how to set yourself up for success
Tags: achievement, goals, life, success
i’ve been meaning to write something about this topic for the past few weeks. i should preface this post with saying that by society’s definition of success (lots of money, business owner, etc) i am not hugely successful; however, i have learned a way to set myself up for “good news,” “rewards,” and “personal achievements” on a routine basis. in other words, i have defined my own definition success and how to work towards it.
why this matters?
if you’re an incredibly ambitious person like i am, you need success to be happy. if progress is not being made, you probably feel like you’re falling behind.
finding a way to routinely show yourself recognition and progress is a must have for your own well-being. if at that the end of the day other people recognize your achievements, that’s an added bonus – but who cares what other people think if you know and can prove your own success?
what is success?
success for achievers is really a matter of setting a goal and achieving that goal. success isn’t necessarily accolades for a brilliant idea or winning a competition. while those are great and should be a part of your plan to be successful, they shouldn’t make up the bulk of what you spend your time on.
success is a result of time and hard-work. if at the beginning of your week you have a list of ten things you need to get done and by Friday they’re all done, that is success. you’ll feel better about yourself for merely finishing your list.
success isn’t always mastery of a particular skill. i’m a web developer, but i’m far from being the best or considered an expert. however, i’ve learned to use my lack of experience to set up myself up for success.
how? by setting achievable goals related to improving my value as an employee.
how to set goals
your goals should revolve around “execution”. what i mean is that your goals should be 100% about getting stuff done.
you should also stagger your goals. here’s why: aside from the impossibility of you achieving everything you want to achieve at once, having all your success at one time just doesn’t work. there’s a law in economics that basically states our wants are infinite. the same law applies to success. you’re always going to want to be more successful tomorrow no matter how successful you are today.
to accomplish this, you need to work on goals where the return (success) comes in waves. i’ve got three goals (to-do’s) on my list this week that each have different success (due) dates. one is an essay for a scholarship, one is work-related, and the other is health-related. each of the to-do’s have different due dates.
what this means is that if i get all of these done this week, there could be potentially three different times where i could feel successful. this is much better than if all three were due today and i was successful on all three today. why? because by tomorrow, i won’t feel successful anymore.
if you stagger out your goals so that you’re working on deliverable dates that are all different, you’ll build up a routine of success that constantly flows in and keeps you happy.
the more you feed yourself success, the more hungry you’ll be for it. the more hungry you’ll be for it, the harder you’ll work to get it.
balance short vs. long
knowing your long-term goals are important, but they’re next to impossible to act on. for example, one of my goals is to be a millionaire. i can write down “become a millionaire” on my list of things to do this week, but what are the odds that i will be successful at achieving that goal? not good.
however, if i drill down that goal into executable to-do’s, with enough time, that long-term goal could just happen. think of long-terms goals in terms of a hierarchy of things to do:
- Become a millionaire
– Sell the business
— Start and run the business
—- Learn how to start business
—– Come up with business idea
notice that the most actionable items are at the bottom of the list. i can start brainstorming for business ideas today. in fact, one of my short-term goals might be to come up with five business ideas by the end of the week.
next week, i might have a goal to look into which might give me the greatest return in the shortest amount of time. the next week might be to look into funding my idea and getting resources to start the business. you get the idea.
if you focus on executing goals that are built on previously achieved goals, eventually you’ll find that you’ve achieved your long-term goal without ever having put the big goal on your list!
balance
your list of goals (aka to-do’s) should be a good mixture of personal goals aimed at being successful and things you have to get done no matter what.
for example, fixing a flat tire is something you have to do. well, you don’t have to but fixing or not fixing it won’t directly affect whether or not your successful as a person
no matter who you are, your list of goal’s will always include things that you just have to do… but that’s ok! fixing that flat tire, doing the dishes at least once a week, and making sure you take out the trash are all legitimate goals that just have different definitions of success.
there are a ton of people who don’t even do what i’d call “the basics”. as a result, most of these people end up in a life that i’d consider unhappy (sloppy, jobless, divorced, etc).
just make sure that when you’re thinking about your definition of success, you balance out the “i want to be millionaire” goals with the “i want to be a good boyfriend/husband/dad” type goals. achieving both is ultimate success.
closing
lastly, i’d like to say that not everyone is in a position where they can think about achievement in terms of success. i know plenty of people that are simply less fortunate and while they may have dreams of being successful by becoming a doctor or nurse, they’re too occupied by worrying about how to get food and pay rent.
one of the biggest reasons i want to be a millionaire is so that i can create opportunities for others to be successful. i want to be “that guy” who helped when no one else would. be “that guy” who gave someone a job or “that guy” who encouraged someone to keep trying despite everyone saying stop.
i strongly encourage everyone to incorporate creating opportunities in their goals. be “that guy” when it counts.
