It is what it is. I am sitting here after my third or fourth rejection of the day. And that is okay, because I am in sales, and when you are sales, you get rejected a lot.
I am not equipped at this point in my life and my career to tell you how to make a million dollars, because I haven’t been able to do that myself. If you add up my income over the last few years, I easily would have had a million dollars come through my hands, however, I am not consistently making a million dollars.
Here is what I am equipped to tell you about though, because I have done it. I have successfully made $175,000 dollars a year for several years. Now, maybe that is not enough for you. Maybe, you want to go with the 10X theory, which means you should take all of your goals and multiply them by ten. All of that is good stuff. However, if you haven’t made $100,000 dollars a year, why would anybody think they could go from five figures to seven figures without a few steps along the way.
I could easily get in to the steps I used to create a $175,000 a year in revenue generation for myself. But I will save that for another day. I instead want to talk about what I set out to discuss in this post. That is, why you aren’t as successful as you want to be. My goal was to make $175,000 a year at one time, and it was important for me to determine that number. However, what was more important than that number, was what I had to do to ensure I hit that number. And that is what this blog is about.
As I stated at the beginning of the blog. I literally have been rejected three or four times, maybe more, since the morning started. I am not upset with the rejection. No, I am more upset with the fact that the people who rejected me told me that they were actually interested in improving their life, because they told me so. Or the lives of the people they either support or manage within their company.
Let me take a little personal ownership here. I am quite confident I could have done something differently in the initial sales process that could have made the outcome different at this point. Meaning I would not have been told no this many times already today.
However, I know that the sales process has just begun and I will eventually change my initial errors into wins and I will eventually make the sale. I know this because, I deliver with excellence and give more value to people than they actually pay for. So I may have lost the battle, but I will win the war. I digress.
Why is it that people say they are interested in making a change that could impact their life? They have the opportunity right in front of them. They agree, that it could change their life, but for whatever reason they fail to take the next steps? Thus they don’t create the success they want?
Here are my five reasons we aren’t successful as we want to be:
We lack commitment: You aren’t fully committed to what it is. Be honest with yourself here. Have you ever done one of the following:
- Purchased the book, but you didn’t read it
- Bought the workout program, but never used it.
- Bought the fitness equipment, and then used to hang your clothes on.
- Went to the seminar, took the notes, but never followed up on them.
- Requested more information. Got it. And then did nothing with it.
- Downloaded the app. Put it on your last screen on your phone. Or deleted it totally.
- Went to the website, but never made the call.
- Cleaned out the kitchen to make way for the healthy stuff, it stayed that way for a month before it went back the old way.
- Created a savings account, put the required money in it, and that is all the money you ever saved.
- Took the job. Kept your resume out and your phone line open to other positions.
All of the examples above are what I call half-commitments. Or you were committed for about an hour. Then the desire wore off, or the change was just too hard, and you weren’t committed to the goal you thought you were committed to.
Commitment means that you are all in on whatever it is you are looking to achieve. Meaning you will spend whatever the amount is that needs to be spent. You will make the time for however much time is necessary. You will make the sacrifices that will be required to make to get where you want to go. Until you are ready to do these things, your aren’t ready and your aren’t fully committed. I was committed to the $175,000 a year and that is why I was able to achieve it.
We don’t take action: My mentor said it this way. He called it the Law Of Diminishing Intent. Which meant the “The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds that you will never actually do it.” He also said that when the desire is the strongest, is the best time to take action.
For every second that goes by that we don’t take action on something that we like, and know that it could be beneficial to us, our desire to take action will lessen and lessen until we are no longer excited about the possibility anymore. The key is to take action as quickly as possible. When you buy the book take action and start reading it now. When you buy the fitness equipment, make a plan to use it. When you download the app, start using it this second. When you download the budgeting document, put your budget in it now. When you decide to workout, start today. When you attend the seminar and the information is great and you see how it could benefit you, pay for it today. Lock yourself in that commitment.
I believe sometimes for us to get the change we truly want, we have to trick ourselves into thinking we have no way out. If I put all of my money in a savings account that I can access, but it is more difficult to get. If I want to save more money, I just put it in there. The trick is that it is more difficult to get out. And sometimes that little bit of difficultness will, and has kept me from withdrawing the money, which means I saved more. Some other ways I have tricked myself is around eating less, getting up earlier and getting things done faster. If you are interested in learning more about that, hit me up at bwillett555@gmail.com and I can share that with you.
Create a plan for your success: The old saying is true and has been validated for over 6,000 years. If you want a different result, but you keep doing the same things, you are insane. That is as eloquent as I can put it.
