You won’t be successful overnight. (Unless it’s 2,745 overnights later)
Certainly you’re smart enough and talented enough to get it right the first time. And with the right amount of luck, you might just make it happen.
The odds aren’t in your favor though.
More than not, you’ll try really hard and maybe even “want it” really bad and still end up on the losing end of the equation.
It’s no wonder that being successful is the subject of countless books, articles, and self-help seminars. It’s hard to do. And yet, in spite of all the training around writing the perfect business plan or how to generate the most profitable sales, we seem to lack interest in most guaranteed way to realized outrageous success:
The concept is not ground-breaking in originality and certainly not trendy enough to be a part of anything in Harvard Business Review. But it’s exactly the formula you need to realize your dreams. Let me be clear about this:
The only thing standing between you and outrageous success is continuous progress.
Here’s why you need to focus on it:
1. Time clarifies perspective
You’re biased. Could be all your experiences to date or what you are going through right now. Believe it or not, the last 24 hours of your life have a lot to do with how you feel about your goals. Your potential. Your stamina. The guts you need to summon to get past the pain to become a success. It all changes pretty quickly.
A day from now, what you know and how you feel will be completely different. By making progress every day regardless of how you feel, you learn to look past the pain and fear of the moment and just “take another step”. Over time you get a better perspective. You realize that your emotions are less important than you doing something.
2. Iteration builds momentum
Getting things done fuels your sense of purpose. And that sense of purpose and self worth is what powers your ability to accelerate through the obstacles and toward your goal.
Learning through the journey is the real destination. By leveraging small (but continuous) progress, you iterate through a series of meaningful steps toward what would otherwise be an unattainable goal.
3. Practice compensates for failure
You’re not going to get it all right at first. Success isn’t a day in time and neither is failure. Failure is just another practice round. And that’s not just me blowing hot air at you.
We don’t think our 5 year old toddler is a failure when he can’t play Mozart’s Symphony #41 in C Major the first time they try. For some reason we understand that it takes thousands of hours of deliberate practice to play a concert level concerto. But then we get frustrated when we can’t master our wildest dreams in a single six week spurt.
Practice is the secret.
4. Movement trumps lurching
Stopping and starting causes massive amounts of damage — emotional and physical. Steady progress is the key to success.
Any of us can do an “all-nighter” now or then. Maybe even do 50-60 straight hours on a single project. But it comes at a cost. You won’t ultimately find outrageous success.
Your behavior destroys anything depending on you. Continuous progress is a kinder (more impactful) way to leverage the support of those around you as you try to move closer to your goal.
5. Passion builds investment
When you put enough into something, you work creatively to make sure you come out on the winning end of things. When you jump into a quick “emotional fling”, you have so little invested that it’s easy to give up on yourself.
Your commitment to long-term success forces you to build a passionate investment in your success. That investment is the antidote to the setbacks you can anticipate along the way.
6. Flexibility multiplies opportunity
Success pops up in all the wrong places. Right? You work outrageously hard; and just about the time you think you know what you want, success points you in a different direction. Continuous progress allows you to adapt.
Instead of working non-stop through an obstacle that could redirect you to even bigger success, you are aware. You are calm. You are watching for the earliest signs of greatness. And that flexibility leads you to find outrageous success.
7. Lasting yields differentiation
You’ve probably heard someone say that “showing up is half the battle”. It’s more than that though. It’s closer to 99% of the battle. If you don’t have the guts (the stamina) to keep fighting for your goal, then you’ll ultimately end up losing. You can’t help it.
Continuous progress is the ultimate way to stand out from everyone else. You’re still around when everyone else has given up. When they are gasping for air, you are pumping your legs and pushing for the finish line.
You don’t have to do it all today.
You have the rest of your life to realize outrageous success.
You just need to get started…
