Successful people have three things in common: they know where they are now; they know where they want to be; and they move further along the connecting path each day. Their actions become the key determinants of their success.

The accumulated messages of their biographies and autobiographies provide added insights into their personal qualities, offering models for you to emulate as you set and chart your own path, here is a summary of what we see as those qualities and the actions required to model yourself you successful people…

1. Know where you’re going

Knowing where you’re going is part of the success story. Although your vision will encounter setbacks (we’re told envisaged futures usually have less than a 70 per cent chance of being achieved), visions help to transform possibilities into realities. As the saying goes, ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll finish up somewhere else.’

2. Believe in yourself

Successful people believe in themselves, confident in the knowledge that they can achieve. Their actions illustrate that belief and provide freedom and power. They let nothing limit their potential. Positive affirmations can be effective means of reinforcing that belief.

3. Be open to opportunities

Your openness to opportunities will ensure a continuing flow of them. Do not let negative thoughts and inaction limit your potential to achieve. Some success stories reveal such an abundance of opportunities that choosing which ones to pursue is most difficult. Spreading yourself and your resources too thinly must be avoided.

4. Set goals that challenge

Successful people know that what they focus on grows, and goals help to provide the necessary focus and direction. Challenging goals bring out the best in people.

5. Accept responsibility

Successful people don’t blame others when things don’t go as planned. The responsibility for the fulfilment of your dreams is yours. The power to succeed – or to fail – is yours. And no one can take that away.

6. Build desire

You have to want something badly enough to let nothing stand in your way. But that does not suggest you should turn to aggression; many success stories are those of quiet achievers. Desire helps to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Successful people, we’re told, help to make things happen.

7. Strive for excellence

Achieving excellence is the pinnacle, and it’s attained by few. Make sure you go beyond the call of duty, doing more than others expect. Excellence comes from striving, maintaining the highest standards, looking after the smallest detail, and going that extra mile. Successful people never compromise their standards.

8. Demonstrate courage

Courage is a special personal quality that helps you to distinguish between what ought to be feared and what need not be feared. Although history’s successful people have never backed away from any encounter that threatened their progress, they made certain they were around to ‘fight another day’.

9. Be persistent—and flexible

The power to hold on in the face of adversity and the power to endure – these are the qualities of a winner. Persistence is the ability to face setbacks without losing sight of your destination. Persistence is the skill of doing everything necessary to reach your goals, including making adjustments based on the feedback received.

10. Learn from failure

The law of failure is one of the most powerful of all the success laws: you only really fail when you stop trying. That’s why successful people never fail. Setbacks simply provide them with essential feedback to help them chart their course.

11. Make honesty the best policy

Cheats may prosper – but not for long. You will be called on daily to choose between honesty and dishonesty, and those choices will contribute to your reputation. With honesty, there is no middle ground; you can’t be ‘a little honest’ or ‘slightly dishonest’. You’re either honest or dishonest.

12. Love what you do

Love is the most important ingredient of success. Successful people rarely distinguish between work and many of their other activities: they do what they do because they love it. Sharing that passion with a select few makes all the effort worthwhile.