A perfect analogy for success, as "life the experience", is "life the function".  In order to have success, you must have vision and faith.  Without one, the other is no good.  You have to know what you have faith in and you have to have faith in what you envision as your objective.  Vision is air and faith is water.  If you are both unable to breathe and dehydrated, there is no sense in getting a drink until you can get a breath.  Without either, however, you die.  Once you have these, you are merely able to sustain life but there are infinite other things that contribute to the continuation of life.  Happily, most of these just happen without your intervention.

Once you have a vision of what you want to do and faith that you will accomplish these things, there is another component required.  It is the food of our analogy.  You must have unshakable determination.  As there will always be set-backs and intermediate failure, you have to take action toward your vision ferociously and without hesitation or doubt.  On occasion, its alright if your faith falters slightly, so long as you understand that its temporary and recognize the need for a break or some counseling.  A friend can be good counsel, a sibling better but a spouse is your best counsel (If none of these are effective, there's nothing wrong with trained counseling but find someone supportive rather then diagnostic).  I think that may be why so many ambitious people really overcome their obstacles after they are married.  I read a book once, "Think and Grow Rich" - by Napoleon Hill, that made the inference that men spend too much energy chasing women to reach their potential before their early middle age.  There's probably some truth to that.  There's definitely a lot more to it as well.

Once you have the basic needs for success covered, massive action will carry you to your destination.  This principle I learned in the first half of an Anthony Robbins book.  I say first half because I never finished it.  I wasn't determined to finish that book and quickly got what I was looking for from the book.  Massive action is doing something that commits you to your objective and continuing to do things that commit you to your action.  There is a slight difference between this and burning bridges.  You shouldn't burn bridges, sometimes you need that bridge to get something you left behind.  Now and again I have done things to intentionally, or unintentionally, burn bridges.  Once or twice, I found myself rebuilding those bridges.  Still, the action I took forced me to continue to pursue my vision.  Sometimes, when you haven't built up quite enough faith in yourself, a radical action will have a snowball effect. 

If all these things are present, it is healthy to have patience and open-mindedness.  These are more for peace of mind while driving toward your destination  then they are for getting there.  You should enjoy the road traveled rather then live entirely for tomorrow.  During the journey, there will be times when it appears you aren't going to accomplish your goals.  You may begin to doubt the practicality of your vision.  People may call you a dreamer.  This is a good sign!  It may mean you are about to reach the summit of your climb.  It always gets infinitely harder before the release of accomplishment arrives. It always looks impossible right before you succeed.  A very short time ago, less then a month, I seriously doubted some of my visions of what I thought my perfect life would be.  Some facets of my dream were not materializing and I feared my vision was unrealistic. I began to consider revising my vision.  This is actually a healthy thing to do.  People change, so do dreams, values and how a person measures success.  Success is, of course, much more then financial success.  That's just a tiny part of it.  After I evaluated my vision, I decided it was still aligned with my principles and I could validated aspects against examples of people around me as well as some people I idolize.  It was last night that I looked around, desperately missing my two year old whose been gone for only four days, and realized that some of what I had doubted would happen was happening while I worried.  I looked around and saw my perfect life.  This time, instead of just a vision in my head, it was my real eyes taking in the scene.  To think I'd almost given up...  Robert Pirsig, in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", said "It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away, I'm looking for the truth,' and so it goes away."  The same thing can happen with success.  You spend your whole life trying to reach your heart's desire and then get cold feet and run away saying, "I'll never do it, never."

I'm not sure how profound any of this is but it occurred to me how simple the equation really is.  However, unlike Life the Function, it ain't innate.  You have to create vision, faith and determination and use them to fuel action and then you're done.  But no one ever told me this.  No one ever said, "hey, here's how you get ahead."  They said things like, "make sure you have a backup plan, " and ,"take baby steps."  Those never really helped.  I think that's the philosophy of: "the less you hope for, the less disappointment you'll have."  I don't subscribe to that one. 

One key thing to remember:  If you are looking for advice on success, ask someone you view as successful.  Don't take advice from aunt Lucy, sweet as she is.  Respect her opinion but listen to someone who did what you want to do.  And listen to your own heart and instinct.  That being said, you'll have to decide whether to listen to me, or not.