There are likely some things you don’t know about success. In your pursuit of success (whatever that means to you, and however you define it) it is harmful to your effort to be ignorant of these things. The following list of 10 things you don’t know about success will provide you with a more precise and more certain path to finding it.
It Makes Demands
Success is demanding. It requires that you recognize and meet those demands, many of which you will find on this page. It might look like some people have a level of success having met success’s requirements, but that is an illusion. It is not a real success, and that success will eventually be revealed to have been a facade, and the person less successful than you imagined. Success avoids many because they avoid its demands.
It Requires Payment in Full
Success requires payment in full and in advance. Without making the full payment, success will avoid you and your attempts to possess it. It also isn’t willing to allow you to possess it and then pay for it later. All attempts to cheat success of what it demands only pushes success further away from you. It doesn’t acknowledge shortcuts, and it cannot be fooled into giving itself to someone who tries to steal success by avoiding paying the price.
It Believes You Need to Grow
Success believes you are too small. It doesn’t think you’re big enough to possess it. Instead, it thinks you need to grow before you can possess it. If you were capable of generating the success you want as you are right now, success would already be yours. Success is waiting for the future you to show up, and there is no future you if you don’t do the hard work of transformation, shedding all the limiting beliefs and behaviors and replacing them with better, stronger ones. You must outgrow who you are now to become the person that comes after this one, the person who can create that success.
It Believes You Are Not Trying Hard Enough
Success is an auditor. It measures your results as well as your effort. Success knows you hit the snooze button three times this morning, preferring 27 more minutes in your warm, comfortable mountain of blankets and pillows. Success thinks you are softer than those blankets and pillows. It is also very well aware of the time you spend on social media sites, playing video games, or wasting time on things that have nothing to do with what you profess to want. Success doesn’t acknowledge “wanting.” It only looks for the effort that produces results.
It Avoids You for Being Inconsistent
You did excellent work today, the kind of work that success truly appreciates. But success is not so easily convinced by a single event, regardless of how well you performed and how spectacular the results. It’s looking for the disciplined action consistently exerted over time. When you finally start, success notices. But because you stop a day later, success turns its back on you and briskly walks away. It has seen too many people who are motivated for a few hours, only to go back to their non-success-producing beliefs and behaviors less than 24 hours later. You will never have success when you are inconsistent.
It Gives Up on Those Who Give Up
Success gives up on people who give up on themselves. If you aren’t willing to pursue what you want with an insatiable and unquenchable desire, success isn’t willing to show itself to you. Other people may have given up on you in the past, and some may give up on you in the future. Success cares nothing about their opinion. It only cares whether or not you give up on yourself. As long as you believe in yourself strongly enough to never give up, that is the factor success will measure.
It Will Continually Test You
You are going to come very close to success, so close in fact, that you will believe you have obtained it. When you are near, success will test you. It will give you an obstacle you didn’t expect, and one you are not prepared to overcome. It will move the goalpost just out of your reach, testing your will, and challenging your resolve. Success may check you by allowing you to come close, only to let you see what it requires of you. It may also test you to see what level of success you want and if you are capable of possessing it. Be sure that success will test you.
It Doesn’t Care About Your Preferences
You may have a particular set of preferences that are out of step with what success demands. You might believe that you should be able to have the success you want at work without having to give yourself over to the work. You might also think you can have success in your personal life without hustling as hard at creating the relationships and experience you want for the people you love. You might prefer some strategy or another because you believe it should bring you success. Success, however, is utterly unconcerned by what you think you should have to do. It demands you do what it commands, or it walks.
It Degrades Over Time
Success isn’t an event. It is a level of experience. It requires care and feeding and routine maintenance. You have no doubt seen a person capture what looks like success only to implode a short time later. Success requires you maintain it. It is demanding, requiring you to keep working for it, and requiring more of you for every incremental increase.
Success Will Show You Greater Success
When you reach a certain level of success, success will show you a higher level of success. Like climbing a mountain, the higher your vantage point, the more you can see. Because you have grown to the point you have a certain level of success, you are now ready to pursue an even higher level of success. The process of obtaining success only to see something more is an upward spiral, a virtuous cycle that allows you to continue to improve throughout your life. And since no human being is capable of reaching their full potential, this process is one without end.
It may also help to know that your watch is not evidence of success. However, what you do with your time may be a more accurate indicator.
