like wealth, prestige and fame, then that can be a bonus. If success means doing your best, being satisfied with a job well done and really feeling good about the outcomes, then the intrinsic value of these principles of success are incalculable.

Four Habits of Success

In his blog “Shards of Consciousness: Explorations of Personal Development” Richard Cockrum has written a series of thorough, thought provoking and lucid articles of various aspects of living life to the fullest. The piece of advice in this article that appealed to me as a writer and as a blogger was about staying balanced in life. Juggling all the demands in life is an art form many people fail to achieve. (Sorry – the link to Rick’s site no longer works.)

Stay balanced. Your vocation or avocation, including your blog, isn’t your entire life. You have relationships. You have other areas of life. To keep each of these fresh you need to make sure you spend time and energy on all of them. This doesn’t mean that you won’t have periods of focus only on one thing, but it does mean that these periods of high focus can’t become habitual. No one can effectively do the same thing day after day and hour after hour while expecting quality results.

The Demands of Writing

Writing in all of its forms, whether that be fiction, poetry, blogging, journalism or whatever, demands an intense focus. It is for many a lonely life, sitting at a computer for long hours at a stretch. Richard’s advice to “stay balanced” is very important. At present, my major focus apart from this blog on writing is my blog on birding. If I sit at my computer writing about birds all day it will become stale and unreadable. I need to bring balance to my life and actually get out there in field and watch some real, live birds. My writing then comes alive, not merely academic.

The writing also taps into a passion of mine – watching the beautiful birds we have here in Australia.

And the readers will be able to tell that I am passionate.

And they will return.

Updated November 2013.