By Elena Tuktarov, Project Displaced Contributing Editor
Success.
A sweet word which fuels our engines and our dreams, it keeps us up at night and motivates us to achieve more every day.
But have you ever stopped to wonder if the building blocks of success are actually quite different from what we think they are?
When you look at a successful person, what are they doing differently other than being… well, just a person? What is their secret ingredient?
What first comes in mind is “they worked hard”, “they have never given up”, and even “they were lucky”.
Sounds right, doesn’t it?
But there is actually another component which makes successful people who they are, and this component is so often underestimated, unseen and powerful!
At the end of the day, this key misunderstanding might be the reason why a person (like you or me) starts to think we can’t ‘work hard’ any more, ‘it’s not worth it’, ‘I’m hopeless’, or ‘I give up’, or becomes the reason why we cannot succeed.
If we ask ourselves, “what is success?” in the first place, it is often referred to as a “grand break-through”, “big step into something”, “colossal…”, or “tremendous…”,
But this is where we are wrong.
What seems to us to be “colossal”, “gigantic” or “huge” as a matter of fact is a chain of baby steps. We just didn’t notice them.
Just think of it.
A big step takes more preparation and planning, more resources, more risk (what if you just stepped into the wrong direction?), more time to recover and make the next one (you did not expect to be at your destination in one step, did you?..).
Our inability to make one big step which solves all our problems causes us nothing but frustration and blame (let’s face it, we do that a lot!). And when you’ve done a series of gigantic steps, exhausted yourself, and still did not get where you wanted to be – what happens then?
We don’t have the energy and motivation to crawl out of bed in the morning.
And that’s normal. Because we’ve busted a gut.
But here’s the good news: Baby steps are a lot more productive and result-delivering than giant, exhausting, seemingly impossible steps.
How much would it take you to make a baby step right now? Nothing. You can do it easily and won’t even notice it. How about three steps? Ten? A hundred? Again, you can take them easily without noticing. What if you make a wrong baby step? Oh well, it’s just one step, one microscopic mistake, no drama.
Now you are starting to notice the difference?
You can take as many baby steps in any area of work or life as you want/can/are ready to without breaking a sweat, and without interfering with your other activities in life. You can start whenever you like and stop whenever you like and then resume again. But most importantly, you will go on and on and on as far as you want with minimal effort. And if you make a mistake, it doesn’t matter because you’re not relying on one massive step to solve everything.
And here is the fun part: for other people, your progress will look like ‘giant step’, ‘enormous progress’. This time THEY will not notice how you made it.
And now YOU are that successful person they look up at.
To give you something to take away with you, there is a proverb: “Every impossible thing can be separated into 50 possible steps”.
At Project Displaced, we want you to get as far as you want and to get there as fast as possible. We have some of Australia’s most qualified and experienced coaches offering you their time and expertise for free, to help you with every little step you take.
We’re here to help you will get anywhere you want to get! Book your coaching sessions now.
