A year ago, I spent more than 84 hours Instagram stalking one of my friends…
Crazy right?! Some would call this beyond obsessed.
From the age of seven, I’ve been fascinated and intrigued with becoming successful. For me, I thought it was healthy and normal to look up to people who were successful in the areas that I wanted to make an impact. Though this started off as “looking up too,” it eventually became envy and jealousy. I became enraged by one of my friends who’s a blogger, pastor’s wife, mother, speaker, author, and the list continues.
Since I wanted to be the best in my inspirational career, I began comparing my success to hers. I started molding myself to become the cheap carbon copy of my friend. I began posting similar pictures on social media and changed the way I presented my speeches to mimic her speeches. Emptiness sat in; frustrated and taking steps backward, I just wanted to give up and shut down my inspirational business.
Shortly after, I had a melt-down; I sat down with my spouse over coffee to open and release the bottle I’ve been filling with fear, frustration, and envy. I asked questions such as, “Why am I not as successful as my friend?” I even threw in jabs, “I work harder than her,” to make my point valid. Eventually, my spouse asked, “Brittany what defines success to you.” The reason I was obsessed with my friend’s success and struggled to scale my company was from my own lack of knowing what success looked like. My goals were not clear. I did not decide how many audience members I wanted to speak to, how many hours I would like to work, or the target market I would like to focus on. This question was the first step to getting back on the right track of my journey. In order to reach our full potential and the level of success we want for ourselves, we have to know what it looks like. We have to be able to identify what we want to achieve, why it’s important, and how we are going to do it. As Benjamin Franklin said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” I challenge you to review the five tips below and begin making a game plan for your own success.
1. Define what success looks like to you
Write down what you consider to be successful. Who do you want to be? You get to choose what you want to create. Being true to who you are will create happiness and fulfillment within your life’s purpose. Don’t worry about how crazy it sounds.
2. Screw what others think
As Lao Tzu said, “Care about people’s approval, and you will always be their prisoner.”
Why allow yourself to be a prisoner of other people’s thoughts? You will rob yourself of happiness and purpose in life. Maybe your parents are telling you that you will only be successful if you major in a certain degree; It might even be your friends who look down on you for trying to start a business that requires you to spend more than 80 hours a week building it. Or it could be the people in your community that throw their advice on you on how to live your life.
Screw what others think or say! Yes, it’s hard not being accepted by everyone but when you remove limiting beliefs about yourself and the thoughts of others, you can live your full potential.
3. Set Goals
“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” ~ Jim Rohn
Now that you’ve decided what success looks like, it’s time to go into depth with what it is that you want. Write what you want to achieve and the date you would like to achieve it by.
When I set out to become an inspirational speaker, I answered these questions and set dates of when I would like to achieve them: How many lives would I like to empower? How many times and days would I like to encourage others a week? What is motivation and inspiration to me? Do I want to have a team? Do you need a certain amount of money? What target market do I want to inspire? And so on and so forth.
The more specific you are with your goals the better you can begin to envision the goals you set for yourself. Success can be overwhelming. With set goals, you are more than likely to stay on track and hit your target. If times get rough and your goals begin to feel unattainable, review your goal list and ask yourself, “What is needed to meet this goal?”
4. Work for It
Work for it every single day. Whether you have two hours to work towards your goals or an entire day, make sure you make a plan of what you would like to achieve during the allocated time to reach your goals.
If distractions keep you for accomplishing your work, temporarily remove them (i.e. going out, social media, gossip phone calls, or Netflix).Nothing is better than knowing you accomplished your goals and level of success through hard work and dedication.
5. Make It Happen
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”
-Milton Berle
You’ve created a game plan for yourself and you’re pouring in the hours…it’s time to make it happen. If opportunities are not happening, then create them. You are the only one who can keep yourself from accomplishing your goals and desired success.