I would like to tell you that the week after I wrote about Patience, I intentionally wrote this week’s blog two days late to test you. I would like to tell you that, but the truth is I am simply late. Hopefully I did not make you suffer too long 😊.

Through my life experience & study, I have selected 10 attributes that I believe are key for living successfully. I am not defining success for you, other than to indicate it involves being healthy physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Your goals, dreams and every day rhythms are yours, and increasingly exhibiting these 10 attributes will ensure you successfully live them.

Faithfulness is a key to success because it keeps us focused on what truly matters. The root word to this attribute – faith – is needed. Many years ago, when I built my Life Roadmap in which I established the most important drivers, visions, and long-term goals for my life, I worked diligently to identify them. Because of that diligence, I have been able to have faith that the path I established is the right one, and I have been able to faithfully return to that path through all life’s ups and downs.

Dictionary.com lists one of the definitions of faithfulness as: the fact or quality of being true to one’s word or commitments, as to what one has pledged to do, professes to believe, etc.

Faithfulness in relationships is an obvious area of need, where we have made commitments and given our word. If we are unable to be faithful in our commitment to others, it will negatively impact our ability to be faithful to our other objectives. For example, I mean that being unfaithful to our families does not lead to being more successful in our careers, despite what prevailing wisdom may say. Success is an all-encompassing ideal, not isolated to certain aspects of life.

To be sure, when I mention life’s ups and downs, many of my own down cycles have been caused by my failure to be faithful in one or another aspect of my life. Perfection might be a great dream, but it is not attainable for you or me. So, we must increasingly seek to exhibit faithfulness in our commitments to others and to ourselves. I would submit that every day we must seek to be completely faithful and never accept “nobody’s perfect” as an easy way to assuage our guilt when we fail. But it is equally important that we not beat ourselves over the head and wallow in our guilt. Both extremes will lock us into a cycle of unfaithfulness. Recognizing a fall, quickly setting it right, and getting back on track is the process to becoming more and more faithful.

What are the life commitments you’ve made, goals you have pledged to yourself or others to attain, and areas of belief you have professed? These are ideals that you should document and for most of us really do not change throughout our lives.

With an honest self-evaluation, where have you been less than faithful in being true to these commitments, pledges, and beliefs? I encourage you to make a habit of regularly reviewing the documented commitments and performing a self-evaluation. This is the only way to ensure that you are remaining faithful and being faithful in turn is the only way to ensure ultimate success in your life.