Success Patterns: Deciphering the anagram of a successful life.
Eight behaviors from highly successful people you can adopt to put yourself on a winning path. Recurrin success has common factors.
Opportunities often show up as a result of working hard. Pick projects you are passionate about to devise a strategy, and stick with it. Passion is the fuel to overcome the fizzle of enthusiasm fizzle and the rejection ahead. Keep in mind that often rejection is simply a matter of others not yet getting it. Continue to refine, reiterate, and respin till others embracing new ideas, rather than on the quality of your work.
Setbacks are part of the plan!
Resilience goes a long way - it took Ryan Reynolds 11 years to bring Deadpool to life, now a highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, and J.K. Rowling got rejected by 12 publishers before a small publishing house took a chance on Harry Potter. If you are passionate about your project, be patient, keep knocking on doors, or explore creative solutions off the beaten path to lead your idea forward.
With so many opportunties available to us as freelancers, it's easy to get derailed. I'm a firm believer that we don't fail because of a lack of opportunties, but rather we fail because we chase after too many opportunites.
Without a plan for the day, you're like an guided missle without a target. Your 'heat-seeking' equipment will attach itself to anything that comes into your view. This can translate to a lot of frantic activity and busy work, but not a lot of progress.
One key strategy to move forward in your mission is to halve the goal. You can have it if you 'halve' it. Start with the end and keep cutting it in half until you get to a portion of the plan you can complete next.
Expecting an outcome without a strategy is like hitting the road without a map. It might turn into a great adventure, but you'll take far longer and get lost along the way. In fact, you may never even make your destination. You can’t prepare for everything, but planning allows you to consider the possibilities.
The most important part of planning is to simply define what success means. How will you know when the intended outcome is achieved? We need a sense of compleition and accomplishment. Without defining the end point, it'll never be known.
What gets done is what is measured. If by no other measurement, time is a metric to consider - because time for all of us, is definite.
An indefinite outcome requires indefinite time. Once we have a end point, we can begin to work backwards to where we are today and create a definite plan.
Elements of a successful plan defines a clear overview of what needs to be done:
It also allows you to hold yourself and others accountable for critical tasks and timelines. Having an initial structure laid out helps you to check in on your progress, assess what is and isn’t working, and modify your tactics as needed to steer towards your outlined definition of success. Even doing something as simple as planning out your day the night before is a great way to keep organized and build up momentum.
Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success. Mistakes can be a good thing – there is a great opportunity for learning and bettering yourself, your approach, your effectiveness. The key is in perspective. Recognizing the problem is the first step to solving the problem. Successful people do not dwell on the “failure” aspect, but rather analyze what could have been done differently, and apply it to the future. Recognizing missed opportunities is a key step to take advantage of future opportunities!
Giving yourself a chance to renew is key to operating effeciently. Like a car that never stops to refuel, you will eventually run out of gas and the delay in waiting for a tow truck to bring a can of fuel will be far longer than if you had just stopped to fill up when the gas tank was near empty.
Taking time and refueling myself comes in the form of writing, yoga, meditation, hiking, biking, music, and time with loved ones.
Burn out is a real issue. We all have a threshold. Our bodies can only take so much. When I started my business back in 2009, I worked 12 hours/day. Today, my threshold is lower, and thankfully those 12 hours days are no longer needed.
I have discovered a pattern to staying driven without burning out is in carving out time for the things that refuel my soul. Finding the balance between your “on” and “off” time. Being self-employed means I am in charge of my own calendar, and because my vacation days are few and far between, I carve out mini vacations throughout the week to engage in those soul filling activities.
It's the early hours where we have the most control of our time. It's the peaceful time of the day and it's no wonder that most people you see greet you with a 'Good Morning.'
It's about setting the tone for the day ahead.
Like starting my day with a salad, I am more likely to say on a healthy track for the day than if I had a donut.
There are many who protect their morning routine because without it, they know how easily they get lost and fail to achieve their desired outcomes for the day.
It's worth coming up with a 10 minute routine to insure you are starting down the right path and have an itinerary that aligns with your circumstances.
The vitality of the body is directly responsible for the vitality of the mind. Eating healthy and exercising daily are great ways to reset your mind and maintain the energy levels needed to stay focused throughout the day. Find an activity you enjoy, with a supportive community, and you'll find it easy to stick with.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, committed to reading at least four hours a day in his formative years, while Steven Spielberg went back to school in his fifties to study film and electronic arts. A big part of overall success is having a diverse range of knowledge and experience that allows to approach a problem from multiple angles, or strategize with understanding of various moving parts. Successful people are outstanding performers. To maintain this level of performance they seek out lifelong learning opportunities. Reading a lot, attending conferences or talks by industry thought-leaders, or learning new skills are all great ways to inspire fresh ideas and broaden your perspective.
Success never happens in a vacuum – there are always people who support us, believe in us, guide us – and highly successful people acknowledge that. They tend to be generous with their time or finances by mentoring, volunteering, or engaging in charitable work. Paying it forward, by recognizing potential someone once saw in them has a number of benefits. By sharing their expertise they feel valuable, fulfilled, and connected to diverse groups of people. And if that’s not enough of a reason, let’s be honest- there’s no cap on good karma.
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