This simple guide is about keeping ourselves focused on what we are trying to achieve. The assumption being where we have already spent some time working out what our current goals look like, the work that needs to be done to achieve them, and more importantly the support we need to successfully achieve our goals. These five steps now focus on our behaviour…and more importantly, what gets in our way!
1. It’s never about us
Having the right mindset is crucial to helping us take the first step towards any goal. If we are focused on ourselves the whole time, we can begin to create fear and barriers in our mind that stop us from acting.
“…Great people are those who make others feel that they, too, can become great…” – Mark Twain
When we shift our focus to serving others, we can overcome these fears stopping us from progressing. One of the biggest and most common fears is fear of failing. What is cool about failure is that it is progress, and without progress we cannot succeed. Had we not taken any action at all (from focusing on fear) we would not have the information now available to us about what doesn’t work for us. Realising that the most successful people in the world have often failed many many times, before realising their true purpose and becoming successful. Once we know what doesn’t work, we can review our approach and have another go. Tip: A great source of knowing what to change is to always ask people for feedback.
2. Stop chasing $
Perhaps you are feeling unfulfilled in your current job. You are feeling like you are ready to take on new challenges and earn more. Perhaps you are looking to move on, and you are unsure what kind of role you want to apply for. The trick is, stop chasing cash!
Any fans will know Gary V talks about this a lot:
“…doing things you love will lead to the things you want even when they don’t pay you what you THINK you need to get what you THINK you want…” Gary Vaynerchuk
Are you doing what you love right now? Asking these few questions may help:
- Do I believe in what the role does within the organisation I work for, or that I am looking to work for?
- Do I know what the values are of the organisation offering this role and do they align to mine?
- And more than this, how does this role contribute to where I want to end up in my career?
Where we are more focused on salary to determine whether we apply for a job, we are less focused on why we want to work for the organisation we are looking to work for. How can we expect to find fulfilment, job satisfaction and happiness if we have not spent time understanding whether the role and or the organisation is right for us?
Gary V believes being true to what we love will bring what we deserve in life. That salary alone will not bring us happiness. Owning and being true to our passions, will.
3. Do the work
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas Edison
Once we are clear on the goal, we can start to explore the best strategy for achieving the goal.
A great place to start for people trying something new is to model someone who has the success we want. Learn who that person/people are, research how they achieved their success and do that. Because it works else, they would not be successful, would they? Continuing to receive feedback from a safe place, can involve using a coach and a mentor to support our journey.
As we continue to practice and learn from our mentors, we can also continue to refine what we bring to the craft, and, in time, bring that to life.
4. Always add value
Be your own brand. You will be hard pushed to find an internet marketer these days who doesn’t have this message for their clients. To stand out in any marketplace, especially when its busy with competitors, we need to know a lot including who we are, what we are selling and who we are selling to.
When it comes to sales, success happens when there is more of a focus on what we bring than what we are trying to make in sales. Knowing what our market wants, and consistently adding value wherever possible helps build rapport and trust with prospective clients.
People are more interested in what we can offer them to make their lives better, then what we have done in the past. Yes, social proof is important but to make the biggest impact, in line with what we said at 1., we need to make it all about them.
5. Have patience
See 1-4 above… And then remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day! It took decades. There’s a famous rule by psychologist Malcolm Gladwell which says we will achieve success and becomes world class in any field when we deliberately practice a skill for at least 10,000 hours…or for 20hrs/week for 10 years. Deliberate practice is where we continually push ourselves to get better at the skill we are aiming to get better at. More recent studies and work by thought leaders suggest for mastery, it takes more than just practice. There needs to be stability in the environment, and this includes within ourselves.
When it comes to overcoming that which stands in our way of success, John DeMartini talks about primal responses where our brain reverts to primal survival techniques needed to seek (or hunt) and eat prey or avoid being eaten by predators:
“we fear the perception of loss of that which we seek and the perception of gaining that which we try to avoid”
Anything we associate with supporting what we seek, that aligns to our values, we will see as prey and anything that challenges us, we view as a predator, and we will try to avoid it.
Learning what we value most and what we want in our lives and discovering what we are trying to avoid, takes time. Being able to accept that fear will always be there (i.e. stop waiting for the ‘right time’ as it never arrives) and is a necessary survival function of our brain that helps protect us. Instead, spending time getting to know what our goal is, doing the work to help us achieve it, all whilst having patience while we master our skill will lead us towards successfully achieving the goal.