For the last week and a half, my wife and I have spent a lot of time watching the 2010 Winter Olympics currently going on in Vancouver, BC. While there have been some great competitions, one of the more enjoyable parts of watching has been the interviews and stories done on some of the medal winners and personalities of this year’s Olympics.
Two stories in particular were very inspiring and are great examples of how important belief is in being successful. One story was on Norwegian downhill skier Aksel Lund Svindal who 3 years ago had a horrific skiing accident during a downhill course at the Golden Eagle jump in Beaver Creek, Colorado. As a result, he was hospitalized for weeks recuperating from extensive facial, back, and neck injuries.
While some people after such an accident would call it a career or find it too difficult mentally to compete, he told the interviewer he believed in himself and his abilities and resumed training soon after being released from the hospital.
Last week, he beat out the US champion and favored-winner, Bode Miller, to win Gold for Norway.
Growing up, it was drilled into me by my dad and granddads you have to work hard in life if you want to have anything. So it was only natural I would carry this belief with me for most of my life. While I do believe some hard work is involved in being successful, it isn’t necessarily “the” work ethic to have.
For example, have you ever had to dig a ditch? I’m not talking about a little ditch for a stream of water to flow through. I’m talking a ditch three to four feet in the ground over, let’s say, six feet at the least? It’s hard work which can take hours to do with just a shovel, pick, and sledgehammer. I’ve done it before so I know it’s hard work. While this kind of work can potentially pay well, at the end of the day, you are sore and too tired to really enjoy the fruit of your labor: your pay for the job.
Another example would be the belief that working longer each day ultimately leads to success. I’ve been guilty of this as well. I would put in between 8 to 10 hours just about every day, hardly taking a full day off, and I was miserable. Instead of focusing on results, I was focusing on packing as much work as I could into those 8 to 10 hours as I could. In my head, I thought I was working hard towards my goals but I wasn’t. Granted, I was working hard but I wasn’t getting any closer to my goals.
Chances are if you are reading this, you have, at the least, a small interest in changing your life. The reason (or reasons) you want to do this could be a number of things. Regardless of what the reason is, changing your life- or redesigning your life- all begins with the realization you have to change some aspect of your life for the better.
I recently reached this point myself. I wasn’t entirely happy with the direction my life was going. There were areas of my life I knew I had to change in order to have the life I truly want. This is a good place to be at because this is when you are most likely to initiate change.
Quite the heady question. This is a simple question I’ve been wrestling with for the last couple of years. Granted, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. This is mainly due to not only what it is you love to do but also what your individual situation is. To make matters even harder, you may find what you love to do isn’t something you can do for a living or may end up being something you enjoy but not really love enough to do for a career. But we will leave this problem out of the equation for now.
Back to the question raised by this post, after reaching the age of forty, I have found myself looking forward and backwards on my life. While I have been fortunate to have been able to pursue some interests as a career, I haven’t actively pursued something I actually love to do as a career.
Recently, I revisited a great article The 80/20 Rule on Yaro Starak’s excellent blog Entrepreneur’s Journey. If you are not familiar with the 80/20 Rule it goes like this (according to this Wikipedia 80/20 Rule entry):
“… for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.”
Essentially, what this means that 80% of any result comes from 20% of the effort. This is just a broad generalization of the 80/20 rule. You can narrow it down and apply it to just about anything in life which produces a result.
The 80/20 Rule post got me thinking about how I could apply it to my own businesses. One of the points Yaro discusses in his post is the need to identity what should be ignored. This means ignoring what doesn’t help you produce or holds you back from producing the result you are looking for (the 80% part of the equation). It got me thinking what I can start ignoring today which will help me produce the results I want.
There’s nothing like an inspirational story to get your day off on the right foot. Here is a clip taken from a 16-minute conversation / interview between Tony Robbins and John Reese where they talk about how John was able to go from being $100,000 in debt to making over $1 million in a 24-hour period!
But the gist of the conversation was how John was able to build on little successes which ultimately culminated in the $1 million in 24 hours. It is these little successes which we need to focus on instead of the ultimate success (whatever that may be for you). People have a tendency to put all their time and effort into their ultimate success goal that they forget the little successes are like steps to the ultimate success goal.
So check out the short video clip (you can watch the entire video over on Tony Robbins’ blog ), and let us know what you think of it in the Comments below. Thanks!
I have always been big on setting goals. To me, how do you accomplish anything of substance in life if you don’t have goals? Needless to say, I’m a big fan of goal setting. I have daily, monthly, and yearly goals for myself and my businesses.
One of the biggest traditions known to modern man is the setting of goals around New Years. I know I’ve been guilty of doing this but that was till it finally dawned on me how silly it was. Since then, I’ve been kind of notorious for my goal-setting practices. Goal setting took me from living with my parents with no job, no money, or college degree to living on my own in a new state with a job and a bachelor’s degree in a matter of three years! It all started with setting some goals for myself.
One of the funniest people in the world (in my opinion) is Ricky Gervais. You may know or recognize him as David Brent from the British version of The Office , or from last year’s Ghost Town where he played a smug, pompous dentist who could see and talk to ghosts. A great movie which you should definitely checkout. Or you may recognize him from various guest appearances on The Daily Show, David Letterman, or from hosting this year’s Golden Globes awards show.
Besides being one of my favourite comedians, Ricky Gervais is also a source of business inspiration for me.
Everybody has goals. Well, most everybody does. While it’s great to have goals, unfortunately, a lot of people don’t achieve their goals.
Why? There are a multitude of reasons why someone doesn’t reach a goal. Sometimes it is a result of something out of their control (such as wanting to run in the Boston Marathon but breaking a leg before the marathon), or simply not having the necessary resources (an example would be someone wanting to learn how to play piano but only having access to one piano teacher who isn’t a very good teacher). But there is one main reason, I believe, people don’t achieve their goals.
My name is Wesley Craig Green and I'm an entrepreneur, writer, and dreamer.
If you are interested in lifestyle design, personal development, taking control of your life, and building your own personal empire- then this is the blog for you!
For the last week and a half, my wife and I have spent a lot of time watching the 2010 Winter Olympics currently going on in Vancouver, BC. While there have been some great competitions, one of the more enjoyable parts of watching has been the interviews and stories done on some of the medal winners and personalities of this year’s Olympics.
