Category: Success

Updated Success Formula

6/18/2012

As we are having thoughts about success and happiness and learning these success principals, we will update the content of this website. In particular, the Success Formula is intended to be a living document that improves as we do.

Today, I have added a fourth step to the formula "Plan". This is a step that might be assumed, though I think it is significant enough to be specifically mentioned. So, now the formula has 4 steps:

Goal - Definite, time limited goal that a 5 year old can understand
Action - Take regular action towards your goal with urgency
Plan - Look at your goal and actions and make plans to improve
Persistence - Keep trying. Expect to fail 70% - 80% of the time. Review your goals, take actions and make plans.

We can evaluate each of these steps and think about how good are we at each of them. Yesterday we talked about changing wishes into goals. This is the first step for us to be successful. Learn how to be as clear as possible about what is our target, and what are we aiming towards.

Once we have chosen a goal, we should take some actions, any action. Just do something to get over that terrible thing called procrastination. Even the wrong action is much better than no action. Do anything. We can do a whole other post about how to get over procrastination and do something as this is a common place for us to have difficulty. Maybe it is fear or lack of confidence that stops us from taking action.

Now, after we have taken some action, spend some time, review what we have done and make a plan on how to do better. Are we aiming for the proper target? Can we do better there? Now, what possible actions can we take to achieve this goal? Think small, large, short-term and long-term.

When making plans, it is not so important if we actually end up following this exact plan. The process of planning will help our brain to think about different options and what we might do when things don't go the way we want. Carl von Clausewitz wisely said "No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy." So, be flexible and roll with the punches.

The final step is to be persistent. In American professional baseball, the highest paid player in 2012 is Alex Rodriguez, making US$30,000,000. His batting average is 0.301, that means that ~70% of the time that he goes up to hit the ball, he fails. Though it is even worse that this, because this does not count how many times he swings at the ball. If on average he swings the bat 3 times per time at bat, then in reality he fails to get a hit 90% of the time that he swings the bat.

Can you really believe this, that someone is paid US$30 million to only be successful 10% of the time. Though, that is the fact. Of course, he has other skills, like fielding the ball, though it still remains that this statistic is true in most major sports, the true professionals fail much more than they succeed, their key is to get up and try, try again.

How are you doing on each of part of the success formula?

13 Comments

What are you doing today to create a success habit?

6/14/2012

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Human beings are creatures of habit. We tend to repeat what we have done in the past. It is easy and comfortable, even if those habit are harmful and we are fully aware of the harm those habits are doing to us.

The great news is that this is also true for beneficial behaviors. Believe it or not, there are truly people that have successful habits that they do just as effortlessly and happily as those less successful habits that many people have.

Think about watching TV and eating unhealthy food. These are activities that many people get great pleasure from. They find it relaxing and stress free to watch TV and eat unhealthy food. I know it is hard for many of us to realize, though there are actually people who get just as much joy and relaxation from doing success related activities and eating healthy food.

I'm getting at the point that the idea of "work hard" or "suffer now to reap the rewards later" are ideas that I don't find to work very well. These ideas are similar to New Year's resolutions that most people make. They work up their resolve and use all their strength to bear some undesirable behavior like going to the gym, or eating salads, or calling more prospects. Each time they do these activities they dislike it, resist it, and maybe curse the fact that they have to do these things, though they continue for a short time because they are hoping for some payoff, meaning more strength, losing weight or having more sales. The secret is that we are hoping that after we achieve our goal we can relax and let loose a little and not have to be so strict.

This is the big fault with this "diet" or "New Year's resolution" mentality. What we should be striving for is forming new habits that we will continue to do, maybe for the rest of our life. If we think this way, that we are trying to form a habit that we will be living with for the rest of our life, it had better be something that can bring you some pleasure.

Ask youself, "How can I enjoy...". Try and find some way to enjoy what it is that you need to do to achieve your goal. For example you might say "How can I enjoy going to the gym?" It's perfectly possible that you can't think of a single way to enjoy this. Then change what you are doing. Few people have as a goal "Go to the gym." What they probably want is to lose weight or gain more strength. There are many ways this can be achieved, think of another activity you can do that you can enjoy, rock climbing, aerobics class, running, swimming, walking, shopping. If you keep searching, there must be something you can find that you can enjoy to achieve your goals. If you can't think of anything, then look at what other people are doing, and ask other people.

