There are many ways to define success. Entrepreneurs and business people spend years focusing on that often ever-elusive goal, continually searching for the magic solution or answer: that “thing” which will help them achieve the success they so desire. Admittedly, we all want to be successful in our lives. No matter what our career or personal aspirations may be, we all hope to attain an element of prestige, achievement, and fulfilment.

A major part of success involves never settling for less. I’d say it goes even further to include NEVER SETTLING. Great success depends on the will and drive of the person involved. No matter how much you believe luck and circumstances affect one’s chance at “making it”, this is far from the truth. I firmly believe we make our own luck, and we create our own destiny. The person most in charge of your success is YOU. Conversely, YOU are also the biggest obstacle preventing you from achieving that success.

So how does one reach the pinnacle? How can I become everything I desire in my life? How can I reach all my career and personal goals, and even go beyond my wildest dreams?

Simple. You must become allergic to the idea of being average. Mediocre “success”, satisfactory work, and substandard results CANNOT be enough for you. If they are, retrain your brain right now. You need to develop an allergy to average. Success depends on being extraordinary and outstanding. In a word full of mediocrity and “just enough” you must become exceptional. You must be and want MORE than enough.

Retrain Your Brain

“It’s important that you program your brain to reject negativity.”

If you’ve been accepting less than phenomenal from yourself and from your work, you must retrain your brain to reject this. Changing your brain and your ingrained habits is a difficult process, but with commitment and a focus on your new, higher standards, soon you will come to find yourself accepting only the best from yourself and others. In this way, you’ll be honing your allergy to average effort, average performance, and average results. With even the smallest tasks, invest 100% of yourself with the thought that you’ll accept nothing less than the best work of your life.

Further than becoming allergic to average, your brain also must be rewired to reject negativity. Extraordinary success cannot be obtained without real positive thinking; hard work and effort must be supported by optimism and determination. If you start looking at things in more positive terms, you will find that reaching your goals becomes easier. Your dreams seem more obtainable when you are looking through the eyes of positive self-trust and having faith in good outcomes.

Attracting What You Want

A major part of achieving success has to do with attracting that which you desire. A positive outlook, as I just described, will bring positive elements into your life. “As Eric Thomas said in his ‘Allergic To Average’ video, “I’m telling you to be great, because when you’re great, you attract great. When you’re average, you attract average.”  Part of becoming allergic to average means rejecting the average mindset and focusing on greatness. With the positive outlook and a determination towards greatness, you will help attract better and better things into your life—positive energy, people, and circumstances– which will set you up for success.

Becoming allergic to average will alter your behaviour and thoughts at the subconscious level, gradually changing everything you do to point you towards great success.

Eric Thomas – Allergic To Average

Really Doing the Work

Success means surmounting and overcoming obstacles and challenges. There will always be issues and problems, difficulties to be faced and dealt with. This is true not just of business, but of life itself. What you must do is fully accept that these challenges will present themselves so that you can be ready for them. Not only that, but you should actively head right toward the challenges, daring them to confront you.

“If you’re playing a video game and you’re not running towards your enemies or an obstacle, you’re running in the wrong direction.”

You can’t be afraid of hurdles that you’ll encounter. Rather, you must run towards them at full speed, holding onto the positivity you’ve incorporated into your brain, and putting in the maximum effort to leap over them with wild success. Because it isn’t only about believing you can do it, it’s about simply going forth AND DOING IT. Success comes to those who work their tails off in its pursuit.

There are ways of actively pursuing greatness. In my business, we aggressively invest in finding the best people to be part of our team as well as pursue the best software, resources, etc. We don’t settle for the best in any area of our work, and this makes us a stronger opponent to face any obstacle in our way.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Giving 100% effort is just enough. Giving more than that? Well, that’s success. Becoming allergic to average means never giving up, and working continuously until you’ve met (no, surpassed) your own great expectations. A song lyric comes to mind, from a great tune by Young the Giant called “My Body”: ‘my body tells me no/but I won’t quit, ‘cause I want more.’ This is how you have to feel in order to be truly successful. Even if your mind is rebelling and your body is exhausted, the truly successful person won’t stop. I find myself working crazy hours at times, but I feel great about it. Why? I know I’m helping provide my clients with services that exceed their expectations and will thrill them. I know I’m working to get them better results than they ever anticipated. This massive effort pays off and ends in total client satisfaction and continued business.

Success, to me, means never stopping, never resting on my laurels, and never being satisfied with just “okay.” A typical 9-5 schedule may be good enough, but it will only equate to results which are average. You’re allergic to that. Go above and beyond. Work the hardest of anyone you know. I tell you, those efforts will be repaid a hundredfold.

Don’t Be Forgotten

“What do you have to lose? You’re just going to die anyway. You may as well put in the effort to be remembered as someone who changed things and didn’t ever give up. That’s better than not being remembered.”

No one who is average is ever remembered. I mean that in a big sense. If you’re hoping to make history, you’d better be prepared to make waves in your industry and in your world. Remember that classic line “Well-behaved women seldom make history”? That can certainly be extended and moulded to be about business and success. This doesn’t necessarily mean you will overturn the status quo or change the way your industry works. But you will leave a lasting impact.

Doing work which is “good enough” or putting in effort that “gets the job done” is not a recipe for amazing success. Unless you’re okay with being average. But as we’ve learned today, average is definitely not satisfactory. If you are seeking true, real, life-changing success, you will have to retrain your brain and become allergic to that horrible word: AVERAGE.