Success Advice
4 Reasons Wildly Successful People Fail at School
Because you are on this website I’ll assume that at some point you’ve read inspiring stories of some of the world’s most successful people. In some cases, you may have been motivated or surprised to learn that more often than not, these game-changers, to some extent, failed in their school careers.
Big names like Sir Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison (the list goes on) are all part of the club. For a number of reasons, their choice to leave school sparked progress that led to unparalleled success in their chosen field.
This trend has been glamorized in recent years; where graduating school and university have become the norm, the stories of maverick business tycoons have sparked a non-conformist attitude in young entrepreneurs.
There’s an ongoing debate among solopreneurs as to whether college is worth it.
Through my own experience and researching successful ‘drop outs’, I’ve gathered the four main reasons why school isn’t a perfect fit for entrepreneurs:
1. All theory, no action
Granted, schools have gotten better at this. But for the most part, the little practical learning provided is still done in a heavily controlled environment. Alan Sugar once said ‘you can’t learn business out of a book. The most important thing is what experience you’ve amassed.’ The more real world action you take, the wiser you become and the more opportunities there are for you. A controlled learning environment simply doesn’t support that.
Education is mainly based around theory. By definition, you learn the ‘principles on which the practice of an activity is based.’ The schooling method is to learn for years and years, then when you finally reach adulthood, implement. By that time, due to disinterest and the fact you probably crammed for every exam, you would have forgotten most of what you learnt.
“A young man is a theory, an old man is a fact.” – E. W. Howe
The proper way is to put theory into practice as you learn. You wouldn’t learn the piano or guitar without playing it! It’s simple trial and error, review and repeat. That’s what successful people do; they try something and if it fails they learn from it. Which is probably why Steve Jobs ‘failed’ at elementary school.
In his words, ‘school was at fault for trying to make me memorize stupid stuff rather than stimulating me.’ When you have a desire to create something or make a difference, there is no time for debating, analyzing and pondering.
2. Failure is based on test results
During our time at school and university, our success is based on test results. Due to this, the level and quality of your qualifications can have a huge impact on your career, if you choose the employee route.
The mixture of test results and subsequent qualifications is a recipe for self-doubt and dissatisfaction. Independent and driven individuals refuse to be scared into going down a path they are not passionate just because it’s the ‘realistic’ option.
Instead they see failure as a positive thing, a tool for learning and analyzing to improve their methods. If Thomas Edison was given the task of creating the lightbulb as a school project rather than out of his own initiative, would he have tried so many times, or even have been allowed to keep trying after so many failed attempts?
The saying ‘don’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree’ springs to mind. School determines students’ success in a narrow range of abilities, but successful people judge themselves on their ability to persevere in doing what they love, not what they’re told to do.
3. School creates followers, not leaders
School should be a platform for students to discover and learn about their passions in order to create high performing individuals, and ultimately, leaders. It’s currently a platform to create followers (in other words, employees).
In fact, when I visited multiple business school open days, their selling points were the percentage of students who were employed after they’d graduated. Imagine that, an entrepreneurship course designed to put students into employment?!
Successful people develop at a young age into independent learners because school cannot stimulate their curiosity. Thomas Edison was seen as hyperactive and prone to distraction at school, deemed as ‘difficult.’ He went on to be home-schooled and very quickly developed a ‘voracious appetite for knowledge… a process for self-education and learning independently.’
“Leaders spend 5% of their time on the problem & 95% of their time on the solution. Get over it & crush it!” – Tony Robbins
You see, leaders seek knowledge to fuel their ambition. They do not bode well being fed selective information. Steve Jobs is a perfect example of this, as explained by the Dean of students at his university: ‘He refused to accept automatically received truths, and he wanted to examine everything himself.’
Followers are people who accept what they are told and do what they are told to do. Leaders, like Steve, develop their own opinions and use them to influence others.
4. They don’t have something to prove
Successful people never act on what is expected of them. They act on what they believe in and on what they are passionate about. Social ladders and school’s expectations can force a student into becoming someone they’re not. Successful people know exactly who they are and what they want.
In his biography, Richard Branson states that in his school, ‘your reputation – and ability to avoid being picked on – was helped enormously by your ability to score a goal.’ He was side-lined because he couldn’t play sport and wasn’t academic.
The pressure to submit to social norms is likely to create average performers because students tend to submit to school rules and their peers despite their beliefs, in order to be accepted. This hinders them from releasing their full potential.
In a letter to his father, he wrote ‘anything I do in life I want to do well and not half-heartedly.’ He pursued what he was passionate about despite what was expected of him. That kind of behavior is how individuals defy what is accepted and change the world.
As an entrepreneur, did school help teach you anything that you use today? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below!
Have you wondered how some people seem to have it all – the 6-figure pay check, a healthy and fit body and amazing relationships? On the other hand, others are successful in one aspect of our lives (perhaps we are happy with our careers) but there’s always something that’s missing – that strong body, that perfect someone or living a meaningful life.