We had better enjoy these new habits we are forming, otherwise we will stick with them for about as long as people stick with New Year's resolutions.

11 Comments

It's OK to start small.

6/11/2012

10 Comments

When picking a goal to work towards to be successful, it is OK to choose something small.

Sometimes when we listen to success coaches they talk about that the world will give us what we ask for, so if we ask for something small or large, that is what we will receive. Hearing this we sometimes think that we must only ask for large things like, having US$1 million, or being a celebrity, or losing 50% of our current weight. These are all nice goals.

I remember hearing a story about Jim Carrey that before he was hugely successful, he wrote himself a check for a large amount, something like US$1 million and would look at it regularly as motivation until he was able to cash it. Obviously, whatever success formula he employed, it worked for him. This technique is a great idea and I encourage everyone to do it and see if it works for you.

I think we should also be open to the possibility of small goals. Think of it again in terms of a physical workout. If you were only able to life 1kg, would you continue to do a workout with that 1k even if your ultimate goal is to life 100kg? I sure hope so. You can set a near term goal to lift 2kg and leave the larger goal of 100kg to just be in the background. It doesn't have to be the primary focus.

By allowing our self to achieve small goals, we can then celebrate them. I am again reminded of the story I heard in the movie "Touching the Void". It is a great, true life story, about how a mountain climber fell off the mountain, broke his leg and was left for dead. This climber was an experienced climber and did not have food or water as they had just planned to do a quick climb. He knew 100% that he was dead, there was no question about that fact. What he decided was though, despite the fact that he was going to die, there was no reason he had to die where he was lying.

He figured that he was able to move maybe 1 or 2 meters and he would play a game of giving himself 5 or 10 minutes to move that distance. After he moved that small distance, he would check his watch and either celebrate or curse that he can do better. After his celebration/disappointment, he would then start again and think something like "Well, I'm not dead, yet, so there's no reason to die here, let's go another 1 or 2 meters in a certain time limit of 5 or 10 minutes."

Despite the fact that he expected to die on the mountain, using this technique of just looking at small goals and celebrating them, or reevaluating how he can do better next time if he didn't quite achieve the goal, he was able to save himself.

I like this mentality. It's OK if we don't have a 100% positive mental attitude in our ability to achieve our overall large goal. Let's just set some small, quick goals that will move us ever so small towards this large goal. It's OK if we don't every expect this to really allow us to achieve the large goal, but let's just do it as a game, because really we all will die some day.

What do you think?

10 Comments

Does success mean being in control of the outcome?

6/10/2012

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If you could control the outcome of all aspects of your life, would you consider yourself successful?

Imagine you want to get married or find a romantic partner and you can control that output, wouldn't you consider that success? How about if you want a new house, car, or boat and you are able to obtain them, would that be success? It sounds reasonable, that being able to control our ability to achieve our goals seems successful. Of course, we're not talking about how long it might take to achieve these goals. It might take months or years, though if you knew or felt that you were in control of the outcome then you may feel more successful.

This is related to the idea of learned helplessness. Imagine that whatever you wanted to achieve, I mean to really achieve that you know 100% that you can and will accomplish this. Image that you want to have a net worth of US$20 million. Let's say that is guaranteed. Now what if you are told that for the next 10 years you must get up at 5 am everyday and learn new skills, expose yourself to uncomfortable situations and have setbacks and periods of complete unhappiness. Would you continue to get up at 5am and continue to learn and walk through this river of fire to achieve you deep seated desire? I hope that I would.

I guess part of the issue is that no guarantees like this necessarily exist. It is very possible that we could do all these things and not achieve the US$20 million. So because of this, maybe we don't start, or if we do start, we give up after some time. I think each of us learns certain skills at a young age and we accept that we will be successful in those areas because we have a history of success. Maybe you are a funny person, or a social person, or an athlete, or good in school. As you grow up, we learn to accept that this is part of our personality and are reinforced that these are our strengths. In other areas, we maybe feel that we don't have control over them so maybe we feel less successful in those areas.

Another alternative theory is that instead of being in control of the outcome, we control our reaction to the outcome. So instead of saying that if we achieve some goal we are successful, we control our reaction to the outcome..

