What Do YOU Need to WIN?
February 12th, 2010 @ Ivana Taylor
The best advice I ever got was to “Know what you need to be successful, put that in place or don’t do it.”
How often do you find yourself out of control of your life and the life circumstances around you? Most of the time, we are a function of doing the things that need to be done, placating, putting out fires and just being in a reactive mode. In other words, life controlling us.
Picture yourself as a 5-year old walking a great Dane. You might wonder, who is walking whom? It’s not uncommon to feel this way either in our business or our life. But it’s possible to create something completely different.
Set Yourself Up for Success
The first step is to take some time to take stock of where you are and what you are doing. For example. Currently, I’m sitting in a comfy chair procrastinating on writing a book review. I’m thinking that if I just start writing something, the book review article will come. That’s where I’m at.
The next step is to ask yourself, what do I need to be successful? In my case I need the following:
- A book to review (I’ve got at least one I’ve read thus far)
- Peace and quiet (all I can hear is the humming of the fridge)
- An inspired “hook” to get the ball rolling (I’m currently flat on that one – that’s why I’m writing this)
OK – so it looks like all the ingredients are there for a successful article in the next hour. There is nothing to stop me right now – except for me procrastinating.
See, this took a little time to do — and writing it down really helps. The act of thinking about what you need to be successful and writing it down will set you up for success.
Choose to WIN
I’ve just realized that I think that winning is a result or a byproduct of a series of circumstances and events. That is not true. As I completed the exercise above, I realized that I know what winning looks like (a completed article), I know what I need to do and have in place to make that happen and all that is left is to choose to put my mind and my hands in action.
I’ve decided to re-define winning into smaller bites where I can be successful and build on these successes. Sometimes winning is opening my eyes, getting out of bed, dressing and smiling at the mirror. Good enough. Small wins are like interest; they compound one on top of the other and the next thing you know — you’ve created the big win.
Climb the mountain one step at a time, write the article one word at a time.
What do you need to set yourself up for success – I’m taking tips!
Category : Blog