[I dug this one up from my archives; originally posted in 2018]
In my career I have heard a few excuses as to why people are not achieving the success they want to have. Actually, it’s probably more like a few hundred excuses. There are so many, I could write a short book! But I believe they all boil down to one rather simple thing...
To help me explain, allow me to provide some context up front. Summer 2018 is just getting started. By far the most popular show is Game of Thrones. Chances are, you can probably tell me some of (if not all of) the characters on Game of Thrones. Further, ask yourself how many hours of TV you watch each week? Look, I’m not against watching TV. I’m sure you work very hard each day and you need that down time. I get it.
But let me ask you another question... can you rattle off the names of every C-Suite executive at your customer? Do you know the the top five problems your customer is trying to solve for? Do you spend the same amount of time watching TV as you do researching your customers, your industry, your potential career path? Are you spending more time watching TV than you spend reading or learning to improve yourself? If not, then it’s just not a priority for you.
"It all comes down to priorities..."
And I do not want to hear anything about how you know you’re a procrastinator and that and that you have trouble finishing things; trust me, I've used that excuse on myself before. At this point in my life, I don’t believe that one bit. I agree with what Eric Thomas once said, “It’s not about procrastination, it’s just not important enough to you!" If you want something bad enough, then you will put in the time... you will put in the effort... and you will grind through whatever hurdle is in front of you to get to what you want.
Tony Robbins also supports this point as has says, “you don’t get what you want... you get what you absolutely have to have!”. If you absolutely have to win that customer’s business... if you absolutely have to get that promotion... if you absolutely have to become what you want to become, it needs to become like air to you! It must become the thing that you absolutely have to have. It must be the thing that you are willing to prioritize over everything else. We all have commitments, we all have things we need to do and we all have the same twenty-four hours in a day. There is absolutely nothing different between you and Elon Musk or Mark Cuban or Jeff Bezos. They just chose to use their twenty-four hours a little different than you do.
You need to focus yourself. You need to become obsessed with whatever it is you want to accomplish. DECIDE... COMMIT... APPLY... REPEAT. Decide what is it you need to do. Commit to yourself and everyone around you that you are going to do everything possible to do/achieve what you need/want to do. Apply yourself every single day to the process of pursing what you need/want to do. Then do it again and again and again.
YES it will be hard. YES it will be difficult. YES it is absolutely worth it! There is no short cut. There is no magic pill. There is no overnight success. But allow me to share a small tip with you. Write down what you want to accomplish three times Put it where you sleep, where you brush your teeth and where you leave and enter your home the most often. If you look at it every day for 21 days... it will become a habit for you. It will become the thing you think about the most. It will become the thing you feel you need to move on. You will begin to chase after it like you it is the thing that provides everything you need; and that is when you will begin to see yourself making progress towards your dreams, your desires or your goals.
If you need help building your plan to crush it, I can help you... but only if you absolutely have to have it. Learn more here!