I’ve personally experienced having a successful career but failed at having a healthy and strong body. When I finally succeeded at getting and staying healthy, I realized that there are two completely different approaches, both of which need to be mastered to find success in life – the goal-driven approach and the process-driven approach.
The Goal-Driven Approach
A goal-driven approach is one in which our goals themselves, are sufficient to motivate us to act until we achieve them. This works well for:
- Short-term goals lasting a few days or a few weeks, where we can see the end in sight and push ourselves to get there.
- Goals that are usually within or just outside our comfort zone.
- Goals that have some certainty of success at the end. For example, working overnight and acing the client presentation the next morning makes us feel proud of our achievement and gets us recognition from our boss.
This approach inherently rewards speed, agility and short bursts of intense work. We end up relying on quick wins or successes which make the task worth it and help us feel motivated to achieve our goals.
Most of us are very adept at using this approach because we’ve grown up in environments, traditional education and companies, which operate this way. Schools and universities set exams and corporate jobs require us to complete tasks upon which we get good grades or promotions.
When the Goal-Driven Approach Doesn’t Work
What a goal-driven approach doesn’t teach us though is how to approach long-term goals like staying healthy, having meaningful relationships or building our careers around our purpose in life.
- These goals are usually so big and so long-term that we don’t fully understand all the steps to reach them.
- They don’t have any immediate reward associated with them so our motivation to chase them decreases after the initial burst of inspiration. For example, it’s impossible to lose weight and keep it off by just eating healthy for a week.
- Because they are so long-term, any future action of ours can completely wipe out the gains made in the beginning of the process which is even more de-motivating. For example, a week of eating healthy can be wiped out by one night of bingeing.
- There is also no artificial sense of urgency like deadlines -so we need to find the motivation internally to engage in the task every day. If we ever try to impose timelines on these tasks, it only stresses us out and we compensate by completely sabotaging ourselves like eating an entire pack of cookies one fine night exhausted from a week of eating too little.
“If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” – Yogi Berra
The Process-Driven Approach
The process-driven approach breaks down our big goals into minute goals and creates a habit to execute these minute goals regularly.
Putting such a habit into place is simple. Just follow these four steps:
- Break down your big vision into multiple long-term goals all of which have to work together to make your big vision come true. For example, for your big goal of feeling healthy and fit, you may break it down into eating healthier, exercising regularly and sleeping more.
- Pick one of the goals to focus on, ideally the one you think will have the biggest payoff.
- Break this goal down into a series of simple activities that you can do without much effort. For example, let’s say you picked eating healthier as your priority goal. One of the activities that might be sabotaging you is your regular McDonald’s dinner on the way back from work. A simple activity that can replace this is to stop driving by McDonald’s if it’s triggering your craving and take a different route back home instead. This might take a little bit of willpower on the first day but as you get used to the new route over a couple of weeks, it’ll become an automatic habit.
- Once the first activity feels like a normal part of your day, stack on the second activity and so on. Similarly, once you’ve achieved the first goal, stack on the second, third and remaining goals to reach your long-term vision.
How to Succeed with the Process-Driven Approach
Though this seems simple in theory, there are two emotional and mindset changes needed to succeed with this method.
The first is to be patient – instead of focusing on the big shiny dream, measure progress against the habit that you’re trying to cultivate. Accept that seeing the big vision come true takes months and sometimes years. Our biggest Achilles heel is impatience and while this works well in academia and work, it backfires in building health and relationships because we end up taking short cuts that harm us long term.
The second is to build rewards into your process – Having rewards is the best way to motivate ourselves and makes our mini-habits easier to stick to. For example, if you don’t eat at McDonald’s then your reward could be having a spa massage at the end of the week.
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” – Thomas Jefferson
Find The Right Balance
At the end of the day, we need to master both goal-driven and process-driven approaches to succeed. Use the goal-driven approach for short-term goals or when you need a burst of energy to push you through a task. Use the process-driven approach for long-term lifestyle change journeys such as getting healthier, having more meaningful relationships or pursuing a career that resonates with your purpose in life. In this way, you too can soon be the person who seems to magically “have it all”.
What are you doing today to reach success later on? Let us know your tips in the comments below!
Success Advice
You Don’t Have To Listen To Every Bit Of Career Feedback. Some People Just Don’t Get You And That’s Fine!
I recently got rejected from what I thought was a fantastic career opportunity. I was told that I was “Not entrepreneurial enough.”
Those that know me well know that it’s probably one of the few things I’m good at. Many of my mentors who I told this story to laughed out loud.
These three words were career feedback and I was always led to believe that to ignore this feedback would be ignorant and stupid.
I pondered that thought for a few days and then had a revelation: “I don’t have to listen to every bit of feedback I get.”
Pissed off is a natural first reaction.
That’s how I felt after someone told me I was crap at the very thing I love and have dedicated most of my time to. Our brain wants to be angry and fight back. Our first reaction, though, is often not what we should pay attention to.
