Shut Up and Show Up: 3 ways to succeed in your career

(With Ayesha Bahukhandi)

What breeds success? I ask a lot of my team members about the constituents of success. Sure, talent is one of them. You need to be smart to be successful – is the most common answer. And yet, talent – the smarts – is same as having Gisele Bundchen-esque cheekbones – it’s winning the genetic lottery. But does that mean that without being that 1 in a million you can never be truly successful? Nope.

Ingredient One: Commitment

Being successful - in my mind, is a habit. You need to inculcate it and consciously nurture it. It takes true commitment. Commitment to never take anything less than perfect from yourself. Commitment to really want to give your 1000%. You need to be your own coach and push yourself harder on each step. Know that feeling that you get when you are short one half-a-kilometer to beat your target? You are capable of – there’s a reason good is good and not great. The leap from good to great comes when you push yourself to give the best that you are capable of. And that takes commitment to do your best.

Ingredient Two: Grit

The second most important ingredient, and closely related to the first one, is grit. Grit means you have resilience – to overcome the first setbacks that everyone meets. Success is hard – otherwise it would be called average. It implies practice – it’s a lifelong habit remember? Practice means pushing yourself over and over again. Each day is a new match in the ring. Waking up, feeling energized to take that punch again means having the grit to do it all over again. Without resilience one day you might think that you are done – and that would set in the complacency. Complacency is the point where you start going backwards in growth trajectory.

Ingredient Three: Say Yes

The third, and the most important – and the most obscure – element to success, I feel, is saying Yes. How many times have we harbored doubts over being able to do something? I remember when I first started running – that first kilometer looked so tough. But if I hadn’t said yes I wouldn’t have inculcated the habit. Say yes to all those things that come your way no matter how unsure you are of being able to do justice. This not only brings in confidence but it will also make you push the boundaries of comfort.

Success is like any habit – say yes and push yourself, everyday. Don’t accept anything less than perfect from yourself. But most importantly – shut up and show up. Nothing else matters.