The worlds belongs to those who reach out
and grab it with both hands. It
belongs to those who do something
more than wish and hope and
plan and pray, intending to do something
someday, when all conditions
seem just right.
Successful people are not necessarily
those who make the right decisions
all the time. No one can do that, no
matter how smart he or she is. But once
successful people have made a decision,
they begin moving step-by-step
toward their objectives, and they begin
to get feedback or signals to tell them
when they're on course and when
course corrections are necessary. As
they take action and move toward their
goals, they continually get new information
that enables them to adjust
their plans in large and small ways.
It's important to understand that life
is a series of approximations and
course adjustments. Let me explain.
When an airplane leaves Chicago for
Los Angeles, it is off course 99 percent
of the time. This is normal and natural
and to be expected. The pilot makes
continual course corrections, a little to
the north, a little to the south. The
pilot continually adjusts altitude and
throttle. And sure enough, several hours later, the plane touches down at
exactly the time predicted when it first
became airborne upon leaving
Chicago. The entire journey has been a
process or approximations and course
adjustments.
Of course, there are no guarantees in
life. Everything you do — even driving
to work — is filled with uncertainty.
You can never be completely sure that
any action or behavior is going to bring
about your desired result. There is
always a risk. And where there is risk,
there is fear. And whatever you think
about grows in your mind and heart.
People who think continually about
the risks involved in any undertaking
soon become preoccupied with fears
and doubts and anxieties that conspire
to hold them back from trying in the
first place.
At Babson College, a 12-year study
was conducted to discover the reasons
for success. The researchers concluded
that the difference between the successes
and the failures in their study
could be summarized by one word:
launch! Successful people were willing
to launch themselves down the
track of opportunity without any guarantee
of success. They were willing to
risk uncertainty and overcome the normal
fears and doubts that hold the
majority in place.
And the remarkable thing is that as
you take risks in life, new opportunities
emerge all around you. However,
you would not have seen those opportunities
if you had not taken action.
They would not have materialized for
you if you had waited for some assurance
of the outcome before acting.
The Confucian saying "A journey of
a thousand leagues begins with a single
step" simply means that great accomplishments
begin with your willingness
to face the inevitable uncertainty
of any new enterprise and step out
boldly in the direction of your goal.
If you want to be more successful
faster, just do more things. Take more
action; get busier. Start a little earlier;
work a little harder; stay a little later.
Put the odds in your favor. According
to the law of probability, the more
things you try, the more likely it is that
you will try the one thing that will
make all the difference.
I've found that luck is quite predictable.
If you want more luck, take
more chances. Be more active. Show
up more often.
Tom Peters, the bestselling author of
In Search of Excellence and other
business books, found that a key quality
of the top executives was a "bias for
action." Their motto seemed to be
"Ready, fire, aim!" Their attitude
toward business was summarized in
the words "Do it, fix it, try it." They
realized that the future belongs to the
action-oriented, to the risk taker.
Successful people know, as General
Douglas MacArthur once said, "There
is no security on this earth. There is
only opportunity." And the interesting
thing is this: If you seek opportunity,
you'll end up with all the security
you need. However, if you seek
security, you'll end up with neither
opportunity nor security. The proof of
this is all around us, in the downsizing
and reconstructing of corporations,
where thousands of men and
women who sought security are finding
themselves unemployed for long
periods of time.
There is a "momentum principle" of
success, which is derived from two
physical laws, the law of momentum
and the law of inertia, and it applies
equally well to everything that you
accomplish and fail to accomplish.
In physics, the law of momentum
says that a body in motion tends to
remain in motion unless acted upon
by an outside force. The law of inertia,
on the other hand, says that a body at
rest tends to remain at rest unless
acted upon by an outside force.
In their simplest terms, as they
apply to you and your life, those laws
say that if you stay in motion toward
something that is important to you, it's
much easier to continue making
progress than it is if you stop somewhere
along the way and have to start
again. Successful people are very
much like the plate spinners in the circus.
They get things spinning, knowing
that if a plate falls off, or something
comes to a halt, it's much harder
to get it restarted than it is to keep it
going.
Once you have a goal and a plan, get
going! And once you start moving
toward your goal, don't stop. Do something
every day to move yourself closer
toward your goal. Don't let the size
of the goal or the amount of time
required to accomplish it hold you
back. During your planning process,
break down the goal into small tasks
and activities that you can engage in
every day. Every day, every week,
every month you should be making
progress by completing your predetermined
tasks and activities in the direction
of your clearly defined objective.
And here's where the rubber meets
the road. One of the most important
single qualities for success is self-discipline.
It's the ability to make yourself
do what you should do, when you
should do it, whether you feel like it
or not.
Let me break down that definition of
self-discipline. First, "the ability to
make yourself." This means that you
have to use strength and willpower to
force yourself into motion, to overcome
the power of inertia that holds
you back. Second, "do what you
should do when you should do it."
This means that you make a plan, set a
schedule, and then do what you say
you'll do. Do it when you say you'll do
it. Keep your promises to yourself and
to others. The third part of this definition
is: "whether you feel like it or
not." You see, anyone can do anything
if he feels like it, if he wants to do it
because it makes him happy, if he is
well-rested and has lots of time. However, the true test of character is
when you do something that you know
you must do whether you feel like it or
not — especially when you don't like
doing it at all.
In fact, you can tell how badly you
really want something, and what
you're really made of as a person, by
how capable you are of taking action in
the direction of your goals and dreams
even when you feel tired and discouraged
and disappointed and you don't
seem to be making any progress.
And very often, this is the exact time
when you will break through to
great achievement. As Ralph Waldo
Emerson wrote, "When the night is
darkest, the stars come out."
Your ability to endure, to continue
taking action, step by step, in the
direction of your dreams, is what will
ultimately assure your success.
To learn more about Brian Tracy
and his bestselling program The
Psychology of Achievement, visit
www.AdvantEdgeMag.com/Tracy
today.