Success hint: Focus on what's working

Entrepreneurial expert and author Jack Canfield, best known for his book “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” shares here his thoughts and tips for staying positive, speeding up success and being patient with slower-than-hoped outcomes.

“The truth be told success typically follows a series of little events and achievements that can seem to take an eternity, that include a few disappointments along the way, and that challenge everything about you to the core – your stamina, courage, integrity and even your willingness to keep going,” Canfield says.

If you focus on what’s not working, it engenders counter-productive feelings. And you attract what you are feeling: negative experiences, people and results. The key is to focus on what is working. Canfield recommends two basic practices: keeping a journal and meditation.

Keeping a journal helps you focus on the positive and renews your vision for yourself. Each day reflect and make a list of what you are grateful for, and end each day with notes on what went right, however small they are.

Meditation is a tool for finding solutions to problems and changing your attitude, so you can attract success sooner rather than later. Spend some time each day in quiet contemplation, prayer or meditation. Meditation is great for its ability to turn off your judgmental, highly critical brain and allows your unconscious to take over, allowing you to tap into a higher level of creativity that helps bring the results you want.