“Empty space and time to reflect is how we process career feedback for what it really is: an opinion”
Don’t let your first reaction dominate how you think about the feedback. Maturity that can come at any age will show you to question everything – even your reaction.
Some people just don’t get you.
You’re not their type, they don’t like you, you speak a different language or you may have different values. Not everyone is going to get you and what you stand for and that’s okay. In my case, I didn’t connect.
Buying into the circus that is me is not for everyone. If you don’t like vulnerability or breaking comfort zones, then you probably won’t like me.
If you’re not obsessed with big goals, doing the impossible and trying to improve just a little bit every day, then you probably won’t like me.
That’s okay and I forgive you. I don’t have all the answers and I’m far from perfect – like the rest of us.
Learn to accept that some people will never get you and what you’re about.
That realization is how we overcome career feedback that we may not agree with.
Sometimes it’s any excuse. The real answer is something different.
Feedback can be disguised by the truth. The truth is maybe there was someone else the whole time and I never had a chance at this career opportunity. Maybe it wasn’t me at all.
Sometimes feedback is given because the real reason is much harder to deliver. It’s not easy to say “Tim, thanks but we hired someone else and you were never in the running.”
Admitting you never even had a chance is something many of us would never want to say. Being brutally honest takes courage, and courage is not everyone’s kind of kebab with garlic sauce on top, sprinkles and chili flakes.
We all get rejected.
I nearly forgot this fact. Everyone gets rejected. In fact, right now, someone is being rejected.
Rejection is not limited to you and me; learning to deal with it will only help us, not hinder our ability to achieve success in any field.
“We’ve all got 99 problems and thinking you’re special will only create more pointless thoughts that won’t serve you or your goals”
You’re responsible.
The thing about career feedback is that you have to take responsibility. Maybe in my case, I didn’t deliver the message of how obsessed and skilled I am at entrepreneurship. Maybe I could have done a better job at explaining my entrepreneurial background and passion.
It’s highly likely that I am entrepreneurial enough for this career opportunity and that it’s not a lack of skill at play here but a lack of effective communication.
“Responsibility always trumps the blame game and it helps us grow more as a person”
There’s always one lesson.
Mine was to develop more skills in strategy.
Let’s stop for one second: I hate the word strategy. The other career feedback I got was to do more strategy yet that’s not a skill of mine and I have no desire to do lots of that in my career.
The key here is that there’s always a lesson from all feedback and it might not be the intended lesson that the giver left you with.
There’s either a great lesson in the feedback or a reminder in the feedback of what you stand for. Don’t let any feedback compromise your values and who you are.
You are good enough.
You just have to believe in yourself and eventually, the right opportunity will find you.
Don’t give up your hopes and dreams because of one rejection. Interrupt the story in your head that plays on repeat and focuses on anger towards another person.
Replace that story with thoughts of how you can do better and get to the next opportunity.
Through rejection and bad career feedback, you find your way to what you’ve always wanted. That’s the hack and it works.
I’m off to suck up the rejection and take my own advice. Much respect.
If you want to increase your productivity and learn some more valuable life hacks, then join my private mailing list on timdenning.net
Failure is a part of life and it’s nothing to be ashamed of because the most highly successful people are the ones who have experienced failures the most in their life. The general public usually learns about people and their work when they become successful but only a handful of people know about the immense struggles that those people have gone through. Unfortunately, we do not have the stories of their failures to which we can relate our own setbacks and this is why we perceive failure to be a bad thing.
People are afraid of failure because, from a very young age, they are taught that making mistakes and being wrong is a bad thing so when a person suffers from a failure, it’s possible for that person to experience some form of depression. It is important for you to understand failure is a way for you to learn and move on from the experience. It is literally impossible to live life forever without failing at something, unless you live your life so carefully that you forget to live at all.
Here are 6 lessons that you should embrace that will change in your life:
1. Keep Your Expectations Low
When it comes to life, people often expect things like family, business, and marriage to be constant and consistent throughout the years. However, this is not the case because life is not that simple and there are always ups and downs which you need to confront.
Having low expectations is totally understandable and justifiable but having high expectations from relationships and businesses could prove to be harmful if those things don’t last forever. In addition to this, keeping your expectations low helps you accept whatever comes from the situation. High expectations tend to result in disappointment, pain, and loss, so it’s better for you to have low expectations, yet continue to work hard with what you are doing.
2. Acknowledge the Change
Most of the time, people think they may not experience change at all in their life because they are expecting things to last forever, but little do they know that change is always waiting to take place and can happen at any point in time. Acknowledging change means you’re fully aware of the situation and this will help when change occurs and you move from the stage of shock to acceptance.
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” – Charles Darwin
3. Accept the Change
The acceptance of change can be difficult and you might resist it at first, but you need to understand the fact that accepting the change will help you make the necessary adjustments that you need in your life. Preventing and stopping the change from happening can prove to be disastrous for you because you are rejecting the fact that the situation has changed and are still living in the past.
