It takes more than just ‘showing up’ to be successful.
BY MARK TEWART
Woody Allen said, “Eighty percent of success is just showing up.” If that were the case 80 percent of people would be wildly successful millionaires. You must show up – and do something!
Success is created through habitual productive actions. I see tons of people in dealerships that show up everyday. They meander through the day like a zombie, they get by, they pay their bills, they go home to watch hours of reality TV and they survive. They showed up. Showing up is not enough. Most people show up. The question is, “Can you really show up?”
There are 1,440 minutes in every day. Do you use them productively? All humans are capable of so much more than we allow or choose. I use the word allow, because you have to first allow yourself to be successful.
Most people have preconditioned thoughts, beliefs and patterns that limit everything they do and the way they do it. Your patterns started to develop in childhood and your self-image was made like a waffle in a griddle. The people in your life started to pour what they chose for you and your image into that griddle and it spread out into that mold. Your self-image became grilled into your subconscious just like a waffle is grilled into the mold of the griddle.
Others chose for you based upon what they thought and you allowed it. You probably did not realize that by allowing what they were choosing for you and whom they thought you were, that you were possibly choosing your life at an early age. Unfortunately, it was a passive choice based upon what others told you or demonstrated for you.
Others decided what you were good at or not good at. Others decided what you were chosen for and not chosen for. Others told you what you should try or not try. Others told you what you should fear. Others demonstrated in school, church and home what the pecking order was and exactly where you should be in that order. Others decided your caste just like if you had grown up in the caste system in India.
You were brainwashed by people you liked, loved and trusted. Many of these people brainwashed you with their beliefs and limitations out of so-called love for you. They wanted to protect you. Without realizing it, those people held dominion over you then and they still do. You are a victim to what others have decided for you. You are a slave to others everyday by the choices you make and the life you live.
You will become successful when you are more motivated to let go of where you are than you are to holding on.
Don’t be a victim. When you continue your current thoughts, emotions, habits, success and failure patterns based upon the past and what others have selected for you then you are a powerless victim. You have given dominion of your power to others. You are acting everyday as a remote control robot guided by others. Stop It!
This is your life! This is your power! This is your choice! So choose it! You choose to win or you choose to lose but the choice is always yours. No excuses. Never allow one excuse or you will allow a million. Allowing excuses becomes your go-to comfort food. It’s like a nice warm blanket you wrap yourself in to feel better. If you choose excuses you can be confortable in your mold that was created for you. You can be that waffle everyone else wants to be. What do you want?
I invite you to take a pencil and paper and write down what others started to tell you about what your weaknesses were, limitations, what you should or should not do when you were young. I want you to write down what experiences gave you pain, feeling of failure, embarrassment or gave you the feeling of lack, scarcity or not quite measuring up.
When you write down all those things, I ask that you put them in perspective. Are they true? Why? Who said? Why do they matter? What makes those experiences forever? What makes those failures, feelings or embarrassments forever reality? One thing makes them so – choice. You must realize that everything is a choice. Let go of everything. Make your fantasy your reality. All limitations are fear based.
Ask yourself the following three questions:
- What is the worst that can happen?
- What is the best that can happen?
- What is the most likely to happen?
Will the worst kill you? Can you recover in your lifetime? Stop mentally choosing the worst-case scenarios and choosing to believe in average results for you.
I tell my son everyday when I drop him off at school, “Think big, live large and you are in charge?” Think past your comfort zone. Think past your current chosen reality. This is big! Don’t even worry about believing your thoughts yet. The first step is to allow yourself to think in these terms.
To be successful, you must get out of your own way
One way to identify how you limit yourself is to recognize the mental game you might be playing with yourself that I call the “When-Then Syndrome.”
When I get to (blank) then I will (blank).
When I earn $(blank), then I will (blank).
When I learn (blank), then I can (blank).
Or maybe you play the “Someday Game.”
Someday, I am going to (blank).
Someday, when this all settles down, I will (blank).
Someday, this will be better.
Unfortunately for many, those “somedays” never come. Unfortunately, those somedays are the built-in excuse of comfort. It’s the comfort food of choice by many that keeps them lazy, unproductive, unsuccessful and unhappy. It’s a built in tool of professional victims.
Shedding poor or average begins with complete responsibility. Take responsibility even when you don’t think it’s your fault. Take responsibility every time for everything because it eliminates all excuses and makes you stronger. Taking responsibility forces you to deal with everything and becomes your success habit for processing things immediately and moving on rather than bogging yourself down in the negative thoughts and emotion that can tie you into victimhood.
