The Secret to Success

What is the secret to success? Is it a pill, an epiphany, a special book, or divine inspiration? Is it perhaps a partner, or the company you keep, the correct upbringing, abstinence, or discipline? Is it routine and consistency that will get you to the places you want to be?
Or is it the goals you pick and has it got something to do with your grasp of reality, your mindset ,and the attitude with which you approach things?
Does it require reprogramming on a mental and psychological level? Does one have to go against one’s nature to be successful?

What is the formula?

The First Step to Success: Decision

We make decisions every day: What to wear, what to eat, who to talk to, and where to sit. We also make some life-defining decisions like who to date, where to live, and what careers to pursue. It seems human nature drives us to make some notoriously bad decisions too. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the latter happens when we decide to ignore the little voice in our heads warning us.
Then there are the long-term resolutions, which, if successful, will positively affect our existence. These are the decisions we make to break bad habits or start good ones. These decisions require – or are the result of – mental reprogramming. These decisions often fail in reality, but when they work, they are testimonies to the potency of human endeavor.

No human feat was ever accomplished without a decision

We all make new resolutions with the best intentions and yet, the data projects overwhelming failure and a lack of resolve. How can we make effective decisions which are different from those that earmark the infamously fallible new year’s resolutions? How do we make decisions last? What defines the resolutions that lead to success from those that don’t? These are all pertinent questions and hopefully, we have all been sincere enough at some point, to ask them of ourselves.

The Why Behind the Decision

What is your big decision? And don’t say that you’ve decided to be successful (although it could be). But success is an encapsulating concept with many building blocks – so let’s deal with those building blocks first.

Let’s say you want to quit smoking – (ah! now we’re talking). Nicotine is the model habit and more fatal to Americans than alcohol because it is highly addictive – and addiction, ladies and gentlemen – is illness.

Lets take a look at Denice and Chanel, their lives, and their habits:

Denice and Chantel are two totally different people. They don’t even know each other. The only thing they have in common is the same as that of more than a billion people; they smoke.

Denice is twenty years old and has been smoking for two years. She still goes to the gym and eats reasonably healthy but started smoking because she thinks it’s cool and that it compliments her social life – nothing goes better with a drink than a cigarette. Denice has no real reason to quit even though it is should be easier – because she has no real reason and as such, she is unlikely to.

Chanel is a forty-year-old single mom who is an estate agent. She smokes a packet of cigarettes every day and hasn’t been to the gym for ages. Chanel also has a chronic cough and poor blood circulation and was repeatedly warned by her doctors over the last five years. Due to new symptoms – night sweats and shallower than usual breathing – she has surrendered a blood sample for lab testing. She doesn’t know what to expect and is terrified. In the worst-case scenario, the consequences will affect her 12-year-old girl too, who is wholly dependent on her mother. The latter is the main reason for Chanel’s angst.

While it may be easier for Denice to break the habit, Chanel has all the motivation to do so – as hard as it may be (because the stakes are higher). Chanel is finally grasping the gravity of her situation.

Should Denice decide to quit smoking however, there is a great likelihood that she will relapse and this is not necessarily because she has a weak resolve but because at her age, her life abounds with temptation and she has more reasons to relapse and insufficient motivation to quit permanently – the stakes for Chanel are lower. In a nutshell, her Why is Stronger than Denice’s.

With that said, Denice – with the correct knowledge and a strong motivation – can walk away from the habit and never look back.

How Strong is Your Why

If you read an article that says smoking is unhealthy- it might make you nervous. But it’s not news so the feeling will wear off quickly. 

If you can’t get laid because of your hacking smokers-cough, and this makes you feel less human – it will be sufficient motivation to stop (and then maybe start again when the cough goes away). Who knows.

But if your doctor tells you that you will die in the next decade if you don’t quit smoking (and orphan your kids whom you so dearly love) – this is possibly the strongest form motivation and as such your why is powerful!

As a child, the threat of punishment was sufficient to break you out of a bad habits. However, as you get older, you need stronger motivation to effect change, and let’s be honest, this is what makes adulthood difficult.

With a strong why, the things you will accomplish will shock you … and as seen with the Buster Douglas – Mike Tyson bout, a strong why is enough to shock the world.

Your Why

As we have established, the foundation of your decision is your why. The foundation of a successful decision is a strong why. In general life, your why is often defined by a singularity or a life-changing event and/or push or pull factors that register on your consciousness and affect you deeply.

Push Factors

What are push factors that may influence your why?

Let’s say you work in security and it is required that you maintain a certain level of fitness or you will be removed from the team. Exercise is not your favorite pastime but you endure what it takes to maintain your body even though it makes you miserable and affects your attitude towards your job and life in general. 

There is a way to hack this and we will get to that later.

Pull Factors

Let’s say that you find yourself yearning to achieve the level of fitness projected by social media. You find the bodies of these insta-posting-athletes so attractive and it makes you want to attain this level of attractiveness. This can be a powerful motivator in that you may start training not because you have to, but rather because you want to. This is the kind of why that people refer to as inspiration, and we all love it.

The nature and the strength of the why triggering the decision will determine whether or not that decision will hold and, whether or not that decision will lead to the goals that it is intended to. Although this is only part of the secret to success, it is the most important factor.

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