Don't wait to strike out on your own behalf

The real barrier for most of us is not external. It is our own psychology: we overthink decisions, fear eventual failure, and prioritise near-term, visible regards over long-range success.

Thinking about ideas during week-ends, holidays and evenings by moonlighting can be an excellent rehearsal.

As with most vital decisions, no one should wait for the perfect moment. That is simply an excuse for procrastination.

Are highly rational individuals more sucessful?

In my humble opinion, no. Here is why, I think a strong emotional quotient can matter more.
Successful people knows that the core of any achievement will depend on personal relationships.
The most successful people are frequently unreasonable people who refuse to give up, even when evidence and odds are very much against them. In conclusion, human skills are more important than cold rational logic.

Imagine Yourself Succeeding by José Ferreiro

Highly successful people will often tell you that one of their secrets is visualization. In their mind’s eye, they see themselves succeeding. They imagine the situations they will
face, and they imagine themselves handling those situations beautifully. Visualization is a very powerful tool. It’s a way of telling yourself that you believe you can do it. The power of this kind of belief is staggering. If you believe you can accomplish something, you are far more
likely to accomplish it. Likewise, if you believe you can’t do something, you are far more likely to fail to achieve that goal. Positive visualization will make it easier for you..
Anyone can use the power of visualization.

Career Positioning Strategy: Success & Fulfillment

Two key learning from industrial restructuring:
1. Do not take a job you cannot afford to lose. Otherwise you will make everything to stay that could be bad for your carrier and health.
2. People are hired thanks to their technical skills but are fired because of their soft skills.

How coud success be defined? (by Jose Ferreiro)

- Helping others realize their goals while pursuing ours.

- Success is the progressive realization of personal, worthwhile, pre-determined goals.

- Progressive realization means that success is not a destination, it is a journey and you start being successful the moment you take the first step. Personal means that my goals will not motivate you, and your goals will not motivate me. Worthwhile means that goals must have an ethical quality or they won't have the power to attract you to them. Pre-determined means that goals never happen by accident, always on purpose.

- Success is a continual journey!!!

- A success is someone who gets up one more time than he/she gets knocked down.

- You can not succeed unless you have failed. Failure is not a bad thing it is a growing experience.

- Success is a PASSION!!!

- Success is a personal goal-oriented concept, in which an individual generates and strives to reach. The end result can be attained by luck or self-motivated ambition. One could argue that luck is a nonfactor, but the essence of success is the end result and not the facets of the journey of which one arrives. 

As an IT Architect how do you measure success (II)?

In respect to what KPI your organization follows or not, The simplest way for IT architect (matters any Architect) to measure his/her success is:

1) Develop your growth plan for short term and long term, what and where you want to be.
2) Knowledge Acquisition in changing business demands.
3) Build a design or solutions were all business elements (People process and Technology) are met and bridge all the gaps.
4) Achieve excellency in your work to gain buy-in for all your plans and designs.
5) Request Testimonial/Recommendations for your work (efforts are useless if you're not appreciated).

If you are done with above, you are on TOP success list, rest will follow :)

As an IT Architect how do you measure success (I)?

In my opinion the success is measured by:

Was the solution implemented?
Did it provide the expected results?
and finally, Is the solution flexible enough to withstand change?

I mention the last one because IT is built on top of change. Any IT Architect (of any vertical) must incorporate the change aspect on its solutions. Please do not reduce the support for change just to the upgrades and additions to the solution. The end-of-life, disposal and deployment of new solutions also counts as change.