I learnt something recently that I thought would be helpful to people who are trying to be successful at something, no matter what you are trying to do, be it speak in front of a large group, run a 10k, quit eating rubbish or even how to stop drinking and it’s called ‘The Success Mindset’
So, every New Year you start your resolutions, or you have a great new idea on how to move forward in your career, you’re enthusiastic, you’re implementing and you can see changes. You’ve started off with loads of momentum, you’re eager, you’ve gotten rid of the cake, you’ve bought the non-alcoholic beer, you’ve joined Toast masters or your Local running club and you’re determined, ‘THIS TIME, I will succeed, nothing’s going to stop me now’ (as you hum StarFish to yourself).
You’re doing brilliantly for the first few days, or even weeks, but gradually things start to slide and you start thinking in the back of your mind, ‘Sure what’s wrong with having another beer? Or ‘What’s the point of thinking I can speak on stage’? ‘ Or who will want to listen to me?’ So, you start getting complacent, you start sleeping in, you decide it’s okay for the glass of red on Friday night and then you ‘forget’ about running on Saturday morning and then you’re back to where you started off.
You’re annoyed with yourself and you’re back at square one.
We’ve stopped executing. Doing.
So how do you stop not finishing or completing things? Not succeeding? How do you keep going when you definitely don’t feel like it, when you’re tired? When work is driving you bananas and you’re sick of hearing about Covid, the media etc. etc.
This is where the ‘Success Mindset’ comes in and it revolves around four things:
POTENTIAL, ACTIONS, RESULTS, CERTAINTY/BELIEF
POTENTIAL – What people can do is amazing, I’m fascinated by Roger Bannister, and The four- minute mile. He achieved something that no-one else did before and ll these other people who have achieved extraordinary things in their lives, people who have achieved amazing things and fulfilled their dreams and their FULL potential. Speakers, athletes, entrepreneurs, regular people getting to the next level.
But realistically to most of us that is a just a pipe dream and we all don’t all reach our full potential, mostly because we’re afraid of failing, looking silly, not succeeding in the first place, or of what other’s think, then we’re stuck, back at where we started….
But if you could be successful and follow your dreams and achieve what other high-achievers have done? What if you could learn what these people have done to achieve success and reach their full potential?
So what is it that these people have or done that have got them to the next level?
First of all, they all have unwavering Certainty.
We all know those people, they have that swagger, that poise, the confidence, the look and we all know that they have certainty and they will succeed in what they are going to do next. Someone like Conor Mc Gregor, (mixed martial artist, boxer, and businessperson, love him or hate him) is an example of someone who has unwavering certainty in what he is doing and where he is going. Others, might be more internally certain, a quiet confidence but they too know what they want.
But how do you get that Certainty in the first place? Especially you are really unsure?
You need to Practice and continuously take ACTION.
Amanda Palmer did a very successful TED TALK in 2013 called ‘The art of asking’ .In her blog afterwards she wrote about her time practicing for her talk ‘I slaved over the talk, writing and writing and rewriting and timing and retiming and tweaking and trying to fit the perfect sets of information into 12 short minutes’
But if you’re practicing and you’re making a hash of it, in other words, you’re practicing but your heart’s not in it, you’re not enjoying what you’re doing and your head is in wrong place, you’re obviously not going to get good results, you’re practicing, but you are not practicing properly. You’re getting RESULTS, but they’re not good ones. As a result you start getting annoyed, disillusioned and unhappy with yourself and you’re not achieving your goals, maybe you’re maybe not running as far as you planned or you’ve become stagnant in your business, that’s Negative Momentum.
Then you start feeling uncertain and you start doubting your great plan or idea, you start doing less, because you’ re disillusioned and finally you’re now doing the barest minimum towards your goal, you’re tapping little potential, you’re taking little action. Now you’re in a slump.
So, how do you reverse this? It’s not your potential because you’ve been trying.
You have to change your CERTAINTY OR YOUR BELIEF. But how? You get results in your mind first. You need to envision. This means you need to see, feel, and experience what we’re going to do/implement/Be over and over again with enough repetition that you get certainty. In other words, you get the results in advance and with enough repetition till you feel certain, and when you have that certainty you will execute. You just need to have enough Hunger to see the results in advance.
So four things you can do become the next Roger Bannister or Amanda Palmer
1 – Get clear and obsessed.
If you can take on that mindset ‘I am so 100% focussed, I’m going to think about it obsessively, dream about it, focus on it, and I’m going to take massive action keep changing my approach‘ then you’re going to succeed. You decide this is your mission. You focus on it, you think about it all the time and when you are that much hunger, things start falling into place. You are tricking your RAS – The Reticular Activating System which is a bundle of nerves at our brainstem that filters out unnecessary information so only the important information gets through, it will start kicking into place and you will start, seeing and hearing what you are focussing on.
2 – You start taking massive action
You create this momentum by rehearsing and seeing the results over and over again, and then you just take that action. Make sure it’s effective action or execution, and if it doesn’t work, keep changing, keep fixing, use what works and drop want doesn’t.
3 – Focus on what you want
Where focus goes, energy flows. Know exactly what you want, not what you don’t want. Be specific.
4 – Practice Gratitude
As the Dalai Lama has stated “We don’t need more money, we don’t need greater success or fame, we don’t need the perfect body or even the perfect mate. Right now, at this very moment, we have a mind, which is all the basic equipment we need to achieve complete happiness.”
We hope that some of the suggestions we have provided will help you get over your fear, or lack of confidence and help get you to the next level.
