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How to power your success with these three critical elements (Part 2)
This is where the rubber meets the road. You can do everything up until this point perfectly and still not taste success.
You can discover your values, create a compelling vision for your life, set goals and make a plan. You can get your head in the right space and create good habits. You can acquire new skills and knowledge. You can get out there and network. That still won’t guarantee success.
You must do all these with discipline and persistence to achieve success. Success is a all day every day, 24/7/365/X years deal. You must go all in.
Discipline
Discipline is the grunt work before something becomes a habit.
Sometimes it feels like pushing an atlas stone uphill, then eventually you reach a plateau and if you’re really lucky, a decline. It becomes easy and second nature. How long does that take? Too hard to say.
But in the beginning, it can feel like a grind (see the chart above). Especially if what you are doing doesn’t instantly come naturally to you.
When my neurosurgeon told me that I should stop running, I had to find an alternative. Swimming was too time consuming, and I’ve had neck issue from it in the past. Cycling, or a spin bike, but my back can’t handle being in that position. So that left me with the cross-trainer. Something I didn’t really like.
After a little while it starts to feel easier to do, then other days you think why am I doing this and it becomes a grind again. You hover around the grind threshold (I made that term up) but it’s true.
I think it took about year before I got used to it and it no longer bothered me. I’m way past the grind threshold. Now, it’s just automatic.
The closer the task is to your burning desire, the easier it will be to find the discipline to get started.
I just pushed through the dislike of the cross-trainer because it was the safest form of cardio for me. So I did it. My desire to be fit and healthy got me through.
If it doesn’t really matter to you, then why subject yourself to the mental (or physical) torture!
Another area this can apply to is reading.
By this I mean reading for self-improvement. Not entertainment.
Reading about,
- Technical skills for your work
- Your industry in general
- Skills that will help you get to the next level
You know it’s important, but you just don’t do it.
If you want to be like the masses. Then there is always something mind-numbing on TV or YouTube.
But if you have come this far in these posts, I know you want something more out of life.
The successful read
88% of financially successful people read at least 30 mins per day.
Warren Buffet reads 500 pages a day
Mark Cuban reads 3 hours a day
Bill Gates reads 50 books a year
Elon Musk taught himself to build rockets by reading.
According to Tom Corley, “Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals”, rich people (annual income of $160,000 or more and a liquid net worth of $3.2 million-plus) read for self-improvement, education, and success. Whereas poor people (annual income of $35,000 or less and a liquid net worth of $5,000 or less) read primarily to be entertained.
Therefore, successful people read selectively. To them, time is precious.
Maybe they were born reading machines, maybe they made themselves that way.
But in the beginning, they needed discipline. They had a strong purpose for reading. Then over time it became habit.
Take action
Whether you want to run a marathon, get a promotion, start a business or just get used to the cross-trainer.
Just start. You must take action.
Start small.
Schedule it.
And track your progress.
Seeing what the financial world greats do is daunting. Don’t aim to be like them. Well not yet anyway.
Just take action and start. Even if you say, ok, I’ll just read 1 page today. You’ll see it wasn’t that bad. Or just get on the cross-trainer for 1 minute. Do 1 push up. You might to the end of that 1 page or whatever and say, well I’m here, let’s go for 2.
If your goal is to read more – start with 10 minutes a day or every second day.
Once you have gotten settled with 10 minutes a day, build steadily to 30 minutes. Then, if you want to read more, go for it.
To hold you accountable, write down what you do. Build a chain of days in a row. What you might find is that if you miss a day and break the chain, you get grumpy and you are determined to get back on it tomorrow and build a new chain better than before.
So if it’s really important to you. Plan it. Put it in your diary. Stick to it.
And if you miss a day or a few, reschedule it again and start again. If you’ve set goals, reread your goals. Remember why you are doing it and start again. No need to kick yourself for missing a few days. But kick yourself in the butt if you don’t start again tomorrow.
Don’t try and build your success pyramid in a day. It’s just not possible. The long game is necessary here.
Remember, many of these steps can apply to any area of your life. Weight loss, weight gain, athletic performance, a great relationship, being the best parent you can be.
Link it strongly to your WHY
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” Jim Rohn.
That’s why you need to make your goals worth the effort. It will be easier to find the discipline and charge towards your success.
Thinking about it achieves little, but taking action creates momentum. Once you have got the ball rolling, it becomes easier to push. This is the same with anything.
When I looked at my plan for FIT Wealth, there was a lot I wanted to cover. First, I took action and created a plan. Then once the plan was done, I took action again and picked the first topic. Sometimes, when the next topic seemed difficult, I would do an easier topic just to keep them momentum going. What I found was that the extra momentum I had gained made the more difficult topics easier to get through.
Then you remind yourself of why you are doing it.
