Breaking down success into smaller parts makes it easier to improve on each small segment
Being successful in virtually anything is generally a strategic and well planned out course of events. The problem is most people don’t know where to start when planning out their course.
Ben Hogan was arguably one of the best golfers in history. His secret, or also known as “Hogan’s Secret” was later discovered that he actually just practiced far, far more than other golfers. The same with Ted Williams, Kobe Bryant and MJ. But Hogan’s success was even more than that. He would actually break down his own golf swing in to smaller more digestible parts and began focusing on improving each small segment. This created his famous perfect golf swing. He did the same for the game itself, studying each course and assigning yardage distance for each of his clubs.
Most people do not have the innate insatiability for practice as the Hogan, Williams, and MJ had. With that, we can still get reasonably the same results if we use some of the same principles as the greatest use.
Starting small and braking down anything you want to achieve at is the starting point to perfection. Here are 3 focus points broke down for you that you can start working on right away.
1. Determination
I know this seems like a no-brainer but believe me, it’s more complex than that. If determination was all you needed to succeed, EVERYONE would be successful! We are all determined and driven but most people do not know how to channel that drive and determination. Most any high achieving person was said to be driven at an early age. But I believe most all of us are driven but lack a direction to be driven in. Rather than worrying about the premise of whether you are driven enough or not, make the decision to be determined. You know what you want now apply unbending determination to get there.
Anyone can be determined. It’s a much easier way to look at your success over being driven. The word driven has a nasty connotation and lends itself to people saying, “not all of us are that driven” but we can all be determined! Work on your determination game. The very greatest secret to determination is consistency. Michael Jordan wasn’t the greatest of all time because he could fly through the air, he was the greatest because he was consistent. That consistency came at the cost of a lot of failures to get there but if you are fearlessly consistent, you are determined.
Start out by being consistent with something, anything, just something you can do every single day! Wake up earlier and at the same time every day. Workout every day. Take your vitamins every day. Little things to practice consistency. If you miss a step or skip a day, you will see you are not being consistent, therefor, you are not determined. Make these mistakes small and often until you are reliably trusting yourself to see them through without missing a day. Once you are consistent, determination is just around the corner and you can then begin to step up your game for greater things.
2. Curiosity
Work your curiosity muscle. We are just not curious enough today. We are all curious by nature, (we are just too intellectually advanced to not be.) But intellectual ability on its own is just a nice way of saying “second or third place!” The problem with curiosity is that we view it as a bad thing. Remember, “Curiosity killed the cat.” So we tend to be more reserved when it comes to being curious because our brains like the things we can predict and have experience with. Push past your apathy for curiosity and really start to explore what is possible and what is traditionally thought to be impossible.
Start out by questioning the rules of the game. Being curious is about knowing who you are and where you stand in all of this. If you know yourself and know the rules, you have a better chance of changing the rules or the dynamics of the game. When you accept the rules all the time, you are not being curious enough. You will be in the practice of blind acceptability. Push past your fears of being judged and lift the hood on game and see how it works. Ask a lot of questions that begin with the word, “why.” It will probably really surprise you to find out most people do not know why and are looking for someone to take the lead anyway. Opportunity can happen at any time and for anyone that will ask- Why?
3. Insensitivity
I will make a very bold prediction that you are way too sensitive to most everything in your life. You care what others think and you worry about what people are saying about you. Its okay, I’m not judging, it’s how we were all raised; to be nice, sophisticated and to think of others. But if you ask most high achieving people how they feel about others or what’s being said about them, you’re likely to get a very callus answer. Like one London Stock broker and hedge fund manager once said,
“The greatest thing about being insensitive is it allows you to sleep at night when others can’t.”
This can be a very hard thing for most people because we are naturally a social animal. Emotions and being sensitive to others is already woven into our fabric so trying to unweave those sensitivity threads is easier said than done. Just start out small and began to desensitize yourself.
Keep in mind, emotions make us weak and people who achieve greatly know that. That’s why you hear the saying, “Don’t take it personally, it’s just business.” This is a saying to delineate the actions of business from the actions of friendship, after all, it’s called business, not “friend-ness.” The art of crushing a friend in business and then being friendly to that same person after work is something to be mastered. Believe me, being able to sleep at night is vastly more advantageous to performing your best every day in your work. There is no virtue in sleepless nights worrying about how your actions will affect others when you want to achieve greatly.
Lowering your game to consider the feelings of others is doing no one any good. As kids in sports we were taught to not run up the score. But that actually made the losers feel even worse; when your opponent is costing and still beating you. Better to be more selfish and hand out a thorough ass-whipping.
Determination, curiosity, and desensitization is not something you will curate overnight. We are now just too influenced by outside distractions and judgmental group think, plus years of educational conditioning for someone to just turn into a productivity superhuman like that! It may take years to master these 3 concepts but the important part is that you get started and stay committed and consistent.
I hope this is information you can really use. Email me or text me and let me know your thoughts. danbockman@bockmangroup.com or text 307-751-6714
Daniel J Bockman
