It’s all on you. Your results. Your recognition. Your chance at greatness.
You decide how far you’re willing to take your dream. You make the decision whether to press ahead, in spite of the obstacles holding you back, or to change course and move on to something else.
Every day, you are presented with countless opportunities to impact your destiny. How you respond to those opportunities every day ultimately decides the full measure of the greatness that you achieve.
There are a handful of decisions that successful people all make the same way.
They all do these things in their pursuit of greatness:
1. They give massive amounts of value.
They are valuable. Not just for what they know or for their generosity.
They create value by what they give.
Instead of being focused on their own needs and wants and goals, they go out of their way to give.
They take their best ideas and give them away. They don’t hoard awesomeness; they make sure everyone else around them has access to it.
2. They don’t quit when things get tough.
They want to. They think about it. But they don’t.
They have something deep within them that drives them to keep pursuing their dream.
They have grit. They have resolve. And they’re not going to be pushed around by bad luck, an unfair situation, or circumstances that just don’t go their way.
They don’t quit because it’s more painful for them to abandon their goal than it is to endure the uncomfortableness they feel at the moment.
3. They say “No” to great ideas.
They are intrigued by all the options being presented to them.
They like the challenge of learning something new or trying something different. But they understand that their resource of time is limited.
They understand that money and emotion and focus are quickly exhausted.
By saying “No” to things that are interesting, good, or even great, they have much more time to focus on things that will turn out to be awesome.
4. They stay busy pursuing their goals.
They work hard. Really, really hard.
They don’t angle to work smart. They know that hard work is the smartest work possible.
One of the core differences between people who successfully achieve breakthroughs and those who seem to stay stuck is the amount of time they work at it.
There is no substitute for hard work. Success demands it.
5. They are willing to make big mistakes.
They aren’t so afraid of failure that they play it safe. They try things. Dangerous things. Scary things.
Most of those tries end up in failure, often with uncomfortable consequences.
They look at failure as an opportunity to get better — not that they are inferior or that what they are attempting isn’t likely to achieve success.
To win big, you have to try big. Which sometimes means you’re going to fail big.
Successful people keep failure in context and learn, grow, and do it better next time.
It’s on you to change if you want to be awesome.
If you want to build something new. If you want to point your life in a new direction. If you want to achieve those goals you’ve been talking about until now.
No one else can determine your destiny for you.
The choices you make today, tomorrow, and every day for the rest of your life are what lead to those magical outcomes you’ve been dreaming about.
It all comes down to a few smart decisions. Give more. Don’t quit. Say “No”. Get busy. Try big.