How To Be Successful At Anything
Do you have any particular goals for your future? The majority of us can answer that question almost instantaneously.
Whether it be building our business, writing a book, or goals regarding fitness all of us envision where we want to be in a year from now. The problem is most of us will fall short of those goals and as a result we’ll give up without continuing forward.
My Psychic Change:
If we use my primary business as an example, reaching $500,000 a year in revenue was the goal I set, and that’s a massive goal to reach when you consider we started about $50,000 under the average budget for a startup in our industry. Somehow we were able to break even in the first year and in the second year we were able to turn a small profit, but reaching that goal seemed impossible at the time. Setting that goal purely on revenue caused us to be outcome-oriented, and that held us back from truly growing.
When I was first getting sober a wise man told me “I realized I can’t control outcomes, I only have control over my attitude and my actions”. That’s stuck with me for a long time, but it didn’t click until a few years later. When the meaning of that statement finally became clear I realized I was focusing too much on the outcome without even considering how I could make reaching that desired outcome more likely.
I shifted my objective from reaching the outcome to focusing on what I could control: myself. It was then that I started building a system that helps me stay on track for consistent progress. I now have scheduled time slots for different areas of my work. There’s times for working on my personal writing in the mornings, times for editing youtube videos, times for editing photos / making social media posts, times for client work and times for working on my primary business. Everything has its own place, and rarely do any of these tasks take the full length of time in their block.
Sticking to this loose system and not requiring rigid time management made me more productive. I’m adhering to this approach as much as I can everyday and my productivity, as well as the quality of my work, are miles ahead of where they were when I was living as a results oriented person.
Systems Oriented Vs. Outcome Oriented:
We create our own luck. It’s ok to have goals; however, it’s important to understand that we have no control over the outcome. To see a favorable outcome we must shift our focus to the process and learn to enjoy it, because focusing on the outcome will decrease the quality of our work. By putting the majority of our energy into ourselves we can create optimal conditions for positive outcomes.
At some point in our lives we all will experience some form of lucky break. When analyzing the most successful Youtube channels we can find one common action amongst them all; they follow a formula that works for them. That formula wasn’t necessarily planned in the beginning, it was actually developed out of that one lucky break.
Let’s take a look at the success of Mr. Beast. His first viral video was counting to 100,000, and ever since he’s been on a consistent upward climb. While there may have been planning involved, I would wager he had no idea how successful this would actually be. After the success of this video he didn’t go back to making gaming videos, he shifted his entire channel around replicating what made that video go viral in the first place. His success didn’t come from being outcome oriented, it came from understanding the process that made him successful in the first place and replicating it every time he started planning his next video. Over the years his resources and production value have increased dramatically, but the formula has remained almost unchanged since he uploaded that initial 24 hour long video.
My System:
Here’s my Monday — Friday System, feel free to copy this and make adjustments to fit your life.
7:45 AM: Journal, Read, Coffee
8:30 AM: Work Out
9:30 AM: Write
10:45 AM: Complete work related tasks
2:00 PM: Video Editing
5:00 PM: Client Work
8:00 PM: Plan Next Day, Video Games
I give myself plenty of time to dedicate to each piece of my work. Rarely do I spend the entire time block on any particular task, but this loose time structure gives me the wiggle room I need to go at whatever pace suits me on any particular day.
I will spend a small amount of time working on the weekends, but I make sure I’m utilizing that time to enjoy some relaxation and give attention to the people I care about.
I have the desired outcome for each aspect of work, but I spend the majority of my time improving my skills rather than thinking about the future. It’s taken a lot of practice, but I find myself more productive and happy by shifting my mindset. Give it a try, and come back with your results.
