#1. Stop Looking for the Silver Bullet
The silver bullet is that you need to put in the work everyday for years.
It’s not some Facebook ads hack. Or some magical $2000 conference.
But no matter how many times people tell you that, you’re still going to dig around for the secret answer.
Why?
Because you don’t want to put in the work.
You want to be an overnight success.
Not gonna happen, though.
So if I were you, I’d start creating.
#2. Start Creating Better Goals
‘My goal is to make a ton of money.’
And you’re wondering why you still haven’t made it.
Your goal isn’t actionable.
And quite frankly it isn’t that motivating either.
Money is great and all but it won’t leave you fulfilled.
What’s your big life purpose?
Maybe being successful to you means taking action to clean the world’s oceans or to help prevent animals from becoming extinct.
Now, how do you do that?
Well, you need money, and that’s where your money goal comes into play.
How much money do you need to help solve those problems.
Get a calculator, reach out to some nonprofits and start crunching numbers.
Then, use that exact number as your goal.
And add an exact date to it.
‘I want to make $103,476.37 by December 31st, 2018 to invest in cleaning the world’s oceans so we can preserve ocean life and have clean drinking water.’
Now you’ve got a specific goal, a date to achieve it by and a purpose for achieving it.
#3. Stop Looking for Validation
If you’re looking for ways to be successful in life, you’re not going to find it in the people around you. Unless, everyone around you is a giant success.
Your mom, dad, best friend, partner, and dog don’t need to approve your business ideas.
Live life your way. Stop looking to others for validation that you’re on the right track.
Wanna know how you’re on the right track?
When you ask yourself, ‘Am I living the life I want?’
If the answer is yes, you’re on the right track.
If the answer is no, you’ve got some changes to make.
Don’t let outsiders cloud your thinking.
People always think they know what’s best for you.
But only you’d know what that is.
Trust yourself a bit more and you’ll realize you know what you’re doing.
#4. Start Living Your Dreams
Being successful in life isn’t about a magical moment when everything falls into place.
It’s about the little moments in between.
Moments where you’re happy. Moments that you’re really soaking in.
Truth is, you can experience those moments even if you’re currently stuck in a 9 to 5.
If your goal is to run an online business, you’ve got evenings and weekends where you can start plugging away.
Maybe you want to be a digital nomad, you can talk to your boss about working remote for three weeks while you work abroad.
I know what you’re thinking, you want it all and you want it now.
But truth is, unless you take those baby steps, you won’t really know whether it’s something you want or something you think you want.
You can still start trying to figure out a plan on how to be successful whether you’re at a 9 to 5 or not.
I’m not saying stay at your 9 to 5 if you’re miserable. I’m just saying that the 9 to 5 on its own isn’t always the only cause of your frustration or unhappiness.
#5. Stop Looking for a Mentor
There’s nothing wrong with mentorship. It can actually be really great for building your career.
Most people don’t want mentorship though, they want someone to do all the work for them.
Entrepreneurship and being successful is all about taking ownership.
You talk a big game about wanting freedom, but when it comes to designing your first store, you ask for so much feedback.
At Oberlo, we’re always happy to help with a store review – check out our Facebook page every Wednesday.
But what you need to realize is that the best thing about entrepreneurship is that you can create your business any way you want.
And if you get a mentor to help you make decisions it’s basically like having a boss oversee your work – you start to lose that freedom that you really wanted.
If you constantly have people guiding you on your journey, your wins aren’t really your wins and your losses aren’t really your losses.
If you don’t take ownership of your wins and losses, you never really get that ‘OMG! I DID IT!’ feeling.
And you also never learn from your mistakes because they weren’t your mistakes in the first place.
You’re going to make bad decisions but you’ll make some great ones too.
You don’t need a mentor to teach you how to be successful, especially if your goal is to live life on your own terms.
#6. Start Building Your Expertise
You don’t have to be the best on day one.
But you can start building up to it.
If you consistently take the time every day to invest in your growth, you’ll be amazed by your growth a year from now.
If you’re running online stores, take the time to learn and test out different marketing hacks.
By sticking it out for a year, you’ll likely see that you’ve been building up your sales.
If you’re a writer, write every day for a year.
By trying out different writing styles and pumping out consistent content, you’ll likely realize that you’ve started to amass a loyal following.
Building your expertise requires effort.
And your expertise will help you find your answer to the question of how to be successful.
#7. Stop Blocking Yourself
Roadblocks, bad days, failures, procrastination: what do they have in common?
They’re all in your head.
I’m so used to roadblocks that my instant reaction is always to find the workaround.
I’ve done some weird stuff just to jump over obstacles.
Yesterday I had a bad day and then halfway through the day, I realized I just had a bad sleep the night before and I just started laughing. Why? Because I realized that the solution to my problem was easy. All I needed to do is go to bed earlier that night. Next day? It was like the bad day never happened.
Your success can never be blocked by an external force.
There’s always a workaround solution.
And that solution almost always comes from removing a mental barrier in your head.
If you need to change anything about yourself, change your perspective.
#8. Start Doing
You can’t achieve success if you haven’t done anything.
There’s no big financial reward just for showing up.
You need to put in the time and energy into building something.
After all, the most successful people are all creators.
Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook. Jeff Bezos created Amazon. Sara Blakely created Spanx.
And if you devote your life to being a creator, you could eventually start to see what it takes to be successful.
But it does take time and consistent effort.
I know it’s easier to just put on Netflix and turn off your brain after a work day, but the results you want to see come from keeping your brain turned on after hours. By outworking those around you.