A third theory is that by definition we are in control of most all situations in our life. Most everyone is in control of how much they weight, how much knowledge they have, what type of relationships they have and how much money they have. If you are an adult, then most likely you use your own decision to decide what items to put into your mouth, you decide what books to read or classes to take, you decide what people you associate with and you decide what activities you perform for money and how much money you accept for them. If we truly accept this, that our situation in life is mostly under our control, then we can already be successful today, right now.

We can say "I am a successful person, and now I am going to change what type of success I achieve."

You are successful, now what type of success do you want to achieve?

11 Comments

Do we really want to be successful?

6/9/2012

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How much of our desire to be successful is genuine and how much is just a bunch of hot air?

When trying to understand this topic of success, one of my questions was wondering why there weren't more organizations that teach the principals of success. When I thought about this more, I realized it is not as easy as that. Maybe if your goal is to make more money, there is maybe not an overload of schools promising to make you a billionaire, but there are other success schools. In particular, for losing weight and learning English.

As part of these thoughts on success and happiness, success does not have to mean making more money. It an mean losing weight, learning English, or saving a marriage. As an American, there is no shortage of overweight Americans, and since I live in China, there is also no shortage of people wanting to learn English. Also, in American, there is no shortage of "weight success" programs and information, like books, TV shows, diets, and support groups. In China, pretty much the same thing for English, many schools, programs and support groups.

How successful is the "weight success" program in America? My general impression is that obesity is still a major problem in the US. So, despite all of the information, preaching, scolding, support, and every other possible method, the issue still exists. The positive mental attitude (PMA) philosophy might say that people should "think thin" and then they would lose weight. Or maybe it is because we focus too much on obesity and being overweight. If instead all the new reports talked about was being fit or healthy, then maybe we would all be healthy. Is it really that simple of just focusing all our attention on being healthy?

Living in China, I have a totally different perspective since much fewer people here are fat. From poor to rich, from lazy to hard working, they are pretty much as a society fit, at least not obese. So this seems to indicate to me that environment is a major factor in determine how much we weight. Because of environment, we develop certain tastes and habits, since that is what everyone else is doing, and based on that environment we become like others in that environment.

I really think this is a huge key. I also mentioned English above, because many Chinese people say they want to speak English, and they generally don't, and the same for many foreigners here in China that say they want to speak Chinese and they can't. I know a few Chinese who speak good English and everyone of them hangs out with native English speakers on a regular basis. Same thing for foreigners like myself who speak good Chinese, we hang out with native Chinese speakers.

If you want to be healthy or fit, hang out with healthy or fit individuals and do what they do. If they don't want to hang out with you because you aren't healthy or fit, then find another group of healthy or fit individuals, and also change your behavior to fit in with some group of healthy or fit individuals. If you want to learn a foreign language, hang out with native speakers of the language.

One caution is don't think that hanging out with people that want what you want will necessarily be helpful. I have seen this clearly where someone who want to learn Chinese hangs out with another learner of Chinese and they end up speaking English most of the time. Find a native speaker to hang out with, even if you have to pay them.

What group of people already have what you want and how can you hang out with them?

24 Comments

The most selfish thing we can do is to serve others.

6/7/2012

7 Comments

Noah St. John's blog today reminded me that it is often when we help others that we are best able to achieve what we want.

It is common for us to focus on our wants, we want more money, we want more happiness, we want more love, we want, we want, we want. How much time do we spend thinking about what other people want?

When I think about it, it is exactly what Napoleon Hill says in his book "How to Win Friends and Influence People".

Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
Talk in terms of the other person's interest.
Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.
Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
Let the other person feel the idea is his or hers.
Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say "You're Wrong."

This advice is all about thinking about other people in order to accomplish what we want.

I was once admonished by a friend that if I would spend more time helping other people get what they wanted, I would have more than enough of what I wanted.

A great leader is also a humble servant.

How can I help you get what you want?

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Forward>>

Updated Success Formula

What are you doing today to create a success habit?

It's OK to start small.

Does success mean being in control of the outcome?

Do we really want to be successful?

The most selfish thing we can do is to serve others.

Blogroll

Steve Hubbard

Archives

Categories

List of Articles

Thoughts on Success
Thoughts on Happiness

Updated Success Formula

What are you doing today to create a success habit?

It's OK to start small.

Does success mean being in control of the outcome?

Do we really want to be successful?

The most selfish thing we can do is to serve others.

Blogroll

Steve Hubbard

Archives

Categories

List of Articles

Thoughts on SuccessThoughts on Happiness

Thoughts on Success
Thoughts on Happiness