Things turn out to be different from the way you expected them to be and this is completely fine because you will be able to deal with the change more effectively by embracing the new situation.
4. Learn from Your Past
Once you accept the change and are ready to embrace it, it will start making sense and you will find lessons from which you can learn a lot. It is important to learn from your previous mistakes because learning and moving on eliminates the probability of you making those mistakes again in future.
5. Grow Stronger than Before
Accepting, embracing and learning from the change makes you stronger and better than you were in the past. The ability to learn from your past makes you a better person who is able to deal with the changes more easily and is able to move on without having any regrets in life. Moreover, this change will take away the fear of making new adjustments in life.
“Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later.” – Bob Goff
6. Acknowledge the Wisdom and Embrace it
The more you permit change to happen in your life, the better you grow as an individual. Embracing the wisdom will bring new found energy and strength into your life with inner peace and calmness. Embracing the change proactively and accepting it as a part of your life will result in you being calmer and stronger than ever. Change is not your enemy but the greatest teacher from whom you will learn most of your life lessons.
It is worth mentioning that during the process of accepting change, you need to be brutally honest with yourself because most people are in denial and fail to realize the real reason behind the change. It is insane to repeat the same mistakes again and again with the expectations of a different result. So, if you do not learn from your mistakes, you are doomed to fail again.
Failure can find you again, but if the situation is different from the previous one, then it’s just another experience. You need to stand up after you fall since you cannot stop problems from occurring in your life. What you can do is handle them in a more strategic way.
Problems are a part of your journey, however, the important thing is to keep your eyes on the final destination. Once you reach your final destination, you will realize that all those problems you faced were totally worth the success.
Failure is the one who falls and never stands back up. When you stand back up and keep on trying to achieve what you want, you’re not a failure but a winner in life. So, never lose hope and always look for the positive side, even in the toughest of situations because this is what successful people do.
How do you embrace change and keep pushing forward in life? Let us know in the comments below!
With so many demands on our time, energy, wallet from work, family and friends, figuring out what makes you happy and going after it can be a challenge. If you don’t prioritize your happiness, nobody else will. These five simple hacks will help you supercharge your happiness so you can avoid burnout, overwhelm, and going to that second cousin twice removed’s barbeque just because you “should.”
1. Schedule plenty of YOU time into your week
Let’s face it, most of our lives revolve around other people. Work, friends, spouses and partners, family, etc., the majority of our day requires us to interact with other people and that can be really exhausting. It’s important to schedule at least an hour a day – and more if you can – of YOU time into your calendar to take care of yourself.
Doing things that you enjoy, whether that’s listening to a podcast, reading, or working out, and doing them alone allows you to reconnect to who you are and have something positive to look forward to every single day.
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” – Ludwig Jacobowski
2. Make “no” the most important word in your vocabulary
Making other people happy is something that we all want. It feels good to help someone out or make their lives easier. The problem is that we often sacrifice our own well-being when we say “yes” too much, especially for opportunities, work, or interactions that don’t personally fulfill us.
So whether it’s with friends, co-workers, or colleagues, learning to say no not only increases your productivity, but also your quality of life. When you set clear boundaries for the things that you don’t want and won’t accept, it leaves more room for the people and experiences that do make you happy. And remember: You don’t owe anyone an explanation if you say no to them.
3. Create a “shake the day off” routine
Even the happiest people go through stressful periods. One of the biggest issues that leads to serial unhappiness, burnout, and chronic stress is not having a release to clear out the stress that’s built up over the course of the day.
So once you’ve closed your laptop or walked through the door, it’s important to have a routine that you do that helps you get everything you’ve been bottling up off your chest. Whether that’s playing loud music and ranting for 10 minutes, spending 20 minutes with a partner where you both get to talk about the stresses of the day, or just putting on your favorite playlist and dancing it out, it’s crucial to give your mind and your body the opportunity to let go of stress on a consistent basis.
Having a place to channel negative emotion at the end of the day will help you move through the emotions, honor them, and not dwell on them incessantly. And if you had an absolutely amazing day, flip your routine on its head – spend 10 minutes celebrating.
4. Do a closet purge
Our closets hold a lot of memories – good and bad, and they tend to be where we hoard a lot of emotional baggage, both metaphorically and literally. Go through your closet and find your favorite outfits that you wear currently, whether it’s sweatpants and a t-shirt or a really well-tailored outfit, that’s your starting point.
Everything in your closet and drawers should make you feel that amazing. So get rid of any clothes that are too big or too small, any emotionally-charged pieces of clothing (for example, if you’ve still got your wedding outfit after a divorce, donate it), or anything that doesn’t represent who you are.
Your style is an opportunity to make a statement about who you are and the clothes you wear should boost your mood. Even if you’re a minimalist, you should be proud of the quality of your pieces and how they fit.
“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.” – Dale Carnegie
5. Get up close and personal with your bank account every day
Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it does give you options. So many people have a fear of money and they avoid it like the plague. Checking their bank balance is their least favorite to do, they hate paying bills, and they avoid opening mail or screen phone calls to make sure it’s not the bank.
