Successful people keep score of exciting progress, positive behavior, financial gain… anything they want more of.
Your natural inclination is always to improve your score. If you were to keep score on the five things that would advance your personal and professional objectives the most, imagine how motivated you would be each time the numbers improved in your favor.
Decide where you need to keep score in order to manifest your vision and achieve your goals.
Achievers — whether in business, sports, or the arts — are committed to continual improvement. If you want to be more successful, you need to learn to ask yourself, “How can I make this better? How can I do it more efficiently? How can I do this more profitably? How can we do this with greater love?”
Whenever you set out to improve your skills, change your behavior, or better your family life or business, beginning in small, manageable steps gives you a greater chance of long-term success. Doing too much too fast not only overwhelms you (or anyone else involved in the improvement), it can doom the effort to failure — thereby reinforcing the belief that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to succeed. When you start with small, achievable steps you can easily master, it reinforces your belief that you can easily improve.
Once you begin to take action, you’ll start getting feedback about whether you’re doing the right thing. You’ll get data, advice, help, suggestions, direction, and even criticism that will help you constantly adjust and move forward while continually enhancing your knowledge, abilities, attitudes, and relationships. But asking for feedback is really only the first part of the equation. Once you receive feedback, you have to be willing to respond to it.
When all indicators say you’ve had a “failure experience,” there are a number of things you can do to respond appropriately and keep moving forward:
If you are going to be successful, you are going to need to learn how to deal with rejection. Rejection is a natural part of life.
To get over rejection, you have to realize that rejection is really a myth. It doesn’t really exist. It is simply a concept that you hold in your head. Think about it. If you ask Patty to have dinner with you and she says no, you didn’t have anyone to eat dinner with before you asked her, and you don’t have anyone to eat dinner with after you asked her. The situation didn’t get worse; it stayed the same. It only gets worse if you go inside and tell yourself something extra like “See, Mother was right. No one will ever like me. I am the slug of the universe!”
The truth is, you never have anything to lose by asking, and because there is something to possibly gain, by all means ask.
History is filled with examples of incredible riches and astounding benefits people have received simply by asking for them. Yet surprisingly, asking — one of the most powerful success principles of all — is still a challenge that holds most people back.
Why are people so afraid to ask? They are afraid of many things such as looking needy, looking foolish, and looking stupid. But mostly they’re afraid of experiencing rejection. Thy are afraid of hearing the word no.
The sad thing is that they’re actually rejecting themselves in advance. They’re saying no to themselves before anyone else even has a chance to.
Don’t assume that you are going to get a no. Take the risk to ask for whatever you need and want. If they say no, you are no worse off than when you started. If they say yes, you are a lot better off. Just by being willing to ask, you can get a raise, a donation, a room with an ocean view, a discount, a free sample, a date, a better assignment, the order, a more convenient delivery date, an extension, time off, or help with the housework.
Behind every great achievement is a story of education, training, practice, discipline, and sacrifice. You have to be willing to pay the price.
Maybe that price is pursuing one single activity while putting everything else in your life on hold. Maybe it’s investing all of your own personal wealth or savings. Maybe it’s the willingness to walk away from the safety of your current situation.
But though many things are typically required to reach a successful outcome, the willingness to do what’s required adds that extra dimension to the mix that helps you persevere in the face of overwhelming challenges, setbacks, pain, and even personal injury.
As you move forward on your journey from where you are to where you want to be, you are going to have to confront your fears. Fear is natural. Whenever you start a new project, take on a new venture, or put yourself out there, there is usually fear. Unfortunately, most people let fear stop them from taking the necessary steps to achieve their dreams. Successful people, on the other hand, feel the fear along with the rest of us but don’t let it keep them from doing anything they want to do — or have to do. They understand that fear is something to be acknowledged, experienced, and taken along for the ride.
One way to actually disappear your fear is to ask yourself what you’re imagining that is scary to you, and then replace that image with its positive opposite.
Oftentimes, success happens when you just lean into it — when you make yourself open to opportunities and are willing to do what it takes to pursue it further — without a contract, without a promise of success, without any expectation whatsoever. You just start. You lean into it. You see what it feels like. And you find out if you want to keep going — instead of sitting on the sidelines deliberating, reflecting, and contemplating.
One of the most extraordinary benefits of just leaning into it is that you begin creating momentum — that unseen energy force that brings more opportunity, more resources, and more people who can help you into your life at seemingly just the right time for you to benefit the most from them.