- I want to give my daughter the skills and knowledge to be financially successful.
- I want to do the same for you.
My daughter probably won’t listen to me anyway, but I hope you do. I want the words on my pages to ring like a church bell in your ear. A call to action to elevate your life.
Now you have some momentum, you need ….
Persistence
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful (wo)men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” ― Calvin Coolidge (30th US President)
If your goals are not clear or significant to you, if your plan is not well researched, if your confidence is down, you may give up moments before success.
The problem is that you will never know how close you were to succeeding.
Big goals require big persistence (and confidence and discipline)
The bigger the goal, the more persistence is required.
Career goals may take decades to come to fruition, so persistence is essential. The main problem is that people expect success to appear after a few months of effort.
I’ve been in this graduate role for three months and I’m not CEO yet. It’s not fair!
Bill Gates – 11 years before he become mega successful
Steve Jobs – two decades
Jeff Bezos – 3 years
A business start-up – 3-4 years before becoming profitable (Jack Ma at Alibaba failed to achieve profits in the first 3 years)
Becoming CEO – of your own company – instantly. Of a big company, 20-40 years.
Sir James Dyson (the vacuum guy) took 4 years and made 5,127 prototypes before he got it right.
Keep in mind I’m talking real sustainable success. Not the stuff you see on Instagram or YouTube of these flash in the pan got rich quick but then disappeared just as fast. You just hope that they made enough money to last a lifetime.
Real success takes time.
Success School of hard knocks
If you set big, challenging goals, you WILL have setbacks.
It is guaranteed.
Often, on the first sign of trouble, people give up. Oh it’s too hard, the economy is not right, it’s not the right time ………….
Setbacks, mistakes and failure are usually the building blocks for success.
“Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.” —Oprah Winfrey
“We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes—understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.” —Arianna Huffington
“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” —Albert Einstein
There you go – quote overload!
According to Dyson, the secret of his success was failure.
If you have comfortably moved along in life, you are not stretching yourself and as a result you are limiting your success.
As mentioned in a previous post, the shortest distance between point A and B is a straight line. In reality, you may have to sidestep, go over, go under, go around or go through something. It may take a bit longer than planned. You may not immediately see the answer. It may hurt emotionally. It may hurt your bank balance.
But if you don’t persist you won’t achieve.
“You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” Rocky (pardon the grammar!)
The key is to learn from the mistake, failure, setback etc. Then take that experience with you on your journey forward. Try not to make the same mistake twice.
Don’t charge on with your eyes closed
Persistence does not mean moving forward no matter what. If it’s stupid to stay the path, adapt.
If you are two feet tall and you want to be a professional basketballer, all the persistence in the world won’t change the outcome.
Give it your best shot but have the smarts to know that if something is not working, accept that you need to change. Then the identify changes that need to be made.
This highlights the importance of regularly reviewing your goals. We have performance reviews at work. We need to do the same for our lives.
How are you tracking towards your goal?
Is progress as expected?
What is slowing you down?
Does your vision need to change or are you good to continue?
You need to be disciplined in your review. They should be scheduled and non-negotiable.
Then you need to determine whether a change is needed and if so, are you capable of that change?
Amended plan. Check.
Problem solved. Check.
Press on towards success.
Summary of the success pyramid
Well, there you have it. We have climbed the success pyramid together.
Every step of the pyramid is essential to get to the next one. Miss a step and the height of your success will be lowered.
The point of FIT Wealth is to provide you with financial knowledge to empower your life. However, it would be like giving you the tools to build a house without the knowledge on how to do so.
Knowledge is only useful if you know how to apply it.
There is no point in teaching you what a managed fund is, if you can’t save up to invest in one.
We started by setting your compass and using your values to create your life’s vision and goals you want to achieve. We discussed how being successful, in whatever you want to be successful in, requires the right mindset and the creating of success habits. To move forward, you need the right skills, knowledge and experience. And to finish it off, I highlighted the importance of building relationships and how they are critical to your success.
My aim was never to be to font of all knowledge. I’ve only learnt the importance of this stuff recently.
There are millions of people smarter than me and with more knowledge and experience in each of these areas.
My aim was to open your eyes to the possibilities and start you on a new and better path. To direct you to books you must read and topics you should dive deeper into. This will then propel you into other areas that will help you even more.
Now, armed with the basics, you can move forward more confidently in a direction that inspires you.
It all starts with a burning desire to be more than you are today. I hope the you of the future is vastly different from the you now. What person do you need to become to achieve your goals?
Always remember – choose your goals wisely.
Areas for further reading
Accountability – how best to make yourself accountable so that you continue to take action and achieve the results you desire.
Rejection therapy – How to become comfortable with hearing the word NO. Seeing it as an obstacle instead of the end.
Up next …..
Big time success requires this one special ingredient.
Take action in your life.
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