You don’t need to adopt dozens of new, difficult behaviors of “successful people” — you just need a few. And if you make just a few key behavioral changes, you’ll build momentum and confidence that you can reinvest in yourself to master new and better behaviors. Success doesn’t happen all at once — it’s a slow, gradual process that rewards those who can consistently follow the path.
You also don’t need a lot of time to develop these initial world-class behaviors, either. A couple of weeks will do. We’re not trying to transform your entire life overnight, we’re getting you to identify and adopt just a few key behaviors that will create the momentum you can use to continue the process. Because there’s no end to success, no limit or cap — you can go as high as you want. But it starts with developing a few world-class behaviors. Focus on Learning and Creating, Not Entertainment and Distraction There’s a lot you’ll need to learn on this journey you’re on. When I was a no-name blogger with dreams of being a big-time writer, I foolishly thought all I needed to master was “writing.” Now that I am a successful writer, I’m amazed at how many new skills I’ve needed to learn, like website design, email marketing, webinars, sales pitches, public speaking, relationship building, online course creation, scheduling software, and countless more. That’s why your first world-class behavior to master is to simply focus on learning and creating, not entertainment or distraction. You can learn a lot very quickly if you choose. If you play guitar 3 times a week, you might take a year or two to get pretty good. But play guitar 3 times a day, and you could become very skilled in a matter of weeks. You can only find these shortcuts by intense learning and creating, making mistakes, building your abilities as well as your confidence. But as long as you continue to focus on entertainment and distraction, you’ll always be stuck in first gear, unable to start gaining enormous momentum to break through mental barriers that you might’ve been carrying around for years. It’s difficult to remove yourself entirely from these distractions. Major corporations have an entire department of professionals whose sole job is to make you pay attention to their products. With the enormous influence of technology, social media, smartphones, and advertisements, it can feel a bit like living in a casino, where every little detail is designed to keep you focused on spending your money. It’s on you to say no to these distractions. The most effective response I’ve ever found to the endless tempting distractions is simply to imagine what my life will be like when I finally complete this journey — traveling the world, making more money than ever before, 100% in charge of my time and attention. That sounds much more appealing than watching another silly video online when I should be working. Ask Yourself Direct Questions That Force You To Gain Enormous Clarity One of the most common responses I get from my readers about all this is: I don’t know where to start! Getting clarity on your most important goals isn’t easy. You might be afraid you’ll choose the wrong thing, and become paralyzed by analysis. Maybe you’ve never known what you want to do, and have been stumbling into whatever job, relationship, or situation seemed the most convenient at the time. You need to ask yourself some direct, blunt questions about your life. I read a terrific article by Zak Slayback about gaining enormous clarity on these important things that I bookmarked and go back to sometimes. It’s a 20-minute writing exercise you can do today that will provide crystal-clear clarity on your most important goals. Here are the questions: Here are the questions: 1. I feel most unhappy when I… 2. I dread … 3. I am good at but do not particularly enjoy… 4. I cannot imagine doing … every day for the rest of my life. 5. I don’t understand why anybody would… 6. … does not appeal to me. Here are some of my answers that might help you with yours: 1. I feel most unhappy when I…
You actually don’t get to choose whether you need to sacrifice or not — you do. We all must sacrifice something. But you do get to choose what to sacrifice. This choice will affect the rest of your life. There was this funny-because-it’s-true joke in college that went like this: “Sleep, good grades, friends: you only get 2.” You had to sacrifice something. Everyone must sacrifice something. Make sure what you sacrifice isn’t costing you dearly. Sadly, most people are sacrificing the wrong thing — their potential, their relationships, their well-being, even their future. Instead of letting go of negative, toxic relationships, people cling to them. Instead of striving nobly to achieve an extraordinary career, people settle for their comfortable, mediocre jobs. You must sacrifice something — make sure you choose wisely. Years ago, I was working in one of the worst jobs I’d ever had — telemarketing. My boss was near-comic-book-villain level bad. I saw countless coworkers fired for not hitting sales quotas. I wanted out. But I had been complaining for months about it, calling friends and family to vent my frustrations. I wasn’t doing much about it. Finally, I mentioned my poor, sad situation to a friend of a friend — someone who didn’t really know me, and had the ability to be extremely blunt with me. He didn’t hold back on his feedback. “Look — it’s time to stop complaining. You need to get a new job, now. Cancel social obligations, stay in on the weekends, wake up early, whatever. But find a new job.” It stunned me. At first, I was angry and defensive. How can he say that! He doesn’t know me! He doesn’t know how hard this has been for me! He was inviting me to sacrifice something I didn’t want to let go of. Eventually, I saw his wisdom. I was sacrificing my happiness and emotional well-being working there — why not sacrifice some weekends and casual social hangouts for something that could change my entire career? So that’s what I did. I chose to stop hanging out with friends (for a time) while I busted my ass finding a new job. Within a few focused months of networking and meeting more people in different departments, I was offered a job that was infinitely better than telemarketing! It was higher-paying, I got to travel, help people, and most importantly, no more telemarketing calls! You must sacrifice something — that’s not up for debate. But you do get to choose what you sacrifice. In Conclusion Small choices have big results. Once you start making the right small choices, you’ll start seeing the results you actually want, and not the opposite. It’s time for you to start acting like people living a world-class life — in charge of their time, money, relationships, and choices. It starts with your behaviors. Once you consistently start making world-class choices — something you can start today — you’ll start seeing these behaviors grow into lasting characteristics of your life. You’ll become a disciplined, consistent, focused positive person with power and ability. For many people, the hardest part is just starting. Most people don’t know where to focus their time and energy, so they continue wasting time when they should’ve started long ago. Since most people have been making many foolish and unwise small choices, they’re see big, negative results in their life. Choose to adopt some new, world-class behaviors in life. They don’t have to be enormous — just big enough to start creating some momentum. Use that momentum. Reinvest in your life. Sacrifice the right things so you can achieve the life you want. Ready to Level-Up? If you want to become extraordinary and become 10x more effective than you were before, check out my checklist. Click here to get the checklist now! This article originally appeared on Medium.
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October 2024
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