The path to success is not a straight one, it is a winding road where adjustments must be made to continue moving in the right direction.
The 10 steps on the path to success.
- Written goals: You must have goals to both guide your big decisions in life and tell your subconscious what to move towards. The power of written goals is something few people ever use. The first step on the path to success is writing down what you want over the short-term and long-term in all areas of your life: health, relationships, finances, spiritually and in your career. You can’t start your journey without a map of the territory your travelling to.
- Model Success: To achieve your goals you need models of people who have already done what you want to do. Look at how they achieved it, what they did, what they read, the risks they took, and the systems they used. You must look for the principles and the context of their accomplishments. Use them as models to see what is possible, how much work and how long it took, and measure the cost.
- Count the Cost: Understand what it will take to achieve your goals, the time, work, energy, effort, education, and risk. Know the cost before you begin. Before you go any farther you must be willing to pay the price for the success you want. If you aren’t then the journey stops and you find something you are willing to pay the price for. If you are willing to pay the price tag keep going.
- Create a System: You need a systematic process that moves you closer to your goals each day. What do you need to do every day to be just a little closer to your goal? What should you read? Who should you study? What should you learn? How can you grow yourself into who you need to be? How can you grow your business, career, connections, work, or project in some way no matter how small. Compounding growth leads to huge accomplishments when done consistently.
- Work Hard: Each day you must do the needed work to move yourself toward your goals. This is the most difficult part that ends most people’s journey to their own goals. Work is what separates goals from just wishes, hopes, and dreams. Work is putting in the effort to take the actions needed to move closer and closer to achievement each day. If it were easy everyone would do it.
- Work Smart: Work alone is not enough, it must be working at the right things that matter. You need a feedback loop that allows you to see what moves you closer to your goals, what doesn’t, and what wastes your time and energy. You must track your progress and analytics and see the work that is meaningful. 80% of all results will likely come from just 20% of your actions, double down on what leads to results and stop doing what leads nowhere.
- Quantified Data: You need to study your competitors for what worked for them, their biggest successes and failures and the data behind them. In no time in history has more data been available to show what does and doesn’t work in any field or industry, MoneyBall is a great movie that teaches basic analytics and the use of data to optimize the value of money and time.
- Quality and Value: In whatever you do you must create and deliver quality and value to be successful. You must be giving more to your customers, audience, students, or in your relationships than you are taking from or costing them. Even with goals for yourself you need quality food, quality thoughts, and quality exercise for health goals as an example. The cost you are paying must be worth the value you are getting. The cost you ask from others must be less than the value you are delivering. If your product is crap nothing else matters in business, you fail. If value is not there then relationships, business partnerships, employee motivation, and customers will be brief as they go looking for better opportunities.
- Mindset: A positive mind and attitude can be an edge. Negativity can be a drain on your energy and ensure failure. If you don’t believe in yourself and your goal who else ever will? A growth mindset doesn’t guarantee success as there are many other variables but a negative mindset can almost guarantee failure.
- Perseverance: Quitting ensures failure, trying longer increases the probability of success. If you are on the right track then pursuing your goals and not stopping will continue to rise your probability of success until it reaches 100% one day. “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas Edison
If you know where you want to go, get on the path of success, and stay moving in the right direction, only time separates you from your goals.
