You have a goal. You have your success strategy. You start on day one to implement it. You work hard on each tactic of your success strategy. Day in, day out, you stay focused. But at the end the day, week, month, you feel frustrated. You wish you had more accomplished. Sound Familiar? Well help is here…
Well you’re not alone. I often feel this way myself. There is so much I want to accomplish, oftentimes my expectations exceed what is possible in a given day. Hence, frustration.
I often use the analogy of climbing Mt. Everest. (you can see how I view my list of goals!) It’s like Mt. Everest represents the attainment of all my goals fully completed. Everyday I set out trekking towards the peak and at the end of every day I’m still looking up at that peak and I say to myself “I’m not there yet.” And so I feel unsatisfied, a sense of failure even! My focus is wrong! Let me tell you how I discovered the secret to eliminating this frustration.
I was describing this to my dad the other day and he said “If it was easy everyone would be doing it.” We can take that another step and say If Success Was Easy Everyone Would Be Doing It. Wow!
This had a big impact on me.
This taught me three important success strategies that have helped me feel great and drop the frustration feelings.
The first lesson is this:
- Keep An Eye on the Peak, But at the End of Each Day Review & Celebrate How Far You’ve Come! At the end of each day all I was looking at was how far I had yet to go. Of course I was feeling frustrated. Now what I do is keep a quick record of all I accomplished each day. I try to review it at night and even close my eyes to relax as I do this. Then I say to myself, “Good Job. You made great progress today!” If you can, share your success with someone. If I didn’t make progress then I ask myself what I learned and what I can do better tomorrow. What are the most important things I can do tomorrow towards my top goals.
- Take Heart, Difficult Goals + Perseverance = Uncommon Success. Because your goals are difficult, much of the competition will drop out. That means that if you can hang in there and keep plugging away each day, you will succeed. And imagine what will happen if you can add some skill to the mix. You’ll be a total success!
- Plan Your Day To Stay on Track. This is simple, but a lot of times we don’t write it down because we say “I know what I need to do.” Well if you write down a simple to-do list each day you will have a guide that will keep you from getting sidelined during the day. Keep it in front of you all day. Whenever you find yourself losing focus, refer to it. Plan according to what will get you the most progress today on your most important goals. Do the toughest things first when you have the most energy! Do the easier things later in the day when your energy is lagging.
So implement your success strategy everyday, review & celebrate your progress, keep plugging everyday, and plan your day! May success and a sense of accomplishment be yours!