The Truth About Success is that Success isn’t easy. If it was, everyone would be wildly successful. If you aren’t successful yet, this could explain why…
Austin, Texas
3:04pm
Most people are afraid to fail in life. Most people are afraid to be fearless, and to take risks. Most people are too afraid to push themselves to be the person they’ve always wanted to be, and it’s usually because they don’t want to leave their comfort zones.
That is why they fail.
It’s also the reason that a large percentage of people alive today are living lives that they aren’t happy with. The truth is that… success isn’t easy.
Some people might tell you that it is. Especially if you’ve ever come across those make money online videos on YouTube. You know the ones i’m talking about. You’ve probably been watching videos or listening to music and then you have to click “Skip ad” so you don’t hear the same BS over and over again.
The truth is that success takes a LOT of hard work. But, when the majority of people hear that something is going to be difficult… they shut down and decide against it. I mean, seriously. Who wants to work hard when you could just binge watch Netflix all weekend?
Exactly.
And while we’re at it, let me tell you this. You won’t ever succeed.
Whoa, whoa, whoa… that seems a little harsh, doesn’t it?
What about a happy medium?
Okay… let’s address this “happy medium”. You WILL be successful, but it won’t be easy. Is that better?
It’s starting to feel a little bit better in my gut seeing that written out. I’ve had success in both instances… Massive failures, and incredible success. Want to know why I’ve had both? I work my ass off.
If you know me personally, you know I love what I do. I enjoy diving deep into niches, learning about customer demographics and finding the best ways to create value for the consumer in the niche… and then helping map out how to go about creating systems that can be duplicated for your team members to follow.
But the thing is, I work… all the time. Sure, I can take off a ton of time and go on epic adventures for days at a time, or weeks… without any real change in my lifestyle. But it’s because during the times when you don’t hear from me, or see me, I’m deeply involved in building and working on my systems.
So the whole idea of “Success isn’t easy” is just that… it’s an idea.
and since we all have different ideas and different viewpoints on what is considered to be “easy”, it’s impossible to tell you that success is easy. For me, spending 60-100 hours a week working on a project that I care about is easy. For other people, hearing “60-100 hours a week” is like the worst nightmare ever.
I mean, jobs only make you work 40 hours a week and people get all upset over that.
The thing is, when you’re doing something you hate for 40 hours a week… it flat out sucks. It seems like every minute drags on and somehow this crazy Universe we live in has seemed to stop time… and the seconds drag on for minutes, and the minutes drag on for hours.
It’s mind-numbingly boring. It’s tedious work. It’s stuff you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. It’s…. work.
On the other hand, when it’s something you give a shit about… it’s awesome.
The Truth About Success…
My girlfriend witnesses this first hand whenever I get an idea and immediately move towards implementing it. She says my eyes light up and its like a fire ignites within me.
and then I’ll work on the idea for hours on end, without even realizing that it had been a few hours since I took a break. Which means I must force myself to stop and take a break. Not that I want to, but because I know that my body functions better when I do.
This type of action seems to come in waves, and it isn’t always there. Sometimes it hits hard and i’ll have a week of terrific content creation, and other times I’ll not feel like doing a damn thing. It’s just like the ocean… the tides change and I’m just trying to surf them when the conditions are good.
The Truth About Success and Why It’s So Elusive…
Personally I think it has to do with what a person’s individual definition of success is. According to dictionary.com
[suh k-ses]
noun1. the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors; the accomplishment of one’s goals.2. the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.
3. a performance or achievement that is marked by success, as by the attainment of honors:The play was an instant success.
4. a person or thing that has had success, as measured by attainment of goals, wealth, etc.:She was a great success on the talk show.5. Obsolete. outcome.
Related: Success Isn’t About Who You ARE…
Look at those different meanings and then think about what success looks like to you. Is it achieving a certain financial goal? Is it getting a trophy? Is it recognition from your boss for a job well done? What about just finishing a project?
Think for a second… what does your version of success look like?
Get out a piece of paper and a pen and write out what success means to you.
My definition of success, for myself, is to be able to do whatever I want, whenever I want, with whoever I want, wherever I want.
Yes, I know that can be taken in a few different ways. But my idea of success is for me to have an open schedule to go do whatever it is that I want, whenever I want to do it. Let’s say there’s a super cool event that a friend of mine tells me about… I want to be able to drop everything and go do it, if I choose to do so. This very thing happened when I first learned about the Songkran Festival in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
My girlfriend and I met some new friends while we were traveling and they told us about this festival that was something that everyone should do… and we looked it up, it looked like an absolute blast… so we made the plan to attend that year (We actually went back this past year as well, it was that much fun)
That right there to me is success.
Is it possible to make success easier?
Well, I could tell you that yes… success is going to be easier for you than it is for others… but that would be a lie.
Because success depends on your personal viewpoint of it, it’s impossible for me to guarantee anything to you in this life. Until you know what success looks like to you, you’ll never achieve it.
Right now, if you have a computer or a phone and you have clean water, electricity and a house, you’re an incredible success to people who live in third-world countries who don’t have these things. But, because you’ve probably had this your whole life, you discount it for what it is.
You might even be earning over $100,000 a year right now, yet you still might not consider yourself a success because so-and-so makes $500,000 a year.
Until you figure out what success means to you, you’ll never achieve it. Truth be told, once you do achieve “success” according to your old definition, you’ll still probably feel like a failure because your goals will continue to grow as you do.
Fun, right? Oh the joy of Entrepreneurship. If you want to see a few of the ways that I’ve figured out how to start creating a beginner income from the internet, you can get my Beginner’s Guide to Internet Entrepreneurship guidebook and tutorial videos here.