Most people do not truly understand what it takes to become successful, I’m yet to complete that puzzle as well. But I do have a great understanding because of what I have learned from those who accomplished great success and what they did to get where they are today.
One of the things I have noticed over and over again, is that most successful people have all taken many of the same steps to achieve their success. One obvious factor is that they never gave up on their dreams or what they were striving for, but you would be surprised at how many other factors they all share.
In fact, whats more surprising is the amount of people who do not catch on to these factors and apply them into their own lives. You see, it’s not just about making money or finding your career. These steps and practices can be applied into any area of life. They can help you achieve your fitness goals, relationship goals, financial goals, and any other life goal you’re striving for. Once I started to dive into all these things that I knew would help me achieve success within my fitness career, everything else opened up and got a lot better. Even though my only intent was to create a great career and make lots of money, it brought so many more valuable things that I never expected. I can truly say my relationships with women has been better, my faith is better, my relationship with my family is much better, my peace of mind is at an all time high, my stress levels are lower than ever, I’m doing better than ever within my career, but most importantly I’m over all extremely happy.
Now I will not promise you every detail on how to become successful or that if you read my article it will lead to success, but I can hope that reading this will inspire you to try harder and look into the things I am about to talk about.
- DREAM BIG! To me this is the first step in accomplishing anything that’s worth fighting for. If you do not start out with a dream, then you do not have an intended destination. To me this is like running a race or marathon with no finish line, where are you running?! First thing you should do when starting on your dream is to write down what your dream is and the steps on how you will get there. This could be a 5-10 year plan, but you must write it down. Writing down your dream will do a few great things; it will hold you accountable to achieving that dream, writing down your dream helps you clarify what that dream is in detail, and it will also continually motivate you because you will always have the list. Once you’ve written down your initial dream your ready to start working towards it and the next thing to do is figuring out the steps and goals needed to get to the finish line.
- GOALS! This again could be a 5 year plan or last the next few months, all depends on what your initial dream is. Writing out your goals is one of the best things you can do, it helped me more than I would’ve ever imagined. I know many successful people who carry a daily, monthly, and yearly goal list in their pocket every day all day. I thought it was almost funny or corny until they pulled it out and checked off goals throughout the day, then I knew it was legit. Plus they also have their own company, family, nice cars and a very happy life, which is more than enough proof for me to start writing my goals out! Now maybe you do not have a big enough dream to have this many goals yet or it is a little more difficult for you to think of what your steps to get there are, that’s fine. First step in doing this practice is to write out your goals for the next day and/or month every night before you go to bed. This way you wake up ready to go with a list of accomplishments to conquer. I’ve been writing out my next day hour by hour every night for the last year and I can confidently say it helps me get so much more done that I would never leave this success step out of my plan. On top of it setting my next day up for success, it also gives me peace of mind at night. If your anything like me, then its tough to fall asleep when all you think about is the next day/week and what you need to get done.
Dreaming and writing your goals out go hand in hand, partially because they both need to be written out together but also because you cannot have one without the other. I consider myself a dream chaser, no doubt about that. I dream big and always have, but I also know that for my age I am way ahead of the game. This is because I dream big and decided to start chasing my dream young rather than holding back like most do. Anyone is capable of this whether young or old. Find your dream and go after it, no questions asked.
- READ! This could be the most powerful tool for people who become successful and also one of those factors that they ALL do. I used to be the type who hated reading and saw it as nearly pointless. Until I picked up a great book on training, I read it and learned a ton. Then I realized a bit of what books can do, so I bought another but this time on success. That book drove me to push harder in my career and from that point on I was sold on books. Then my mentor pointed out a very interested thing to me. He said, “Look at any successful or rich persons house or office, there’s books everywhere. I have yet to meet a successful person that doesn’t have a bookshelf FULL of books”. He was so right! Not to mention his desk, house, and office book shelf is completely stacked with books also. Books are full of words that will teach you things, make you think outside the box, lead you to different ideas and places, and overall help you create a much bigger knowledge base. If you cannot see how that would help create a successful life for you… then stop reading this because you do not want success.
