Yes you deserve success. Not only do you deserve success, you need to be successful.

Andy Andrews is a wonderful author and a gifted speaker. I attended one talk where he spoke about people in the world that will be able to one day help his young sons in some way. He didn’t know who they were, or when or how they would help, but was sure that their paths would cross. In order for his sons to be all they could be, he needed these people to be all they could be.

In his book, The Butterfly Effect, Andy says it like this, “Everything you do matters. Every move you make, every action you take matters. Not just to you, or your family, or your business or hometown. Everything you do matters to all of us forever…There are generations yet unborn, whose very lives will be shifted and shaped by the moves you make and the actions you take.”

So for those of you who doubt whether you deserve success, here are three steps you can take to get you back on that path of success that we all need you to be on:

Define success differently

Too often we define success as our personal achievement – how much more we got this time. True, fulfilling, success is not you getting more, it is you helping others get more. When your definition of success shifts to be this outward focus, it is easier to believe you deserve success.

“Success is finding satisfaction in giving a little more than you take.” – Christopher Reeve

Define your past differently

Your past mistakes are only failures if you fail to learn from them. When finding a way to positively deal with mistakes Napoleon Hill advised, “Ask yourself: What did I learn from this experience that I can put to good use next time?”  If you view your past in this light, you will not get discouraged and continue to believe you deserve success.

Long time Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger said, “The past is a great place and I don’t want to erase it or to regret it, but I don’t want to be its prisoner either.”

Define your future differently

The best thing you can do to be a success is work to be the best you, you can be, and surround yourself with others who are the best they, they can be. Together you can accomplish great things. If you focus your future on simply being everything you were made to be, you will believe you deserve success.

“Success is…knowing you did your best to become the person you are capable of becoming.”– John Wooden