I hear so many EXCUSES. Everything from

• [insert the country you live in] is not good enough
• I don’t know enough
• I don’t know how to get started
• I don’t have money
• I don’t have a support network.
• I have a job

And honestly, I think these ones are ok. These are explicit excuses –  You can work with them.

The WORST are those silent ones. Those unconscious. Those not visible, those which DON’T seem like excuses or complaints at all.

I had this amazing conversation with a very smart woman who is telling me how she doesn’t like her job and really wants to quit, but it’s struggling. She loves to travel. For every excuse she has to not to do it ,I am offering a number of solutions.

After a while, there is no more “buts”. She runs out of excuses.

It feels like we hit the wall. Feels like she says she wants to change but doesn’t really. (???)

Like there is some unconscious, or now maybe more conscious, resistance running through her head and showing up right now when all the excuses were smashed.

Here is the thing.

• Everyone like the idea of living the life they love.
• Everyone like the idea of growing and being an entrepreneur.
• Everyone like the idea of traveling and moving every 6 months to see our beautiful planet.
• Everyone likes the idea of being a millionaire.

The problem is 99,99% just don’t want it bad enough

I promise you if you haven’t taken action yet – you don’t have strong enough reasons to pull you where you need to be. 

And there is a chance that you will stay that way, for years. Maybe even forever.

Never taking a chance, never living the live you wont, never taking any risk because the time was not right, and you weren’t ready and this and that….

And those REASONS that will pull you forward don’t magically appear. They don’t come in a form of some insight or a revolution. Sometimes you will need to hit a wall to change but there is an easier way….

IT’s A DECISION YOU NEED TO MAKE 

“Until you really want to change, you won’t, even if deep down you believe you should.

Yet, once your desire shifts, changing your behavior is instant and effortless. If you no longer desire bad food, it’s not hard to “resist” it. Willpower is for people who haven’t made up their minds. Willpower doesn’t work.

If you no longer desire mediocrity, you won’t be mediocre. Herein lies a subtle and disarming truth — everything you have in your life is what you want. If you wanted something different, you’d have something different. As James Allen wrote, your circumstances reveal you.

Own it.

Until you own it, you’ll continue to be delusional. Once you own it, you can begin the process of change.”

So how do you develop something that pulls you so strong that nothing else matters?

1.Extreme Ownership

Before anything, you need to develop an attitude of extreme ownership.

You need to take responsibility for EVERYTHING that is happening to you. No excuses.

2. Vision

Then you need to develop the pull.

And this its easier a strong enough vision for how you want your life to be OR

a strong enough vision for what you will never settle for, what you will never want in your life. It’s the feelings you never want to feel again its things you hate, its thing you refuse to happen.

They need to be vivid, details and solid so when you think about them they CAUSE EMOTION.

3. Repetition

Once you have both – you bring them in front of you EVERY SINGLE DAY. No, not once a month, not just once a year when you are reflecting.

EVERY SINGLE DAY

I am not joking. Consistency is a key here.

Believe me if you won’t – IT Won’t HAPPEN. GUARANTEE. You must KNOW what you know and what you dont WANT. And remind  yourself about it every single day!

Researchers in the USA looked at millionaires and billionaires, examining the differences between the two groups. One fascinating difference was that millionaires looked at their goals once a day and billionaires looked at their goals twice a day! They say ‘it costs nothing to look’, which is generally correct but the reverse is definitely true in this case. If you don’t look, it will cost you! Having a date for your dreams is like giving a student a deadline for an assignment. All the action is last minute,and if you didn’t set a deadline you’d never get it done!

4. Take Chances – Its fun!

Ready to stop being mediocre?

I have been telling my friends recently about the little thing me and my few close friends do every day to develop and keep the habit of being successful.  We call it a success thread.

We call it a Success thread

It`s  a simple email thread which we send to each other’s every single day which includes usually 10 things we are grateful for today, 5 successes from previous day and 5 goals we wish to accomplish today.

Success breeds success

Its premise is simple. We are creatures of habits. Research shows that those who participate in a daily routine are 3 times more likely to stay on their program than those who participate 6 days a week and fare 5 times better than those who participate 3,4 or 5 times a week. Therefore for the best results, use your program daily.

Additionally ”like attracts like” and “success breeds success”. The more you feel successful the more success will come your way. You cannot feel successful if you do not look for and acknowledge your successes. The successes can be major or minor it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you acknowledge yourself for whatever you did do.

Do not look for what you did not or did not get done or could have done better. That’s a loser’s way of looking at the world. Look specifically for the progress you made in the arena be it financial, business, health, fitness, relationship, learning, servicing or any other.

So we write everything from big wins eg.

• I made X sales
• I had a meeting with investor

to the tiny ones like

• I watched a movie and relaxed
• I made a delicious dinner.

Point is – you HAVE to write 5 or more no matter what!

