Aug 8, 2020
8 Rules to Succeed at Anything
Tactics that you can use to succeed at any goal, no matter how big or small.
Over the years, I’ve failed to reach my goals a lot, but at times I’ve succeeded. I’m always reviewing what has made the difference between succeeding and failing. The following points are the lessons that I have found to be the most important in contributing to my successes over the years.
Life isn’t fair. Forget the odds and do it anyway
Few people get everything handed to them. For the rest of us, the struggle is real. No one will give you what you want, and it certainly won’t come easy. On top of that, many people will give you a million reasons why you will fail. Don’t listen to those people. Those same people know the odds of winning the lottery, and yet they still play. Don’t let the odds get to you.
Luck comes to those that create it
I’ve known people that seemed incredibly lucky and others that seemed to have no luck at all. From what I can tell, the difference is that “lucky” people take more chances. I like to think of this phenomenon as a luck surface area. When you take a chance and follow up with that person who gave you their business card or take a risk on an opportunity, you add the amount of space where lucky things can happen.
Discipline pays dividends
Motivation is a fickle friend. Some days you are incredibly motivated, and everything goes great. Unfortunately, not every day can be like that. In my experience, succeeding at anything requires a lot of discipline. You would be surprised what you can accomplish if you focus on something for 30 minutes a day. Over long periods of time, the growth and progress act like compound interests. For example, if your goal is to learn guitar and get just 1% better every day by the end of the year, you will have grown over 3700%. So invest daily because discipline pays dividends.
Just Do It
I’ve worked on many different projects over the years, and on occasion, I’ve been guilty of endlessly planning. The problem is that I wasn’t doing it. If you want to accomplish anything, then at some point, you have to take action. Planning is a crucial step that you shouldn’t skip, but don’t spend so long planning that you fail to act.
Adopt a growth mindset
If you are going to accomplish anything, you’ll inevitably fail along the way. Unfortunately, we humans are pretty fragile creatures. So thinking of things like a failure as actual failure can be demotivating and keep us from seeing how we could improve our chances of success. With a growth mindset, failures become learning opportunities, and they begin to feel like the natural part of the process that they always have been. You can’t get to success without some failures and setbacks. So embrace the mistakes, learn from them, and move forward.
Set real goals
We’re all guilty of setting vanity goals. You don’t need to look any further than the average new year resolution to find them. Things like “I’m going to lose weight,” “I’m going to learn a new skill,” or “I’m going get a raise.” These all sound great, but they all lack one crucial ingredient, metrics. You will always fail if you don’t set measurable goals that you can clearly see and say that you either succeeded or failed. This is what I mean by real goals. By setting a value that you attach to your goal, you suddenly have an actual finish line. You can’t possibly succeed in accomplishing a goal if you don’t know exactly what the finish line looks like.
Find a mentor
Finding someone willing to give their time to invest in your success is incredibly rare and should be cherished. Once you do find a mentor, be prepared to do some real work. You can’t expect someone else to invest their time if you aren’t willing to invest your own. You won’t be sorry, though. A good mentor can exponentially increase the speed that you learn and grow. So go out and find someone that has already done what you want to do and see if they will mentor you. No one is going to seek you out to mentor you. Be proactive, and you’ll find that most people are willing to help.
Never give up
Starting is easy, but finishing isn’t. At the beginning of any project, inspiration, motivation, and excitement are at an all-time high. You literally can’t wait to get started, which can be great fuel for a little bit. Unfortunately, anything meaningful takes time, and that excitement eventually wears off. In my experience, most people quit halfway once they realize how much effort it’s actually going to take to finish. I wish I had a rosy suggestion here, but really you need to resolve to finish what you’ve started.
