To make a recipe for success you need to find out what successful people are doing to get successful. You need role models and the more you know about them, the better you can copy their behaviour and obtain the same. So what do successful people have in common? Below are some characteristics based on observation of people that have been successful in one or more areas of life.

Successful people are competitive - When successful people get in the game - whatever it is, they want to win. No successful person or role model ever play to lose, they go all out and give what they are able to give, within the rules and dont give up until the game is over. Even if successful persons lose, they are gracious and they learn from it. People with success find out why they lost and try to avoid the behaviour that caused this loss in similar future situations.

You must stay focused to be successful - We see that people with success are staying extremely focused in what they are doing or trying to accomplish. When they set their mind to something, they keep their eyes on it like a laser beam.

Successful people have fun - Winners love what they are doing whether it is as business managers, in their job or careers, in their relationships and families etc. and they have a lot of fun with what they are doing as well.

To become successful you must work hard - People who succeed put in long hours and are working much more than the average person. Successful results are made by plain old long hours. Unfortunately, most people just arent willing to do it, therefore most people aren't successful. Everybody needs to relax in between their working hours. Successful people know how to relax better than most of us.

Successful persons are intense - Whatever people with success are working with or trying to accomplish, they put their energy into it. They possess a kind of 'all or nothing' attitude and this is what keeps them going when the going get rough.

No risk - no success - If you are not willing to take a calculated risk now and then, you can't expect to be successful. When you do a change in your life - whatever it is - you are taking a risk. I'm running a successful business but it wasn't successful in the beginning. I quit my job as a business consultant because I was so convinced that I would succeed that I was willing to take that risk. I have to this day no regrets.

To achieve success you must be strategic - When I started up my business I wrote a description of how I wanted to live the rest of my life and I estimated how much money that would cost. Then I worked out a strategy for earning this money and converted the strategy into a detailed plan of actions I had to take and when my monetary goals should be reached. I'm still working according to this success plan, but I have to admit that I have adjusted it more than one time because the partial goals I've estimated so far have appeared to be far too small compared to what has actually happened. Under such circumstances however, setting unrealistic goals makes me feel fine, at least each time I recover my successful miscalculation.