The 4 Steps To Success In Life And Business

How do you get to be good at anything? 

Doesn’t it take practice?

What does practice mean? 

It means doing something (taking action), experiencing partial success (partial failure if you are a glass-is-half-empty sort of person) and using that feedback to try again until you get it right.

It can be exhausting…but for those things we really want or have a passion to achieve, practice doesn’t seem so bad while in other cases it is pure torture.

So how then do you improve your chances of success…of setting meaningful objectives and then achieving them consistently?

Taking Action – Just Doing it

It starts with taking action doesn’t it?  Nothing ever happens without some forward motion.  Thinking, dreaming and planning is no substitute for “doing” – when you’re ready get things moving and good things will usually happen. 

Now using the example above though, there is something that come before taking action and that is knowing how to set your objectives in the first place that maximize your chance of success.

Do you remember a course in school that really sucked!

That it didn’t matter how hard you studied, you just couldn’t master it? 

Well everyone has them, and the reason is that we are passionate, care about and thus are good at different things.

In school we are taught to focus on our weaknesses, but in life we will do ourselves a huge favor by focusing on objectives and directions that are IN LINE with our passions and what we are good at…that is more than half the battle. 

But there is more – I believe there are two additional factors though that go hand-in-hand with planning for success and taking action. 

Having enough confidence to hit roadblocks and continue on…many people start out with a “just do it attitude, but quit at the first sign of things not going as planned – much of it comes from fear, some of it due to a lack of belief in themselves, that they will be able to handle the setback or rejection

Finally – the last piece of the “Success Puzzle” is how you pay attention to the outcome of just doing it.  One result of just doing it is to hit a brick wall and if you continue to do the same thing, you will continue to hit a brick wall.  The other option is to KNOW you are hitting a brick wall and next time, you do it differently until you get a result. 

So, have we nailed it?

Success is a combination of 4 important factors:

1. Aligning your goals with your strengths and passions
2. Taking Action – Just Doing It
3. Growing Your Self-Confidence To Handle Setbacks, Rejections and Interim Failure
4. Learning From Setbacks, Using Feedback To Re-Align Your Next Action

This success system maps pretty closely to every achievement I have had in my life, how about you?