Sometimes the biggest steps or factors to achieve great success are the simplest things, like giving 100% of your effort. Some people respond to that thinking, “Duh, I always give my all..”. But in most cases you probably could’ve done more
- 10x RULE! This is exactly what it sounds like, give 10x more effort than usual. This literally means asking yourself what more could I do? With everything you do, and then do it! The 10x rule can be applied into anything and everything in your life from physical, mental, relationship based, spiritual, etc. It is one of the most important things to do if you wanna achieve a level of greatness or reach success in any area of your life. Sometimes it really takes a long thought process to fully understand how much effort and work you will need to put in, just to create 10x more in what you’re doing. Go ahead…. think about it…. that’s a lot of work!! The key with this one is understanding how much effort it takes and being ok with the work you will need to put forward to accomplish that. Most likely you can look back on your life and find many times or areas that you could’ve easily put forth more effort and received better results from doing so. You must understand that there is not one single thing that will take you over the top and give you success, but its all the things put together with great effort that will lead to a successful life. I cannot say enough about the 10x rule as it has driven me to accomplish more and try so much harder in every single thing that I do. It also has made me truly realize that if I keep doing so with everything that I do in the long run, I will be more successful in my life. For more on this rule I would check out the book “The 10x Rule“, by far one of the best reads on success. I highly suggest getting this book ASAP if you truly want success.
This next step towards success is also quite simple, but most people would never think twice about it. Surround yourself with successful people. It’s as simple as that. Want to be rich? Hang with rich guys. Want to be strong and lift heavy shit? Hang with guys who do just that.
- SUCCESSFUL SURROUNDINGS! If you look at anyone who is successful, you’ll notice their friends are also successful. People who are striving for success and are dedicating the majority of their lives to mastering their craft do not hang out with anyone who is going to bring them down. Nobody wants to be around someone who is not moving forward. The key to life is to progress and move forward, therefore you must always be hungry for more. People who are at a stand still, usually are surrounded with others that are at the same point in life. People who are constantly progressing and seeing more success, are almost always surrounded with many others who are the same exact way. People adapt to their surroundings, this is not a new fact. So create the surrounding that you would like to adapt to and you will slowly learn more, think bigger, and create the life you are searching for.
“For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.” –Arnold Schwarzenegger
Ever since I can remember my parents have been telling me to be responsible, but I took it completely different then I should have. I always just thought that was another way for them to tell me, “Don’t do anything stupid”, right before I left the house. But now, I know what taking responsibility truly is.
- TAKE RESPONSIBILITY! Taking responsibility doesn’t just mean, don’t do stupid things. It means taking responsibility for every action you take and also every action placed upon you. Usually people get slightly confused at this point because I said, take responsibility of actions placed upon you. “So if I get rear ended, I take responsibility? But it wasn’t my fault!” People who are successful do not dwell on who did what or whose fault things may be. They take responsibility for the action, figure out how to fix it and then get over it. If you do not take responsibility and control of the situation, then you cannot truly move forward and grow from the situation. People who play the blame game never get far, this is because they are full of excuses. Excuses are just a way of getting out of something that is hard, well guess what?! Success is HARD! So start taking more control and responsibility over the situations placed upon you and I promise you will grow from this. The more you get used to doing this, the less you will be in negative moods or atmospheres.
Part of being successful is also the attitude you have and the way you say or think about things. This one is hard because you constantly have to listen to yourself and instantly correct yourself when your approaching things incorrectly.
- POSITIVE ATTITUDE! This to me means never saying no, I think, I’ll try, maybe, hopefully, or any other word that hinders your ability of achieving. The sooner you can start saying “I will” do this rather than “I’ll try”, you will accomplish so much more. I used to be pretty bad about saying “I’ll try” and things like that until my mentor started calling me out every single time I didn’t say “I will”. Once I got used to saying that more often, I started getting way more accomplished. This step is the simplest thing, but if you can apply it your attitude and drive towards success will become so much greater in the long run. Apply it ASAP!
Consistency is the last thing I will talk about, LAST but definitely not LEAST! This is the thing that wraps it all together, because if you don’t continue putting it all into practice then it will not take you very far.
- DO NOT STOP! The key to everything I have talked about in this article is to truly stay consistent with it all, for a long period of time. I just talked about how success is hard, well it takes time too. Success doesn’t happen overnight and it will take a lot of long days of hard work before you reach your goal. But if it’s a good goal that you truly want to achieve, it’s completely worth the struggle and the time you must put in. So make sure you understand what it will take before starting your mission, because once it has started you cannot stop until you reach your destination.
The definition of success is; the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. Therefore success does not necessarily mean having money or being rich, its more about figuring out what your purpose in life is and achieving that purpose. This is what makes life worth living and what keeps us moving forward. Many people mistake success for being rich, which slows them down from becoming successful, happy and eventually rich. Success may not mean being rich, but if you approach it properly then you will become rich in the aspect of money but also in many other aspects of life.
“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” – Bill Cosby
