One of the surest ways to achieve success is to determine your strengths, then shape and mold your life around these. This philosophy mirrors the conventional wisdom that tells you to hone-in your focus on making your weaknesses stronger, and concentrate efforts there.

Here’s how it works:

1. Identify your strengths. This can be done a number of ways. One of the most effective is to take a personality test. There are several out there to choose from. These represent a wide range of price and intensity, but I recommend that you keep it simple. Take the test and spend a little money to have a professional discuss it with you, but be careful not to get carried away. You can spend too much time, money and effort analyzing and miss the point. We recommend the following (link to Trimetrix).

2. Go with what makes your heart race. This is actually used to verify the point above and can take the place of the actual test. What is it that while doing you lose all sense of time? What would you gladly do even if you were not being compensated? Or more importantly, what do you dream about?

3. Spend a few minutes each day doing what you love to do. This can be spent doing, learning, reading, or whatever immerses you in your passion. The point is to get more involved with your passion everyday.

4. Learn from those that have succeeded in what you dream about doing. This is probably the most under used method to succeed because it takes a degree of humility, which we all struggle with to some degree. If someone has succeeded in an area where you yearn for success, then learn from that person. This is not to say that you have to become a carbon copy of that person or duplicate that person’s strategy or methodology. Instead, look at how that person achieved success. Use this information to shorten your learning curve, and greatly increase your own chances for success.

5. Find people that compensate for your weaknesses. True success is very rarely achieved alone. Having a partner not only helps with accountability, but it also helps fill in spots where you have opportunities. Select a team with the same desire and a common direction, but with complimentary skill sets, and you’ll better position yourself (and your team) for success.

6. Set up a system to help keep you on track. Time has a way of passing us by, so manage your time, while remaining flexible enough to allow for needed change, last minute emergencies, etc. Carefully track your time, working every day to achieve your goals. Review how your time is spent regularly, learning how to best manage it to achieve the progress you need.

7. Ignore “the noise.” Only a small percentage of people actually live out their dreams. This is because many people are deterred by the noise of the world around them. Don’t let such background noise drown out your dreams… or your success. Instead, commit to your path and stay on it, especially when you start hearing comments about why you should not do it, how unlikely your success is, how odd you or your methodology of achieving success are, etc. Stay focused on your dreams and your plan. Ignore background noise. Surround yourself with people that “march to the same drummer” and let your band play on! Remember: to be truly great you can’t do what others think is normal.

8. Celebrate. As you succeed, you need to celebrate every milestone. It can be a very small celebration. Even these will help increase your momentum, catapulting you closer and closer to your success.

How much richer would the world be if more of us were living a life that truly was aligned with our skill set? How much more fulfilling would life be if more people chased and reached their dreams?