The Five Steps for Achieving Anything

Success is something most people want, but few seem to attain.

Over the last five posts, we've looked at achieving success – what it is and how to be successful.

Out of these, you can distil five simple steps that, if you follow them, will allow you to achieve anything.

1. Success Is a Mindset

Success is not something you can (or should) chase.

What happens when you chase something? It runs away.

When I was running my building company, I was always chasing "something", this seemingly unattainable point in the future where I'd have enough. I'd made it. I was successful.

The result was I was constantly anxious, not satisfied and not happy.

However, when I tried to discover where I went wrong, I realised that I had done nothing wrong

Instead, I eventually learnt that true success is a mindset and a choice. You can choose to find it or sit on your arse and wait for it to come your way (which it probably won't!).

It doesn't matter what people think, what matters is that you are comfortable with who you are and what you do.

What success is, is personal and different for everyone.

For me, it's the ability to keep going and always growing, learning, helping and inspiring others.

In fact, my goal is to be known as "the most successful unsuccessful person who ever lived."

2. Take Control of Your Choices

Once you know what success means to you – what it is that you want to achieve – often the next question is why?

What's your why? Funnily enough, trying to work out your why is a bit like chasing success.

Like success, why is a mindset and a choice – what you're really about and who you are.

People often use circumstances as excuses for what happens to them and where they end up. I would have been successful, but…

You have complete control over your thoughts, your choices and your actions.

And, if you do control them, your why (and success) will find you.

Growing up, I was frequently told that I was going to end up in jail.

So, unsurprisingly, this thought dictated my choices. What was the point of working hard at school if that was where I was going to end up?

This happened until I realised that I could change my thoughts and my choices. My why didn't have to be that I would end up in jail, but could be anything I wanted it to be.

And, to work that out, a great question to ask – "is this who I what to be?"

If not, you can change because you have control of your choices.

3. Start With a Clear Goal

Now that your mind is in the right space, you can get on with achieving what you want to achieve.

This starts with a clear goal.

I did this exercise with a class of students recently.

After getting a volunteer, I asked him to do as many press-ups as he could. So, he gets down and does 20 press-ups.

When he'd finished, I asked him to do two more. He did another five before stopping.

It turns out 20 wasn't the most press-ups he could do but, because there was no clear target, he just did as many as he thought would be enough and what he felt the rest of the class would think was a good number.

Then, when I gave him a target of an additional two press-ups, he exceeded it.

This is an example of the 40 percent rule in action. "When your mind is telling you you're done, you're really only 40 percent done." (David Goggins)

This is one of the secrets of successful people. You can always achieve (a lot) more than you think you can.

And it's one of the reasons for our success at Attain. People said it couldn't be done – creating an agency that successfully combines both sales and marketing.

Two years later, we've gone from two to 20 people and are smashing our goals.

From our goals, we've created a plan and a strategy on how to get there and, throughout the journey, we're constantly learning, trying, doing, reflecting and repeating.

4. Get Off Your Arse

A plan without action is pointless.

And it can be easy to get stuck in the detail of working out your strategy and get paralysis by analysis.

Instead, to achieve success, you need GOYA (Get Off Your Arse).

You just have to start. Move forward. Try something.

Success doesn't come to those who wait. It comes to those who take action.

5. Keep Going

Success is potentially a hard road, and you're going to get knocked back.

If you do, you've got to keep going.

What keeps you moving forward is resilience, a skill you can develop that is part of every successful person's DNA.

At Attain, resilience is a big part of our team and our culture. We've lost clients we thought we'd get. Members of our team have come and gone, but we've pushed through, we've grown, and we're hitting our definition of success.

For us, that's to build a great team, be a true reflection of our clients, and have a culture that drives our own and our client's success.

Whatever you want to achieve, whatever success you're working towards, having resilience is going to be a significant factor in getting you there.

In fact, it goes hand in hand with GOYA. When things don't work out, you've got to get off your arse and keep going.

Conclusion

Most people don't understand what success actually is and instead look to others and society to tell them. Once you realise that success is a mindset, it changes the game.

You're in control of your own destiny, who you want to be, and what you want to achieve.

Set clear goals and targets, then get off your arse and start working towards them.

Most importantly, don't let setbacks become permanent. Be resilient and keep going.

I know that if you stay true to these five steps, you can achieve anything, including success.

Sharn Piper – CEO

M: +64 27 733 4333

E: [email protected]

W: www.attainnz.com