Some principles for living

Having just written a magazine article on how businesses can maintain success when they achieve it, I was asked by the commissioning editor if I could give him 10 bullet points for achieving personal success.

I pulled Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People off my bookshelf (over 10 million sold it says on the cover) but couldn't find much inspiration there. His first habit was: be proactive. That's not a bad habit if you can handle such a horrible word. But it seemed a bit obvious, as did habit number three: put first things first. As for habit two: begin with the end in mind, I'm just not sure about that. When I started writing a children's book I had no idea where it would end and that was part of the fun.

Habit four: think win/win is very American. Habit five: seek first to understand, then to be understood is not bad, but habit six: synergise is pretty meaningless and habit seven: sharpen the saw sounds very motherhood and apple pie.

So I put together my own list and, if I say so myself, I'm pretty pleased with it and want to share it with you. On reflection I would regard these as pointers, not so much on how to be successful, but on how to live well. It's how I try to live my life anyway. Will these habits bring success? It very much depends on how you define it and measure it. I'm sure there are many better habits than mine - I love Mahatma Gandhi's aphorism: be the change you want to see - but these are the ones that underpin the things I do.

I haven't managed to stick to every one of these lessons - I don't always learn from my mistakes - so I might hang on to this note as a reminder. In no particular order:

1. Know yourself, be yourself and trust yourself.
2. Learn from every experience and every mistake.
3. Collect great people, work with those you respect and stay loyal to friends, colleagues and family.
4. Play the long game.
5. View every change in life as an opportunity.
6. Always listen to advice, then make your own choices.
7. Don’t be afraid to trust people.
8. Never walk over others to get where you want to go.
9. Always take the road less travelled.
10. Have fun, don’t take yourself too seriously and enjoy today for tomorrow it’s history.

The list could be longer and it doesn't work for every occasion. Sometimes, when I'm down I need to read Rudyard Kipling's poem, If. It works like a tonic.