The Defining Factor to Your Success

There are millions of books out there that promise to tell you the secret to success, to riches, to love and health, and everything in between. But I’m going to share the secret with you right now.

The difference between those people who achieve the success they want in life, in one area or many, and those who don’t, is known as execution. I don’t mean in the scary guillotine type way. I mean the taking action type. The ones who have the idea or notion and act on it, quickly.

These are the people who take the baby steps and get the momentum going. We watch from the sidelines as they propel themselves headlong into the stratosphere of success, achievement and happiness.

So how do you actually go about executing – there’s just no way to say that without it sounding macabre. To execute successfully, we need to have a strong emotional stake in the outcome.

Imagine there was a real life-or-death situation and your life depended on finding a purple spoon. You’d do everything you could do to get that spoon right? You’d be all over social media asking if anyone knew of such a spoon. You wouldn’t stop until you found the spoon because your life depended on it and because your life is clearly very important to you.

That’s why you need to have a compelling reason. Health is normally the most compelling reason for people to take action, right? People get cancer scares or told that if they don’t change what they eat and stop smoking that they’ll be dead in X amount of months and it provokes a response to make a very definite change. Usually. Sometimes not.

Compelling reason is also called a compelling vision (or our big why). Uncover the reason behind your action and you’ll be half-way there towards achieving it.

Know what your big why is because that’s your compelling reason. It may be a vision for the future or something you want to be able to do with your family. Whatever it is, write it down. Keep it somewhere you can see it. Without your compelling vision, you won’t always reason with going through the changes required.

Finally, be willing to get uncomfortable. The number one thing you’ll need to be willing to let go of when it comes to achieving some of your goals is likely to be your comfort. Value your healthy, sexy body more than you value the comfort of your bed or half a cheesecake.

Value being able to go on that trip of a lifetime in a couple of years over the comfort of spending right now. Put your goals before your comfort.

To recap: have a vision for what you want to achieve. Know why you want to achieve it. Be willing to do what it takes to get there. That will turn you into an executor. Not an executioner!