We do it in an intimate group of very close friends. From time to time somebody will through an inspiring quote, scream whop whop and acknowledge others. And it does a few things for us

• Keep everybody in the loop even if we are not talking directly on what is happening with everybody else’s project.
• Motivate us and makes us feel good
• Makes us feel like a successful badgers every single day
• Pushes us to actually get something done to put on our list

Team Success Thread

We tried it also in a team settings and it worked just great. It raises engagement and accountability. For us as founders it was a great way to track our team which was working remotely in a softer manner than we usually do. Everyday everybody share the 3 things

1. 5 biggest successes
2. Biggest challenges and how you plan to overcome them. Do you need any help from anybody?
3. 5 things you plan to accomplish on the next day.

On our weekly meetings we would do the same thing. Celebrate all the successes from the week from each person and review their focus areas for the next week. We loved and our team too. It is a great way to stay in touch and on track with what everybody is doing, keep transparency and keep pulse on all the challenges your team face on the day to day basis.

To sum up – the frequency of which I do this exercises is directly correlated with how I feel and how well I tackle every day. There is plenty of research showing that gratitude is one of the biggest factors leading to wellbeing. Starting the day with the positive attitude and knowing that there is so many things I can be grateful for sets the theme for a whole day. Feeling of being successful just naturally makes me successful the following day.  What you focus on Expands.

What are your daily habits that are keeping your moods up and make you perform great?

The dream of driving your own project, the thrill of creating something, the thought that you can inspire or provide value to others on a bigger scale, that you are doing something meaningful – is what made throw myself into entrepreneurship in the first place. Over last few years I have done and fail a number of project, but the lessons I have learnt are invaluable for anyone who is thinking about setting up your own business. Here are a few of them.

Believe in Yourself

So simple and so hard. You might not have all the skills in the world but you need to believe that you will find or create a way no matter what. You need to believe that you have the power to pull resources, work out strategies but all the more believe that you can learn. Its ok to not know – you will learn as you go. Just believe you can make it no matter what.

Develop a Strong Vision

This will drive you. Anytime you will have a down time – come back to it. Feel it, touch it, smell it. It will instantly bring you back on your path. Remember the biggest the why the easier the how.

Do It for the Right Reason

It’s easy to get caught in ideas especially those which promise quick money returns. Make sure you are not chasing just money. Focus on creating the value and the bigger value you will create and deliver to as many people as possible the more money you will make. Financial feasibility is important but make sure that the number are not the only reason you want to make it. I promise you it will make you miserable.

Embrace Confusion

Whatever you want to build there will be lots of confusion going on. Embrace it – you are creating something, and learning. That is why startup environment especially at the beginning its so hectic, we are learning hence the strategies we are applying will be changing according to what we learn.  Every time you are confused – tell yourself this is a good, think – that are the only means you are learning and growing. Push through it and soon you will see the light.

Fail you way to success

Get used to it. You will fail. And its not going to be fun, it will be very uncool, people will think things about you, you will not be a cool entrepreneur with cool things. You will be a looser and a winner at the same time. Your learning will help you win. Failing is good unless you are moving forward and learning from it. Fail fast and learn quickly move on to the next idea/project. Use the Customer Development Frameworks and Lean startup up to quickly test your market and your idea and move on. Customer interview can be done in less than a week.

Most important, stand up, get yourself sorted and move on. The longer you stay in the fail state the worse it will end up for you.

 It will take time – Be patient

I heard a lot of people making money overnight especially in internet marketing space, you hear about entrepreneurs mostly when they are successful and you believe that these things happen instantly. But hardly anybody talks that the 20k in one day was followed by years of learning, experimenting, testing, adapting. Your success will be built on hard work and patience

If you are hyper like me with extreme drive and need for speed – then learning patience will be the hardest and most important thing on your journey. Focus on making progress on a day to day basis. One step at the time and you will get there.

Be persistent

You bet you hear that a lot. But be prepared for that. There will be times when u will be fed up, you will question your ideas your actions and your existence – the usual. You will be sick of where you are, that thing doesn’t seem to make progress etc. This is the moment when you need to push harder and stick with it! That will make you the winner! There will be situations when you will have to make a pivot, or it will be a time to change your strategy, but most of the time stick with it.

Build Strong Networks

Nobody is a self-made millionaire. Even if you do not want to be a millionaire and you just want to build a small lifestyle blog or business you need support. And people will want to help you. Find the best in your industry and follow them. Develop a strong network of friends to support you. Get a mentor and a coach to keep you accountable.

Be humble/ listen and learn from others

So you have a biz idea, and maybe your business already – now you are a cool kid entrepreneur. Most successful ones listen and are committed to never ending learning and improvement. Be ready to listen and learn especially at the beginning. Listen to your customers; to you team, to your grandma, to people in the bus. Filter but acknowledge. If you can master that you are on the right track.

 Trust Your Gut

It comes ith your confidence. I made many mistakes following the advice of other people inspite of trusting my own feelings. No matter what others say look inside yourself and get the answers. Ultimatley you need to learn from others but its your path you need to follow not anybody elses.

 Bring on a great team

When the time is right you will want to bring people on board. Make sure every single one is better than you. Enough said.

Celebrate all successes.

The smallest ones. Develop a habit of being successful. We practice in our team and with my close friends what we call a success thread. Everyone sends an email everyday with their successes from the previous days/ goals for this day / biggest challenges we face now and what we are grateful for.

If you are successful at small things you will be successful at big things.