The plan is important part of the equation here. You have to be committed and you have to take action. These are crucial, especially at the beginning. As you get further into this new way of life, the plan or the process becomes increasingly as important.
There are all kinds of programs out there around managing food portions so you only eat the right amount of food and don’t over eat. There are budgeting programs out there for managing your finances. There are development programs on how to become a better sales person. If you are seeking to have success in anything in life, the chances are there is a program, or a plan out there that you can find. And my advice is to look at them all. Over the years I have looked at different plans in all facets of my life when it comes to health and fitness, money, career development, dating, creating a business, etc. What I have found is that when I look at several different programs and plans, I can usually pull pieces from them all that I like, and I create my own plan.
The main thing to remember though is this. We all are much better and more successful when we have a plan or a process that we can follow that is easy to do. It can’t be too difficult, it is has to fit us, meaning we can and will do it as long as we are committed and taking action.
We think we got it all: I was a business major in college. Because of the system my school was on, I had to take three accounting courses at the undergraduate level to get my degree. Accounting 101, 102, and 103. I can remember taking these three courses and saying to myself. “I know everything there is to know about accounting.” I obviously realize now, and even then, that this wasn’t the case, I didn’t know it all. Because there were several other accounting courses accounting majors had to take to learn about accounting.
At that time, I thought I knew enough to be able to go out and start doing accounting. I felt like I had enough information that I could start doing accounting and be successful at it and I would learn more as I started doing it.
All of this to say. Most of us download the information, go to the website and look around, read the table of contents of the book, watch the YouTube video, and think we have all the information or knowledge we need about a particular subject. If you take and google search the title of this blog, you will find 45 million responses around this topic. It is obviously an important topic that everyone talks about.
However, with as much information we all have access to, via internet, YouTube, groups, etc., still a majority of the population are looking for the answer, “to what it takes to be successful.” I am one of those people.
And what I have found is no matter how much I study success, no matter how much success I have through experience, no matter how many books I read, people I listen to around this topic. I still don’t have all of the information, because it is an ongoing pursuit to find success and what it takes to be successful.
The four ideas I suggest here are a good start, but even if you do the first four well, if you don’t have the fifth you will never get the success you want.
Someone holding you accountable: You made the commitment, you took immediate action, you found and created a process that you can consistently do and you have some good information about the topic. Now who is going to make sure you do it?
You don’t like the word accountable. You say you do, but you really don’t. If you did, you would ask for feedback more often, you would seek out discomfort, you would do something different, and you would fulfill all of your commitments and achieve success in everything you pursue.
I’ll use myself as an example here. I am committed to working out. I have no problems taking action, I do it everyday. I have a plan and a process that works for me. I have made a pretty good effort to go out and get information to help me live a healthy lifestyle that includes both working out as well as eating well. Where do I lose and fall short? In accountability and growth potential?
From time to time I will visit a gym or workout with someone who is into fitness at a higher level than me. Lets start with visiting a gym.
I have visited several gyms over the last few years. When I have visited the gyms, I have taken no less than five-ten takeaways from the gyms and the people in the gym, on how to get a better workout. They pushed me outside my comfort zone. I use the techniques and the information and implement them in my own workout routines. Secondly, when I workout with someone with a higher level of fitness than me. Again, these people push me and challenge me in my workout that I don’t get on my own.
My point with all of this is this: Even though I am committed at all four of the ideas around being more successful at health and fitness, and I am pretty damn good at the first four, but I don’t utilize the fifth idea of someone holding me accountable and pushing me. I have not met all of my goals in the area of health and fitness because I have yet to invest enough money and time in the last and most important idea, which is having someone hold me accountable to my goals in the area of health and fitness.
In the area of health and fitness, I have fallen into the same idea that many of you have as well. “I am good here.” Which means I have met a level of performance that I am satisfied with. This is why we aren’t as successful as we want to be. Because we all in some areas of our life have determined mentally, and in our actions, that we are satisfied with where we are today.
Which means we have quit making new commitments. We take enough action to keep us where we are. We like and know our current processes help keep us where we are, so we refuse to change them. We are open to new information, but we don’t do anything with it. And we havent invested time or money into any kind of accountability tool or an individual that could hold us accountable, because we are satisfied and we don’t want that level of accountability.
Let me ask you this. Why aren’t you as successful as you want to be in…? Whatever that is.
Which of the five ideas above are you lacking in? And what are you going to do about it?
To your success and your future.
Brian Willett is a published author, trainer, speaker. Brian seeks to provide information and knowledge to others that can help them achieve the success they want in their life. Brian works with companies and individuals to create sustained changed behaviors that lead to sustained and changed performance results. If you are interested in learning more check out brianwillettgroup.com or email him at bwillett555@gmail.com
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