Pretty much everything we want to or have wanted to do end up in one of two states — either you got what you wanted or you failed and then later on you say you learned something from your failure. For example, you could say I want to find a hot girl friend, or I want to become a millionaire, or I want to find a job that pays well, or I want to get promoted at my job this year, or I want to have better relationships with those around me, or more generally I want to become happier with my life. I have set many of these goals for myself before. While some of them have been successful by some work and chance, I admittedly have had many subpar performances.
In sports, athletes review their games and find ways to try to improve. By reviewing, correcting and practicing, they become more skilled and more competitive. However in the daily routine, how often do we actually review what we do and try to improve? For example, every night you go out to a bar and clubs to try meet girls, and often you have the same mixed results. As another example, you have tried to start a few businesses in the last few years, but have not taken a company far. Why? Often, I think we do the same thing over and over and expect different results. I did, and fortunately I realize it now. Some people instinctively and naturally get better at what they do after a few tries, but for the majority of us, I feel we can benefit much by taking a step back and look at our own actions. Fortunately we get feedback on some of our endeavors, and at least for these skills, we should know what to correct and how to improve. Other times, for example our jobs, we only get review maybe every half a year, so we do not have much time to figure out what we may be doing wrong.
We can consider a lot of our actions as skills in a particular area. For example, we talk to other people everyday. The acts of communicating and interacting with others are one’s social skills; like many other commonly recognized skills such as typing, one can improve one’s communications skills through conscious practice. As another example, I often go out dancing salsa. If I never stand in front of the mirror and practice my turns over and over, I am probably not going to get better at my turns. We can extend this idea to many of our behaviors. What do you want to do? How do you get better at doing what you want to do?
If you want to make more money, how do you make more money? Do you need more school? Do you need to be around people who have made boat loads of money? If you want to be meet more people, do you expect your same daily routine of going to work, dinner and sleep to produce different results? What do we need to change? Who do we need to surround ourselves with? These are important questions for those who want more.
Of course it’s hard to read about how to be successful from someone has not quote on quote “made itâ€, but I can tell you plenty about how to be unsuccessful. Some of these qualities come from my observations of others and many are from my own doing. Without further adue here is how you become unsuccessful. Hopefully by knowing many of the ways of becoming unsuccessful, you and I will one day write about how to become successful. The answer to all this has actually been said by a very successful Shelton Adelson already. Scroll to the bottom of this post if you can’t wait to find out.
1) Daydreaming (Not Guilty)
a. Wouldn’t it be nice to have one hundred million dollars? What would I do if I had that much money today? Think about the nice private jets and mansions I can buy for myself and my family and the flock of women who would follow me around and the vacation I can have on the beautiful coasts of the French Riviera, wherever that is. This type of dreaming is not too productive, but at least it’s entertaining to some degree.
b. The other type of daydreaming is the entrepreneurial daydreaming. For example, I have a great idea for a toy and I think I can make a gazillion dollars from it. Of course, I am only going to talk about it, but never do anything about it. But wait! Listen to my next idea, which is even better than the first one. I will still not invest any effort to find out if it’s even feasible, or if someone else has already done it, but I think it’s a great idea and I want you to take your precious time to listen to my idea. A lot of time is wasted in this type of daydreaming. If the idea is appealing enough, it wouldn’t be too far a stretch to invest some time to see how feasible it is. Bottom line, recognize what you want to do and decide to take actions. Then do it.
2) Underestimating the amount of work necessary to be successful (Guilty for sure)
a. Have you tried to work on a business idea on the side while having a full time job? You probably told yourself you can make the business work just by coming home and working for a few hours. Where is that business now? Looking back, what made it not work? How much time did you realistically need to put in to even have a shot at success? More generally, if you have failed at something, what did other people, who succeeded at it, do? If you consistently get only 85 on tests in a class, but this one kid in the same class always gets at least 90; how did he prepare differently than you did? As another example, if you want to lose that extra 20 pounds, but think that by walking 10 minutes a day, your weight will drop automatically.
b. The idea here is that if the end result is not important enough to us, we often underestimate the amount of work we need to put in to be successful at a task. If I was happy getting 85 on a test, I am not going to push myself to get an A. Same goes for starting a business. If my business doesn’t take off, I still have money coming in from my day job. Depending on our expectations, we put in the necessary amount of work to achieve that, but often times no more. Bottom line, need to know the amount of work you need to put in to get better at what you want to do. Invest time to research and add details to your plan. Then take that effort and multiply by two because someone else out there is working just as hard and as smart as you.
3) Not knowing if what you get out of it is worth the time and effort you put in (I am Guilty)
a. If you are getting paid minimum wage to sweep floor at a diner, would you work hard and try to get better at cleaning the floor? Probably not because you are getting little out of it. As another example, if you have a great idea for a business, but your business has a natural limit which doesn’t allow you to make more than your day job. Is it worth your time? Say you want to start a web design company. You could be the best graphic designers, but some skilled person in Romania would do the same job for 30% of what you are willing to get paid for. Is your web design company still worth your effort?
b. As another example, if you look at your boss and see that he has been at the same company for twenty years, still miserable. Do you want to stay at the same company and one day become like him? Or you might see that your boss is happy with his job and that he has advanced over the years, then your time at the company is worthwhile. When we are in a routine, these important questions often go unasked.
Looking back, I never really got much better at basketball while I was in high school. I did not make a conscious judgment of what areas I needed to improve and how to improve. When I caught the ball outside of the key, I knew how to drive to the basketball decently, but I was not a good finisher. While I knew how to post up, I couldn’t power up against a much bigger defender. Over the three years, I would play pickup games, but I never improved in areas of the game where I lacked skills. Unfortunately, these are some of the lessons one is supposed to learn through sports. Fortunately, I know them now. Oddly enough, I learned them through dancing salsa. Dancing was important to me and I wanted to get better, so I thought about what I needed to do to get better. I learned from different teachers, went out dancing often and realized areas where I was terrible at. Basketball was a fun sport for me, but never was important enough.
Entrepreneur and casino tycoon Shelton Adelson once said “It’s simply a matter of having a vision, coming up with a conviction and follow through on that conviction” “This is what entrepreneurs do.”
“You come up with a vision, and figure out what the upside and what the downside is.” I would add that make sure what you want to do is important to you because if it didn’t matter to you, you will probably come up short.