Facing the reality of your money situation, whether it needs fixing or it’s great, will only help you improve it. You can also seek the advice of a financial planner at your bank to help you with this and create a plan to shift your situation. You might have more options available than you know.
Getting clear about the gap between your spending and your income can help push you to start looking for that job or new opportunity that you’ve been procrastinating on. Tracking your finances on a daily or weekly basis can help you come up with creative solutions to make more money and provide yourself with more options for financial freedom.
Maybe you’re paying for cable, Netflix, and Hulu, but it’d be more cost effective to just get Netflix and HBO Go because that’s all you ever watch anyways. You’ll never know where more options are hiding until you get up close and personal with the reality of your financial situation.
Comment below with the happiness-boosting tip that you’ll be implementing today!
5 Simple Ways to Supercharge Your Happiness
6 Important Lessons That Will Lead You to Success
Here Are 4 Reasons Why You Need to Know Your Entrepreneurial Type
4 Simple Questions to Ask Yourself That Will Supercharge Your Success This Year
Struggling With Procrastination and Self-Doubt? Here’s How to Overcome Both
2 Secret Roads to Success – Why Some People Have It All and How You Can Too
How To See What You’re Truly Capable Of Becoming And Then Becoming It.
5 Ways to Realize Your Authentic Self
You Don’t Have To Listen To Every Bit Of Career Feedback. Some People Just Don’t Get You And That’s Fine!
3 Principles Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know
-
Success Advice4 days ago5 Simple Ways to Supercharge Your Happiness
-
Success Advice3 days ago6 Important Lessons That Will Lead You to Success
-
Entrepreneurs3 weeks agoHere Are 4 Reasons Why You Need to Know Your Entrepreneurial Type
-
Success Advice1 week ago4 Simple Questions to Ask Yourself That Will Supercharge Your Success This Year
-
Motivation4 weeks agoStruggling With Procrastination and Self-Doubt? Here’s How to Overcome Both
-
Life4 weeks ago3 Exercises That Can Help You Destroy Your Mental Roadblocks
-
Life3 weeks ago3 Powerful Ways to Help You Unleash the Champion Mindset
-
Success Advice2 weeks ago3 Reasons Why Personal Branding Can Impact the Success of Your Career
Success Advice
2 Secret Roads to Success – Why Some People Have It All and How You Can Too
Have you wondered how some people seem to have it all – the 6-figure pay check, a healthy and fit body and amazing relationships? On the other hand, others are successful in one aspect of our lives (perhaps we are happy with our careers) but there’s always something that’s missing – that strong body, that perfect someone or living a meaningful life. (more…)
-
Oh! Ollie, you are absolutely right here. I’ve already shared this on my FB page that my intelligent friends can realize why I failed at elementary school but now become a successful leader!
Have you wondered how some people seem to have it all – the 6-figure pay check, a healthy and fit body and amazing relationships? On the other hand, others are successful in one aspect of our lives (perhaps we are happy with our careers) but there’s always something that’s missing – that strong body, that perfect someone or living a meaningful life.
I’ve personally experienced having a successful career but failed at having a healthy and strong body. When I finally succeeded at getting and staying healthy, I realized that there are two completely different approaches, both of which need to be mastered to find success in life – the goal-driven approach and the process-driven approach.
The Goal-Driven Approach
A goal-driven approach is one in which our goals themselves, are sufficient to motivate us to act until we achieve them. This works well for:
- Short-term goals lasting a few days or a few weeks, where we can see the end in sight and push ourselves to get there.
- Goals that are usually within or just outside our comfort zone.
- Goals that have some certainty of success at the end. For example, working overnight and acing the client presentation the next morning makes us feel proud of our achievement and gets us recognition from our boss.
This approach inherently rewards speed, agility and short bursts of intense work. We end up relying on quick wins or successes which make the task worth it and help us feel motivated to achieve our goals.
Most of us are very adept at using this approach because we’ve grown up in environments, traditional education and companies, which operate this way. Schools and universities set exams and corporate jobs require us to complete tasks upon which we get good grades or promotions.
When the Goal-Driven Approach Doesn’t Work
What a goal-driven approach doesn’t teach us though is how to approach long-term goals like staying healthy, having meaningful relationships or building our careers around our purpose in life.
- These goals are usually so big and so long-term that we don’t fully understand all the steps to reach them.
- They don’t have any immediate reward associated with them so our motivation to chase them decreases after the initial burst of inspiration. For example, it’s impossible to lose weight and keep it off by just eating healthy for a week.
- Because they are so long-term, any future action of ours can completely wipe out the gains made in the beginning of the process which is even more de-motivating. For example, a week of eating healthy can be wiped out by one night of bingeing.
- There is also no artificial sense of urgency like deadlines -so we need to find the motivation internally to engage in the task every day. If we ever try to impose timelines on these tasks, it only stresses us out and we compensate by completely sabotaging ourselves like eating an entire pack of cookies one fine night exhausted from a week of eating too little.
