The Heart of Your Results

Why aren’t you getting the results you want? What has to change for you to improve the outcomes you’re getting?

Your Beliefs: There isn’t any factor that has a greater impact on your results than your beliefs. Your beliefs are your values. What you believe drives your actions, and your actions produce your results. If you don’t change what you believe, you won’t take new actions.

Twice in the last month someone has said to me “I could never get up and write at 5:00 AM every day.” Both times I answered with, “I know.” In both cases, the person I was speaking with shot back something like, “Well, I could if I wanted to!” In both cases, I said, “I know.”

What you believe is true (for you, anyway).

Your Identity: Your beliefs, you values, and your experiences provide you with your identity. The actions you take—or fail to take—are in large part of who you believe you are and how you present yourself to the world. (And if you spend time to figure out your purpose here, you are off to the races).

Who you are matters more than what you do.

Your Actions: Actions come before skills. If you pay attention to people who produce results, you can’t help but notice how many lack the requisite talent, skill, or knowledge to be where they are now. They produce better results than the more talented, the more skilled, and the more knowledgable because they take actions consistent with their beliefs and their identity.

I once had a salesperson tell me he wanted to double his numbers. I asked him what he was willing to change to reach that goal. He rattled off a list of reasons why he couldn’t take a single new action. He is still disappointed with his lack of progress towards his goal.

Your Skills: It sure doesn’t hurt to develop your skills! Taking consistent action produces outcomes, and these outcomes provide you with the opportunity to learn. You use that learning to make distinctions, to make changes to what you are doing, and to produce better, greater results.

You don’t have to wait until you have the skills to take action. You can find a model, do what they do, and produce pretty similar results.

Your Environment: Some would argue that environment should be first on this list, that you are a product of your environment. And there is some amount of truth here. But too many people escape their environment and the circumstances of their birth—as well as countless other horrifying misfortunes—to succeed wildly. How do they overcome their dreadful environment? They believe they can. They see themselves somewhere else in the future. And they take action. They overcome the environment and/or they leave it–and some cases they come back and change it. example. example. example. example. example. example. example.

Change your beliefs, change your identity, change your actions, change your skills, change your environment, change your results.