Success often isn’t complicated. It is just hard.
Why is it hard?
It requires relentless pursuit of improvement.
Many of us only have a passing interest in doing better. We like comfortable patterns and a minimum of stress and effort. The quick hit that delivers a quick win appeals as a way to get there easily.
Others might learn, but do they keep applying that learning to do better next time?
Success takes a huge and consistent learning effort (10,000 hours, anyone?). Learning, applying learnings and constantly moving forward is what creates the best chances of success.
What does a relentless pursuit of success take?
- Know why you want to do better – purpose motivates effort and helps you set clear goals that take you where you want to go
- Have a short term goal to achieve – achievements give focus and satisfaction
- Do – practice matters most
- Measure progress to your goal – measurement enables learning
- Learn – take time to reflect on how to do more, better, different or less
- Do more next time
Simple steps. A simple process to do once. Hard to do relentlessly.
Simple things become hard when they must be done over and over again, better and better each time.
That relentless process of focused attention on learning and improvement is what drives the best performance.
