It is never crowded along the extra mile.
Everybody wants to succeed in life. But not everyone knows how — that’s what makes it interesting.
In the past few years, I had many successes and many failures. To be honest, I had more failures than successes but, now, I don’t remember any of them because I built a system focused on reaching goals instead of crying over missed opportunities.
In the beginning, I used to quit everything that wouldn’t give me immediate results. So I renounced my first two blogs and two series of books I have studied for almost four years. Until one morning, I figured I could not continue like this. There is no point in dedicating so much time to something if you give up at the first petty crisis. So I started working on my mental state when approaching my life goals, and I found four mental shifts that I needed to succeed in life.
1 — Focus on your progress only.
We are living in a highly connected world where we can observe daily hundreds of people succeed. And this continued exposure has accustomed us to the idea of immediate and enormous successes. So instead of focusing on genuine delayed gratification, we prefer the inconsistency of instant rushes of good feelings. As many studies showed, we are not used to waiting anymore.
This tendency has to stop. If you want to succeed in life, this is the first of the 4 mental shifts you have to take.
Because of instant gratification, I stopped focusing on my progress and kept comparing myself to others. And even if this process could be inspiring, daily repetition becomes harmful.
Using others as measuring sticks will lead to feelings of low self-confidence, envy, and devaluation. So instead of comparing myself to successful people, I have chosen to focus on my progress only and give up on things I couldn’t control. So I started appreciating my small wins, transitioning them into motivation, and thus into steady wins.
2 — Find opportunities in every crisis.
My most influential motivator was the breakup with my high-school girlfriend. We have been together for almost five years, and when she told me she didn’t love me anymore, I felt powerless and drained.
Crises can be painful. And they can last for a few days, months, or sometimes even years. But each of them forces us to evolve, act differently, and learn how to deal with difficulties. They are the sign of something not working that you have to change. And when you succeed, you will appreciate your transition much more because you will feel like you deserved it.
Thanks to my breakup, I discovered my passion for the self-improvement world and blogging. At first, I started writing my thoughts because I needed to get them out of my head. But soon, that became too limiting, and I evolved gradually into short and then longer posts.
So every time you feel like you are going through a crisis, fear no more. You will deal with many insecurities, and you will need to work creatively on yourself. However, you will also find more opportunities because your body will enter survival mode, and you will perceive possibilities on a higher level.
3 — Do it once more.
When you are on your lowest low, do it once more — this is another mental shift that I had to take to be consistent in life.
Every time you think you have reached your biggest failure, and there is nothing else you can do, why don’t you try another time?
Do it once more, and see what happens. If you seriously reach your biggest failure, you won’t have anything to lose. But you have so much potential with this last try because any insignificant success could turn around the entire chain of motivation and success, preventing you from giving up.
An exquisite exercise I use to push myself the extra mile is to think where other people would have given up. This way, I force myself to do a little better than others and keep going. Soon, I will gain traction and reignite my motivation, and I will keep working towards my goal for another few days. And I will have better results.
It is never crowded along the extra mile.
Wayne Dyer
4 — Never settle.
The last of the 4 mental shifts you have to take to succeed in life is to never settle.
Have you ever heard Elon Musk say he will quit a project because he has reached enough success? Did Jeff Bezos ever say something similar before retiring?
They did not. Because successful people will never settle for anything.
If you want to be successful, there are three things you need to avoid: bad, mediocre, and good results. Bad and mediocre results won’t make you succeed in life, while good results only make you settle. But you don’t want it because it includes a failure.
When you stop trying, you retire from the game. And if you are over 50, I can understand it, but if you are not, it means you have given up.
Strive for perfection and never be satisfied with the results. Challenge yourself constantly. Otherwise, you will never know how far you could have gone.
This doesn’t mean you have to feel bad when you don’t achieve perfection. But you have to keep evolving and improving your projects and goals. If you completed one in a year, set a higher standard. If you sold your product to a million people, try to go for two. There are infinite ways you can continue improving, and only one that stops you: settling.
Final Thoughts
Failure has changed me many times in the past, for better and for worse. Sometimes, I give up projects that I might have worked out if I think about them now. And some other times, I kept trying until I succeeded, even throughout adversities.
I learned to accept the past for what it is: a lesson for the future. And this is the mental shift that lately has given me more than anything else.
So now, I focus on my progress only because nobody else will ever leave my life, so they cannot know how fast or slow I can succeed at something. Even if it takes me two years to accomplish something others did in six months, I feel fulfilled anyway.
I try to find opportunities in any failure because I know my body will help me survive, and I only have to search for solutions instead of focusing on problems. So even at the lowest lows, I will try to achieve my goals one more time before giving up. This often leads to never giving up, which I quite enjoy.
Also, I am trying to never settle and always set higher standards for myself and my goals. I still cheer successes a lot but challenges more. I became addicted to improvement, and I like that too because it fills me with satisfaction.
These were the 4 mental shifts you need to take if you want to succeed in life. So will you embrace them?
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Cover photo by Gemma Chua-Tran on Unsplash.