Three traits seem to speed up success. You might believe these three traits are character traits that cannot be developed, but they can be acquired and established should you be willing to change. You will notice that people without these attributes find that success eludes them.
You can file this under "things I wish somebody told me earlier in my life."
Trait One: Hunger
There may be nothing stronger than hunger with goal attainment and success, however you might define it. There is no motivational speaker, no inspiring book, or external form of motivation that can match hunger. Intrinsic motivation is hundreds of times more powerful, as it is naturally occurring. Zig suggested you need to find motivation every day, but I doubt he needed an external source.
Because you are a human, you want things. Desire is also naturally occurring. Over time, it's possible for you to give up on the things you want, settling instead for something less, something we can call comfort. To increase your hunger, you must leave the warm, certainty of comfort for the cold, uncertainty that comes with pursuing your goals and ambitions.
It's important to connect with your hunger, acknowledging what you really want. But addressing the truth of what you want isn't enough to create hunger. Instead, if you are not hungry, you must confront the reasons you want what you want. Unless you address the "why" something is important to you, you won't feel the burning desire that would cause you to move towards the goal or outcome you want.
Trait Two: Self-Discipline
Your hunger is worthless without the ability to act on your goals. You can be smarter, more clever, more creative, more talented, better looking than most, and a charming and wonderful human without succeeding. A lot of the people that fall into the description above have had a certain type of privilege that prevented them from having to develop the self-discipline that precedes success.
The ability to will oneself to do the things they don't want to do is a large reason they succeed where others fail. The attainment of goals and pursuing your ambitions requires you to consistently do the right thing at the right time in the right way. It's easy to recognize the disciplined from those who lack self-control with a few questions. The first tell is the time the individual wakes up in the morning. The later they wake up, the more likely they enjoy comfort more than effort. Another question that reveals one's discipline is what they do with the first hours of their day. Opening the inbox or spending time on the social channels is evidence of a lack of priorities.
You pay for your results with effort. Your success requires you to pay in advance for what you want with your effort and the unwavering self-discipline that would find you doing the work. When you hear successful people say, "trust the process," this is the process they are trying to help you see. They are telling you must pay first through your effort, even though some succeed fast, and others require more time.
Those who will themselves to take action, especially the ones they'd rather avoid, eventually find success.
Trait Three: Persistence
The third of the three traits that will speed you towards your goals and your eventual success is persistence. While self-discipline makes you proactive, persistence provides for resourcefulness. With your hunger motivating you to press forward, know that you will have to persist, maybe longer than you would want, to succeed. It pays to be ruthlessly pig-headed in pursuit of what you want.
One difference between those who reach their goals and those who fail to do so is because they give up too soon. Some have a Plan A they are committed to, and when that doesn't produce the results, they give up, unwilling to persist. Persistence is a form of intestinal fortitude (courage, resoluteness, endurance, and guts). Instead of moving on to the many other letters available for naming a new plan, they move on, telling themselves they tried. They just didn't try hard.
The key to persistence is to try something else when what you are doing is not working. To continue to try and try again, you need to be resourceful. This resourcefulness when matched with your hunger and your discipline moves you closer to cracking the code on the results you are pursuing. You may not need to get the Plan Z, but if you do, start over at Plan AA.
Increasing Speed
You can increase your speed to results by connecting with what it is you want and why you must have it. The discipline to consistently do what you need to do when and how you need to do it will do more than most anything else to move you towards your goals. Your willingness to persist and change your approach when what you are doing isn't working will find you reaching your goals. Even if it takes more time, giving up means never producing the results you want.
