On Success - Part 2
Part 2: Improving on each of these areas.
a) Self belief: If you already believe in yourself and your cause, great. When it comes to it, I think we need to view things from two different angles, inwards and outwards.
Inwards: Appreciate who you are and what you have achieved, but know you could be better. After all these years, I am still not necessarily proud of what I have achieved, because I know there is more to come and this has simply been a process to getting to where I need to. The only way to improve your self belief is to throw yourself into learning opportunities and moments, time and time again - learning from each experience and truly becoming better.
Outwards: Despite what happens to you, don’t look at the world as inherently negative - nor is it against you. Perceive yourself as responsible for all events and you can take something positive away from a negative EVERY SINGLE TIME.
-A point to make, don’t get this confused with self-confidence. Being over confident can be just as problematic as not being confident enough. It is a fine line
b) Long term planning, short term action: The only way to get a 100% result on the future is to get 1% executed consistently. This means looking big picture, knowing where you want to go (Or at least a general outcome if you haven’t got that figured out perfectly just yet - a lot of things are developed throughout the process) but acting on what matters most TODAY.
c) Self-reflection and analysis: You may have an idea of where you want to go, a vision and a process/plan, but how do you know it is right? There is no point working 10yrs straight on the idea you thought you should have been working on, rather than reflecting on your processes, goals and direction on a regular basis to ensure you are putting in the right amount of work, resources etc. Have you changed? Has your market changed? Have you refined a process? The only way to answer these questions is to regularly give yourself breathing space to step back, reflect and critique. Pen in time to do this regularly. From relationships to business - we should always be placing ourselves in front of a mirror to truly look at ourselves.
d) Self-development: You can’t sit still - I will never forget what my lecturers would say at the end of our courses and my degrees and it went something along the lines of “Don’t stop learning - what you know today will be obsolete in the coming years thanks to future research”. Weird to hear when you have just spent so many years studying and what you were taught in year one could technically already be redundant. What I have realised and seen first hand that differentiates success throughout life v success at some point in life is thirst for learning and desire to continue developing. The day you stop is the day you have signed on for retirement as far as I am concerned and that is one boring road. This can be outside of just work, career and business skills - it can be even for self-enjoyment. Just keep learning.
e) Humility: One of my favourite attitudes in life is to cop it on the chin. You will get things wrong and you can either never engage in anything or at least be willing to laugh at your failures as you learn. If you want to move forward you have to laugh through the pain and find some positivity in it if you are going to get better the next opportunity you get. You must have enough humility to point out when you were wrong otherwise you aren’t going to be able to handle it when others point these mistakes out for you.
Determination, persistence and grit - when it comes to these three things I think there is no other way to improve on them but to be in shitty situations and try get through them. Life can throw you these moments and you aren’t given a choice but to survive or thrive OR you can throw yourself in shitty situations by choice and see what you are made of. There is no getting around it - to have these three things you simply need to work and push and keep at it time and time again.
