You might be an achiever if...

Before we dive into the details I have to admit that it has taken years and years of failure to get to where I am at today, and I still have a lot to learn in these areas myself. The journey of success does not come easy, but it is worth every trail you face.

I truly believe that each of these areas can be developed if you are intentionally focused. No matter how you rate yourself today in each of these areas, you can change today and produce better fruit tomorrow. To get a better understanding of how people went from failure to success read the book, 'Resovled: 13 Resolutions for Life,' written by Inc. Magazines Top 50 Leadership Expert, Orrin Woodward.

My intention is not to change your habits, but to change your information so that YOU can change your own habits.

During a meeting with Orrin Woodward he simplified my thinking by saying: “If you intentionally pour positive information in your brain daily you will begin to produce positive thinking. Positive thinking will lead to positive actions. Positive actions will lead to positive results.”

Many times it is simply the lack of right information that causes us to produce the wrong results. Hopefully, this post will help guide you in the right direction as we break down the four areas all true achievers must posses. The goal here is not to give you a dissertation of each area, but to give you just enough information for you to understand the value of exploring each of these deeper on your own. 

Hungry- Hunger is a quality one must possess to move forward through the bad times and even the good times. Just like your belly hungers for food, your brain hungers to knowledge. Too often we slip into focusing on the things that take our hunger away causing us to not achieve our potential.  In Napolean Hill’s book ‘Think and Grow Rich’ he states: “There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.” We must intentionally do the things daily that develop a hunger for our burning desire.

We must become hungry enough to invest what it takes to learn what we need to learn to move forward.

The question to ask is: What am I doing daily to create more hunger in my life and what can I stop doing daily that is taking my hunger away?

Teachable – A plant that is not growing is dying. I have witnessed this more times than I wanted to in my coaching career in baseball. You can be the best at what you do today, but someone who is well below your ability today will surpass you tomorrow if they become more teachable than you.

Chris Brady, CEO of Life Leadership, is famous for saying, “You don't know what you don't know. That's why you don't have. Because to know and not to have is not to know.” You must accept the fact that there is always more to learn and that you have not yet ‘arrived.’

There is caution here though. Orrin Woodward caught my attention when he stated: “Be careful where you get your advice from. You just might end up with their results.”

The question to ask is: What areas of my life do I appear to have ‘arrived’ and who can I learn from that has more results in these areas?

Ambitious- You can quickly identify someone who is ambitious. They are the one who decides to overcome any obstacle thrown in their path, or die trying. You can ask them, ‘what did it take to succeed?’ and they will respond with ‘everything I had.’

It is when you developed your dream bigger than your obstacles that you have truly become ambitious. The good news is that there are methods to do just that. The book,'The Magic of Thinking Big', by David J. Schwartz would be a great place to start.

A great mentor of mine, Dean Frey once told me: “There are a whole lot of people who know what they want, but have no passion to get it. That’s called fantasy.”

The question to ask is: What am I doing daily to make my dreams bigger than my obstacles and excuses?

Honest – It has taken me years to get this one even partially right. We can become blind to our reality in a way that we are not honest to ourselves with our actual results in a particular area of life. The moment we deceive our reality is the moment we lose the ability to learn what we need to know the most to move us forward.

Dean hit my heart really hard one day when he was speaking to a large group and asked, “Is the road I am on leading me to where I want to go?” I had to be honest with myself and realize that my actions were leading me down a path that did not produce the results I was seeking.

Finding a mentor with the results you seek is crucial for keeping yourself accountable on honesty. They will help you to see your blind spots by sharing from a different perspective.

The question to ask is: What area in my life have I been deceiving myself and how am I really doing in that area?

It is my hope that identifying these four areas of an achiever will move you forward to living the life you have always wanted for yourself both personally and professionally. 

Please feel free to share stories and insights with me by commenting and messaging me via LinkedIn. 

Living intentionally for excellence,

Anthony Swede