The Secret to Success

August 28, 2009 by Jim Dryburgh in Personal Growth, Professional Development

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Years ago I signed up for a daily inspirational quote to be sent to me in an email. I got to my desk this morning, opened Outlook and there it was: “Keep your mind focused on what you want and act accordingly.”

Words to live by. As a matter of fact everything I have achieved in my life has come to me because I was able to stay focused.

This is truly a life altering epiphany. I’m an ordinary person who discovered that staying focused brings me extraordinary results in my life.

Have you ever watched the comedy “City Slickers”? In it Billy Crystal plays a middle-aged man who can’t seem to find happiness or meaning in his life. So he sets off with two friends to go on a two week vacation cattle drive. Jack Palance plays a curmudgeony old cowboy named Curly, guiding the “city folk” on the drive.

Billy Crystal and Jack Palance are having a conversation along the trail. Palance asks Crystal, “Do you know what the secret of life is?” Crystal responds “No, what?” Palance holds up his gloved index finger and says “This.” Crystal wisecracks, “Your finger?” Palance continues, “One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean @#*$!” Crystal asks, “That’s great, but what’s the one thing?” Then Palance gives Crystal the nugget of wisdom you need to pay attention to: “That’s what you’ve gotta figure out.”

I was dying to know what that one thing was. Funny thing is, Curly actually told us, but nobody, including myself and Billy Crystal figured it out. And then, it finally dawned on me! “The secret of life is just one thing!” Get it?! The answer is in the clue. The clue is the answer!!! It’s just ONE thing!!!! Focus on just – one – thing!

The more I thought about it, the more it rang true. Take Donald Trump. Real estate deals — success. Airline, failure. Out of his area of expertise.

Michael Jordan basketball. Baseball, not so much.

Look at Bill Gates. He’s kept his focus. Now he’s worth 36 BILLION dollars. You don’t see him shifting Microsoft into real estate or airlines. Everything he does is somehow centered on computers.

Coca Cola. A winning formula for decades. They introduced New Coke. What happened? Flop.

Lori and I decided many years ago to spend at least two days out of every vacation coming up with our goals for the following year. Then, everything we did was pretty much focused on achieving those goals. We weren’t necessarily conscious of our goals every moment but whether we realized it at the time or not, every decision we made was influenced by our goals.  Simply by setting them and writing them down caused our brains to focus on what we wanted.

Every person reading these words can achieve their dreams. As my daily quote says, “Keep your mind focused on what you want and act accordingly.” That’s the part that takes some work. A lot of people know what they want, but they don’t act accordingly.

What would acting accordingly be? Here’s a scenario. You want a promotion to the next level … what are you doing to increase your skills? raise your visibility? improve your image? grow your network? connect with key people? Or whatever it is you need to do to be seen as the “go to” person. The key is “focus on what you want and act accordingly”.

Put a plan together. Set your goal (in writing) and then list all the obstacles that are keeping you from achieving it. Then, write a strategy beside each obstacle of how you will overcome the obstacle. Now, act accordingly.

I think it’s impossible to do “just one thing,” and not reap real rewards.  If you lock in your focus, make it laser sharp, and stick with it long enough, you will succeed. If you sit around sighing, “I wish they’d promote me to Vice President”, but you’re not acting accordingly, I guarantee you that you won’t make it.  It’s your life. You can do it.

Readers – would you like to share how you have acted accordingly to get what you want?

The vision must be followed by the venture.  It is not enough to stare up the steps – we must step up the stairs.

—Vance Havner

image courtesy of stevendepolo

Tags: action, focus, goal setting, goals, secret