“If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” – Yogi Berra
The Process-Driven Approach
The process-driven approach breaks down our big goals into minute goals and creates a habit to execute these minute goals regularly.
Putting such a habit into place is simple. Just follow these four steps:
- Break down your big vision into multiple long-term goals all of which have to work together to make your big vision come true. For example, for your big goal of feeling healthy and fit, you may break it down into eating healthier, exercising regularly and sleeping more.
- Pick one of the goals to focus on, ideally the one you think will have the biggest payoff.
- Break this goal down into a series of simple activities that you can do without much effort. For example, let’s say you picked eating healthier as your priority goal. One of the activities that might be sabotaging you is your regular McDonald’s dinner on the way back from work. A simple activity that can replace this is to stop driving by McDonald’s if it’s triggering your craving and take a different route back home instead. This might take a little bit of willpower on the first day but as you get used to the new route over a couple of weeks, it’ll become an automatic habit.
- Once the first activity feels like a normal part of your day, stack on the second activity and so on. Similarly, once you’ve achieved the first goal, stack on the second, third and remaining goals to reach your long-term vision.
How to Succeed with the Process-Driven Approach
Though this seems simple in theory, there are two emotional and mindset changes needed to succeed with this method.
The first is to be patient – instead of focusing on the big shiny dream, measure progress against the habit that you’re trying to cultivate. Accept that seeing the big vision come true takes months and sometimes years. Our biggest Achilles heel is impatience and while this works well in academia and work, it backfires in building health and relationships because we end up taking short cuts that harm us long term.
The second is to build rewards into your process – Having rewards is the best way to motivate ourselves and makes our mini-habits easier to stick to. For example, if you don’t eat at McDonald’s then your reward could be having a spa massage at the end of the week.
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” – Thomas Jefferson
Find The Right Balance
At the end of the day, we need to master both goal-driven and process-driven approaches to succeed. Use the goal-driven approach for short-term goals or when you need a burst of energy to push you through a task. Use the process-driven approach for long-term lifestyle change journeys such as getting healthier, having more meaningful relationships or pursuing a career that resonates with your purpose in life. In this way, you too can soon be the person who seems to magically “have it all”.
What are you doing today to reach success later on? Let us know your tips in the comments below!
Success Advice
You Don’t Have To Listen To Every Bit Of Career Feedback. Some People Just Don’t Get You And That’s Fine!
I recently got rejected from what I thought was a fantastic career opportunity. I was told that I was “Not entrepreneurial enough.”
Those that know me well know that it’s probably one of the few things I’m good at. Many of my mentors who I told this story to laughed out loud.
These three words were career feedback and I was always led to believe that to ignore this feedback would be ignorant and stupid.
I pondered that thought for a few days and then had a revelation: “I don’t have to listen to every bit of feedback I get.”
Pissed off is a natural first reaction.
That’s how I felt after someone told me I was crap at the very thing I love and have dedicated most of my time to. Our brain wants to be angry and fight back. Our first reaction, though, is often not what we should pay attention to.
“Empty space and time to reflect is how we process career feedback for what it really is: an opinion”
Don’t let your first reaction dominate how you think about the feedback. Maturity that can come at any age will show you to question everything – even your reaction.
Some people just don’t get you.
You’re not their type, they don’t like you, you speak a different language or you may have different values. Not everyone is going to get you and what you stand for and that’s okay. In my case, I didn’t connect.
Buying into the circus that is me is not for everyone. If you don’t like vulnerability or breaking comfort zones, then you probably won’t like me.
If you’re not obsessed with big goals, doing the impossible and trying to improve just a little bit every day, then you probably won’t like me.
That’s okay and I forgive you. I don’t have all the answers and I’m far from perfect – like the rest of us.
Learn to accept that some people will never get you and what you’re about.
That realization is how we overcome career feedback that we may not agree with.
Sometimes it’s any excuse. The real answer is something different.
Feedback can be disguised by the truth. The truth is maybe there was someone else the whole time and I never had a chance at this career opportunity. Maybe it wasn’t me at all.
Sometimes feedback is given because the real reason is much harder to deliver. It’s not easy to say “Tim, thanks but we hired someone else and you were never in the running.”
Admitting you never even had a chance is something many of us would never want to say. Being brutally honest takes courage, and courage is not everyone’s kind of kebab with garlic sauce on top, sprinkles and chili flakes.
We all get rejected.
I nearly forgot this fact. Everyone gets rejected. In fact, right now, someone is being rejected.
Rejection is not limited to you and me; learning to deal with it will only help us, not hinder our ability to achieve success in any field.
“We’ve all got 99 problems and thinking you’re special will only create more pointless thoughts that won’t serve you or your goals”
You’re responsible.
The thing about career feedback is that you have to take responsibility. Maybe in my case, I didn’t deliver the message of how obsessed and skilled I am at entrepreneurship. Maybe I could have done a better job at explaining my entrepreneurial background and passion.
