We’ve all been knocked flat on our face from a life event. What I know is that you can’t let that destroy you. You were put here to do something special, and only you can unlock your potential.

This post is all about how I went from the lowest of lows (even though people think I’m Mr. Success) and worked my way back to the top again. It’s not really about me so much but how you can implement the same thought patterns and mindset to your situation.

The point to understand is that your success can change in a heartbeat. We all sometimes are tricked into thinking it takes five years to come back from a major problem but I’m living proof that it doesn’t. It can be one small change that you make to your life that brings about the abundance you’ve always wanted.

“As well as taking action you have to have an unlimited hope that no matter what, you’re going to be okay and crush your goals”

Here are the 5 lessons I learned when my success changed in a single heartbeat:

1. All it takes is a chance encounter

We all meet new people on a regular basis, and many of them seem to have no influence on our life. Then somehow, you meet someone extraordinary and buck the trend. Chance encounters are fundamental to your success changing in a heartbeat.

It’s because people, not things will change your success. People are what make you successful, and they are probably what brought you down in the first place. I was lucky enough to experience this first hand.

A mentor of mine needed me to attend an event in their place but insisted that I had to engage someone else to come with me. He left me with a very challenging problem for someone like me who at the time was at rock bottom.

How do you solve a problem so significant that only has one outcome? You embrace your fear and do what you have been putting off. The truth is that you already know the answer to almost any problem, it’s just you can’t solve the issue until you choose the solution that has significant fear attached.

So I took a risk and reached out to the person whom I knew could solve my issue. There was a high chance of failure and it could have destroyed this friendship that had formed – I did it anyway. To my surprise, the question I asked was one that I think they were always waiting for me to ask.

While I may never be sure of that, I know in my heart that it’s true. Call it a gut feeling, but I think our lives were meant to cross and we were meant to inspire each other.

“Our lives are impacted by the questions we don’t ask”

Having a sense of curiosity and asking questions that come to mind is yet another way our success can change in a heartbeat. In my situation, the worse thing that could happen is that the person said no.

If they were upset by me asking then that would have shown me that they were probably the wrong person to ask in the first place.

2. You have to hit rock bottom

For your success to change in a heartbeat, you need to experience rock bottom at least once. Coming from rock bottom will help you to appreciate what it’s like when you climb up and conquer the mountain again.

The lessons you need to learn about yourself are on the way up, not at the summit of the mountain. When I was at rock bottom I used the time to improve myself and re-educate my mind yet again. At rock bottom, I learned to survive on my own with no real help from anyone.

I got to see what it was like standing at the front of the battlefield and being right in the firing line of a sniper. Having this sniper pointing at my head forced me to change direction and re-think what I thought I already knew (I learned that I really knew nothing).

Surprisingly, it’s very crowded when you’re at rock bottom, and plenty of people want to share stories of struggle, defeat, and hopelessness. Unfortunately for them, I wasn’t having a bar of it. I knew that rock bottom was temporary and I insisted on enjoying the hardship while I could.

Once you’ve been covered in trash and booed at, while being at rock bottom, you figure out why you never want to be there again. It gives you the fuel to bounce back and say, “never again, I’m better than this and I am in control of my destiny.”

3. Passion can lift you up again

What got me back up from rock bottom was my passion. It was my passion that made my level of success change in a heartbeat. As it turns out, my passion for blogging and inspiring people is infectious. Everyone wants to be a part of something positive, and when you are at rock bottom, people can tell.

They somehow feel like they owe you something because of all the inspiration you gave them for free without asking for anything in return. We only get back what we put out. All those unused favors amounted for something, and one of my mentors saw their calling.

Their calling was to take control and create serendipity in my life and do so almost without me knowing. While I may have figured out the game plan, I’m so glad that they did what they did. Your passion is so important, and you have to let it bleed out of you.

Use your passion to inspire you when it feels like you have nothing else. Instead of being hopeless, use your passion to bring hope. It’s by you bringing hope to others that you will rediscover hope in your own situation.

4. You must be positive no matter what

Success will never change in a heartbeat unless you remain positive. Negative people fail and fail permanently until they become positive again. Unless you believe that anything is possible, you’ll never achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself.

I used a positive mindset to tell myself that winter was going to come to an end, the blizzard was going to stop, and I would get to feel the sunshine again. I became obsessed with not knowing the answer and wanting to be surprised (and boy was the result a surprise).

I knew that if I kept doing what I do and didn’t lose hope that I would get to experience happiness again. I allowed myself to be happy with the little things and not to focus on the major dramas of my life that from a distance could seem insurmountable.

Even when more challenges and problems kept being added to the pile, I used each of them has a mini-university course. By taking all the grease and dirt that was building up in my life, I was able to blast it all away with one squirt from the high-pressure hose of my mind.

5. Enjoy the journey back to the top

When the tide changes in your favor again, it’s so important to enjoy the journey and fly your kite high again in the sky. It’s only been a few weeks since my success changed in a heartbeat and I already feel that I am not being as grateful as I need to be.

That’s why; practicing gratitude is so crucial to your success. I’ve loved the journey back to the top and the fact that I get to inspire all of you with my own struggle. I now have more strategies to help all of us succeed together, and they came from putting the rubber to the road and allowing things to get a bit out of hand.

Who knew that I would be sitting here just a few weeks ago and writing about how my success has changed again in a heartbeat. That’s right; this is the second time in a few years.

What if you knew success was right around the corner? What would you do differently today if you already knew all the good that was about to happen? Let me know on my website timdenning.net or my Facebook.