Do You Really Want to Be Successful?

Article Created by Juwon A. Melvin

The Real Price of Success

By Juwon Melvin

Over the past year I have been working very hard to accomplish my goals. It’s not uncommon for me to work 85 hours a week. Though I’m nowhere near where I want to be, I’ve recently been seeing sprouts of success that let me know we’re on the right track. While it is flattering that other people are starting to notice of our recent success, I can’t help but chuckle when they mention things like, “You’re a natural,” or “You’re just really smart.”

Today I want to dispel some of these myths and share the truth about what it takes to achieve greatness. Brian Tracy said it best:

“The price of success must be paid in full in advance.”

Truth #1. What are you willing to give up?

We all have the same amount of time in each day– 24 hours, 1,440 minutes, 86,400 seconds. Successful people make the conscious choice to invest more of their time towards meaningful, goal-congruent activities than “average” people. If you want to be more successful you will have to give up some unproductive, time-wasting habits. Let’s briefly explore two of the biggest culprits:

Gossip– How much of your time do you spend talking about the shortcomings of others? Now think about the hours you spend surfing the web and reading articles about the latest celebrity news.
T.V.– According to a recent Neilson Report (http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/average-tv-viewing-for-2008-09-tv-season-at-all-time-high/) Americans spend an average of four hours and 49 minutes a day watching T.V.

Just giving up theses two pastimes could give you an extra four to six hours each day. That’s precious time you have back to invest in your success.

Here’s an example of a recent week:

As it turns out, I tried to get a screen print of my entire day, but the screen wasn’t big enough to show the entire day in one frame. So I’ll just fill you in. During the traditional Monday-Friday workweek, I usually wake up between 6:30-7am. At least twice a week I head out to the gym. The other mornings, I hit the shower, grab some breakfast, listen to an audio book while getting ready for the day, and work on at least one important business task before heading out for the day.

My calendar is kind of crazy. But I wanted to share it so you all could see there really is a lot of time in a week. If you use it effectively, you can accomplish both the things that you need to do, and the things that you want to do. Your success hinges upon your ability to utilize your time in pursuit of your goals. If you cannot make time to work towards your goals, then you’re not serious about paying the price to be successful.

Truth #2. Put first things first

Most people never achieve their goals because they never get around to working on them. Many people develop new years resolutions. Problem is, they never resolve to re-prioritize their lives. If you try to add your goals on to the end of everything else you have to do in your busy week, you have a very slim chance of ever attaining them.

Let’s say your goal is to study a new language for an upcoming trip abroad. If you wait until after you get home from work and get everything else done, you will have dozens of barriers between you and your goal. If you’re not exhausted after a long day of work, something comes up and a friend needs you. If your boss doesn’t ask you to stay late, then you remember that you forgot to do that favor for a family member. And list goes on, and on.

The surest way to achieve your goal is to work on it first, before you do anything for anyone else. Re-prioritize your schedule to begin your day working towards your goal. Resolve to do at least one thing each morning to get closer to your goal. This way, if the unexpected happens throughout the day, you will at least have gotten a little bit closer to your goal beforehand. Then if time allows, after you’ve done everything for everyone else, end your day by taking one more action to move closer to your goal.

Resolve to start your day by working towards your personal goals. If this means you have to wake up earlier than usual, make the sacrifice. If you feel like that’s too big of a sacrifice, then find a more compelling goal.

Truth #3. Do the small unpleasant things

Leading up to every successful outcome are dozens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of small steps that no one sees or appreciates. These small, unpleasant steps are the building blocks of success. You must respect the small steps and develop the discipline to take them before you can ever achieve extraordinary results. Let’s look at a recent personal example:

The other day after giving a speech someone came up to me and said, you’re a naturally great public speaker. Well from afar, it may seem that way, but that person doesn’t know that I started off incredibly shy. They don’t know:

That I’ve been watching and listening to world-class speakers for years, trying to learn from them.
That I’ve taken speech classes, home study courses, and attended workshops and conferences to become a better speaker.
That I practice speaking every week, and prepare hours upon hours for the speeches I give.

Each small step builds on the previous one. Over the days, weeks, months and years, the cumulative effect of those small steps add up to big results. And they say it looks easy…

Take the advice of greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, Muhammad Ali,

“The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”

This week, think about your goals. How bad do you really want to achieve them? You can become anything, do anything, and have everything you can conceive. If only you’ll pay the price.

Let’s make history!
Juwon

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