It’s highly likely that I am entrepreneurial enough for this career opportunity and that it’s not a lack of skill at play here but a lack of effective communication.
“Responsibility always trumps the blame game and it helps us grow more as a person”
There’s always one lesson.
Mine was to develop more skills in strategy.
Let’s stop for one second: I hate the word strategy. The other career feedback I got was to do more strategy yet that’s not a skill of mine and I have no desire to do lots of that in my career.
The key here is that there’s always a lesson from all feedback and it might not be the intended lesson that the giver left you with.
There’s either a great lesson in the feedback or a reminder in the feedback of what you stand for. Don’t let any feedback compromise your values and who you are.
You are good enough.
You just have to believe in yourself and eventually, the right opportunity will find you.
Don’t give up your hopes and dreams because of one rejection. Interrupt the story in your head that plays on repeat and focuses on anger towards another person.
Replace that story with thoughts of how you can do better and get to the next opportunity.
Through rejection and bad career feedback, you find your way to what you’ve always wanted. That’s the hack and it works.
I’m off to suck up the rejection and take my own advice. Much respect.
If you want to increase your productivity and learn some more valuable life hacks, then join my private mailing list on timdenning.net
Failure is a part of life and it’s nothing to be ashamed of because the most highly successful people are the ones who have experienced failures the most in their life. The general public usually learns about people and their work when they become successful but only a handful of people know about the immense struggles that those people have gone through. Unfortunately, we do not have the stories of their failures to which we can relate our own setbacks and this is why we perceive failure to be a bad thing.
People are afraid of failure because, from a very young age, they are taught that making mistakes and being wrong is a bad thing so when a person suffers from a failure, it’s possible for that person to experience some form of depression. It is important for you to understand failure is a way for you to learn and move on from the experience. It is literally impossible to live life forever without failing at something, unless you live your life so carefully that you forget to live at all.
Here are 6 lessons that you should embrace that will change in your life:
1. Keep Your Expectations Low
When it comes to life, people often expect things like family, business, and marriage to be constant and consistent throughout the years. However, this is not the case because life is not that simple and there are always ups and downs which you need to confront.
Having low expectations is totally understandable and justifiable but having high expectations from relationships and businesses could prove to be harmful if those things don’t last forever. In addition to this, keeping your expectations low helps you accept whatever comes from the situation. High expectations tend to result in disappointment, pain, and loss, so it’s better for you to have low expectations, yet continue to work hard with what you are doing.
2. Acknowledge the Change
Most of the time, people think they may not experience change at all in their life because they are expecting things to last forever, but little do they know that change is always waiting to take place and can happen at any point in time. Acknowledging change means you’re fully aware of the situation and this will help when change occurs and you move from the stage of shock to acceptance.
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” – Charles Darwin
3. Accept the Change
The acceptance of change can be difficult and you might resist it at first, but you need to understand the fact that accepting the change will help you make the necessary adjustments that you need in your life. Preventing and stopping the change from happening can prove to be disastrous for you because you are rejecting the fact that the situation has changed and are still living in the past.
Things turn out to be different from the way you expected them to be and this is completely fine because you will be able to deal with the change more effectively by embracing the new situation.
4. Learn from Your Past
Once you accept the change and are ready to embrace it, it will start making sense and you will find lessons from which you can learn a lot. It is important to learn from your previous mistakes because learning and moving on eliminates the probability of you making those mistakes again in future.
5. Grow Stronger than Before
Accepting, embracing and learning from the change makes you stronger and better than you were in the past. The ability to learn from your past makes you a better person who is able to deal with the changes more easily and is able to move on without having any regrets in life. Moreover, this change will take away the fear of making new adjustments in life.
“Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later.” – Bob Goff
6. Acknowledge the Wisdom and Embrace it
The more you permit change to happen in your life, the better you grow as an individual. Embracing the wisdom will bring new found energy and strength into your life with inner peace and calmness. Embracing the change proactively and accepting it as a part of your life will result in you being calmer and stronger than ever. Change is not your enemy but the greatest teacher from whom you will learn most of your life lessons.
It is worth mentioning that during the process of accepting change, you need to be brutally honest with yourself because most people are in denial and fail to realize the real reason behind the change. It is insane to repeat the same mistakes again and again with the expectations of a different result. So, if you do not learn from your mistakes, you are doomed to fail again.
Failure can find you again, but if the situation is different from the previous one, then it’s just another experience. You need to stand up after you fall since you cannot stop problems from occurring in your life. What you can do is handle them in a more strategic way.
Problems are a part of your journey, however, the important thing is to keep your eyes on the final destination. Once you reach your final destination, you will realize that all those problems you faced were totally worth the success.
Failure is the one who falls and never stands back up. When you stand back up and keep on trying to achieve what you want, you’re not a failure but a winner in life. So, never lose hope and always look for the positive side, even in the toughest of situations because this is what successful people do.
How do you embrace change and keep pushing forward in life? Let us know in the comments below!
