The 8 Proven Secrets to SMART Success is written by a Peggy McColl. Peggy McColl is a New York Times and internationally best-selling author and business coach, with eight books and several multimedia training programs to her credit, translated into 33 foreign languages and sold in more than 82 countries. Her passion is to help others get their dreamful life. The 8 Proven Secrets to SMART success is a smart guide towards achieving dreamful life. The book can help individuals to transform their life instantly and rebirth themselves in their best version. The techniques mentioned by Peggy in this book, if followed with consistency can lead towards a strong and attractive being, goal achiever, and can make anyone a master. The book contains 8 chapters, and each chapter is written on one ingredient required to transform an ordinary life into an extraordinary life. “Awareness is to your mind what light is to a darkened room.” -Peggy McColl The very first chapter is about self-awareness. Self-awareness is the most required ingredient in transforming life. Unless you don’t know yourself, you can’t change yourself. Before transforming your life to an extraordinary life, you need to know your strengths and weaknesses, what you want and what you don’t want, what’s important and what’s not important for you and the type of lifestyle that you desire for. In this chapter, Peggy mostly emphasis readers to be aware of their thoughts. She regards thoughts as seeds. So, it’s very important that we should be aware of these seeds, either we are putting fruitful seeds, means the positive thoughts or we putting harmful seeds, means the negative thoughts. “If there is something that you wish to experience in your life, do not ‘want’ it, choose it.” Peggy McColl In the second chapter, Set Your Intentions from Your Desires, she talks about the importance of desires and goals, and the techniques to get the wishful outcome. She says goals and desires are very important for living life. Unless we don’t know the path and the goal of life, we can’t drive the vehicle of life. Also, desires are what make us focused on our goals and we set our intentions for desired outcomes based on our goals and desires. Furthermore, she mentions that if you remain focused on what you want and decide how you will respond to obstacles before the real obstacle encounters, you get the desired results. “If one ADVANCES confidently in the direction of their goals, and endeavours to live the life that they have imagined, they WILL meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” – Henry David Thoreau In the third, fourth and fifth chapters, she talks about the consistent work required for success and self-confidence. Here she says visualizing and writing out your dreams is not what it is all about in the real world. It isn’t enough just to dream, or visualize; hard work is required. You cannot escape it; it’s a must. It is essential to anyone’s success. It’s very important to know what actions you should take to achieve your desired result. When you take those actions keep their record in a notebook and evaluate your progress repeatedly. Furthermore, she talks about self-believe. She maintains that, if you don’t believe in yourself, you will struggle all the days of your life and will not get what you wanted. And when you do believe in yourself, you will sail through your journey with ease and enjoyment and will get what you wanted. And when talking about how one can have a strong belief in himself, she says visualizing yourself already in the possession of your goals and acting as you have already achieved your goals will help you to build a strong faith in yourself and your creative powers. Thinking positive and having faith in yourself will lead you towards your destination. “It’s the constant and determined effort that breaks down all resistance, sweeps away all obstacles.” -Claude M Bristol In the sixth and seventh chapters, she suggests some techniques to overcome obstacles, adversity and challenges, and how to learn from these obstacles. According to her, challenges and obstacles are universal and constant. There is no way to escape them. There isn’t any individual or industry that is not experiencing or won’t experience challenges. Challenges are part of our journey to success. It would be better that we should accept these obstacles and adversity and should face them smilingly. She says that when you encounter obstacles, don’t make them bigger until you want them big, look for the gift in them, learn from them, and be relentlessly persistent, that’s how you can cope with obstructions and hardships. Additionally, she says to be a student study success and learn from the challenges. There’s always something that you can learn from setbacks and mistakes. So, do find these lessons and avoid them for the next time. “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson In the last and most interesting chapter of the book, Peggy guides readers on how to be a mater. She says training to be a world-class athlete encompasses “mastering the fundamentals” which means doing the little things, little distinctions over and over and over again and making it a little better each time. This is how one can be a master. Along with it, she also suggests four simple ways to be a master. If one elevates his/her consciousness to a high level, helps others to be masters, becomes a master by example, and unconditionally gives to others will acquire a master position in his/her field. Help others as much as you can, guide others towards their destination if you have done it before, and be a humble being. The writer is a blogger and a student at the University of Engineering & Technology. He can be reached at jahanzaib.writer@gmail.com