With so many demands on our time, energy, wallet from work, family and friends, figuring out what makes you happy and going after it can be a challenge. If you don’t prioritize your happiness, nobody else will. These five simple hacks will help you supercharge your happiness so you can avoid burnout, overwhelm, and going to that second cousin twice removed’s barbeque just because you “should.”
1. Schedule plenty of YOU time into your week
Let’s face it, most of our lives revolve around other people. Work, friends, spouses and partners, family, etc., the majority of our day requires us to interact with other people and that can be really exhausting. It’s important to schedule at least an hour a day – and more if you can – of YOU time into your calendar to take care of yourself.
Doing things that you enjoy, whether that’s listening to a podcast, reading, or working out, and doing them alone allows you to reconnect to who you are and have something positive to look forward to every single day.
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” – Ludwig Jacobowski
2. Make “no” the most important word in your vocabulary
Making other people happy is something that we all want. It feels good to help someone out or make their lives easier. The problem is that we often sacrifice our own well-being when we say “yes” too much, especially for opportunities, work, or interactions that don’t personally fulfill us.
So whether it’s with friends, co-workers, or colleagues, learning to say no not only increases your productivity, but also your quality of life. When you set clear boundaries for the things that you don’t want and won’t accept, it leaves more room for the people and experiences that do make you happy. And remember: You don’t owe anyone an explanation if you say no to them.
3. Create a “shake the day off” routine
Even the happiest people go through stressful periods. One of the biggest issues that leads to serial unhappiness, burnout, and chronic stress is not having a release to clear out the stress that’s built up over the course of the day.
So once you’ve closed your laptop or walked through the door, it’s important to have a routine that you do that helps you get everything you’ve been bottling up off your chest. Whether that’s playing loud music and ranting for 10 minutes, spending 20 minutes with a partner where you both get to talk about the stresses of the day, or just putting on your favorite playlist and dancing it out, it’s crucial to give your mind and your body the opportunity to let go of stress on a consistent basis.
Having a place to channel negative emotion at the end of the day will help you move through the emotions, honor them, and not dwell on them incessantly. And if you had an absolutely amazing day, flip your routine on its head – spend 10 minutes celebrating.
4. Do a closet purge
Our closets hold a lot of memories – good and bad, and they tend to be where we hoard a lot of emotional baggage, both metaphorically and literally. Go through your closet and find your favorite outfits that you wear currently, whether it’s sweatpants and a t-shirt or a really well-tailored outfit, that’s your starting point.
Everything in your closet and drawers should make you feel that amazing. So get rid of any clothes that are too big or too small, any emotionally-charged pieces of clothing (for example, if you’ve still got your wedding outfit after a divorce, donate it), or anything that doesn’t represent who you are.
Your style is an opportunity to make a statement about who you are and the clothes you wear should boost your mood. Even if you’re a minimalist, you should be proud of the quality of your pieces and how they fit.
“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.” – Dale Carnegie
5. Get up close and personal with your bank account every day
Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it does give you options. So many people have a fear of money and they avoid it like the plague. Checking their bank balance is their least favorite to do, they hate paying bills, and they avoid opening mail or screen phone calls to make sure it’s not the bank.
Facing the reality of your money situation, whether it needs fixing or it’s great, will only help you improve it. You can also seek the advice of a financial planner at your bank to help you with this and create a plan to shift your situation. You might have more options available than you know.
Getting clear about the gap between your spending and your income can help push you to start looking for that job or new opportunity that you’ve been procrastinating on. Tracking your finances on a daily or weekly basis can help you come up with creative solutions to make more money and provide yourself with more options for financial freedom.
Maybe you’re paying for cable, Netflix, and Hulu, but it’d be more cost effective to just get Netflix and HBO Go because that’s all you ever watch anyways. You’ll never know where more options are hiding until you get up close and personal with the reality of your financial situation.
Comment below with the happiness-boosting tip that you’ll be implementing today!
-
Success Advice4 days ago
5 Simple Ways to Supercharge Your Happiness
-
Success Advice3 days ago
6 Important Lessons That Will Lead You to Success
-
Entrepreneurs3 weeks ago
Here Are 4 Reasons Why You Need to Know Your Entrepreneurial Type
-
Success Advice1 week ago
4 Simple Questions to Ask Yourself That Will Supercharge Your Success This Year
-
Motivation4 weeks ago
Struggling With Procrastination and Self-Doubt? Here’s How to Overcome Both
-
Life4 weeks ago
3 Exercises That Can Help You Destroy Your Mental Roadblocks
-
Life3 weeks ago
3 Powerful Ways to Help You Unleash the Champion Mindset
-
Success Advice2 weeks ago
3 Reasons Why Personal Branding Can Impact the Success of Your Career
motivational speakers seattle
Nov 15, 2016 at 8:42 pm
Oh! Ollie, you are absolutely right here. I’ve already shared this on my FB page that my intelligent friends can realize why I failed at elementary school but now become a successful leader!