All of us have seen someone who’s great at what they do.
It might look different for you, but what comes to mind for me is someone who runs a successful business. They make a great living and help a lot of people.
When you think of that person, what else do you imagine about their life? Doesn’t it seem like these people have everything?
They make great money, they have an amazing marriage, they’re a fantastic parent, they’re in shape, and the list just goes on and on.
It almost seems like some people have it all while others have none of it.
Now, I was raised with a scarcity mindset. Not that my parents were purposely putting it in my head, but because of their parents’ influence, our family’s financial situation, and the attitude of the people we spent time with, I naturally gravitated towards the mindset of scarcity.
So, if I ever saw someone who was having a lot of success in one area of their life, to me that meant that there had to be some other area of their life that was suffering. There was just no way they could have it all.
They have an amazing family life? They must not be giving their best at work. They’re in awesome shape? They must not be giving their kids enough attention. They’re doing well financially? They must not be taking care of their health.
As time has gone by, though, I’ve come to realize that those explanations are the easy way out.
When you see someone’s success and explain it away by thinking that something else in their life must be suffering, it gives you an excuse for not having what they do. It’s like taking the moral “high ground” and saying to yourself, “I don’t have that success because I’m not the type of person who would let the other parts of my life suffer.”
Most of the time, it’s actually not the case that the rest of their life is suffering for the sake of their success in one area. What’s really happening is the principle that this post is named after.
“The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.”
You see, these people aren’t sacrificing everything else to get the “one thing” they really want. They’re actually treating every important area of their life the same way.
For example, let’s go back to the successful business person mentioned at the beginning. Let’s say you yourself are also a business person but you don’t have the level of success they do. We have this habit of asking about their “secret”. What’s “the thing” that they know that we don’t?
In reality, what I’ve found over time is that it’s not something they discovered. It’s not some special strategy.
It’s not something external.
What they’ve done is built up themselves. They’ve done the work and become the person that achieves that thing (in this case, success in business).
Surround yourself with successful people, people who are where you want to be, and you’ll realize that a lot of them have their whole life together, not just that “one thing”. It’s because of this concept, that the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. They became the person they needed to be in order to achieve their goals.
I’d like to show you how this might apply.
I was listening to Christian Mickelsen recently, someone who is considered an authority on personal development, and he gave the example of someone who wants to be a millionaire.
What’s interesting about that goal is that it appears to be external. It’s a specific dollar amount that is achieved by a person, it’s something tangible they accomplish outside of themselves.
But what Christian emphasized was that a person has to become a millionaire on the inside first in order to become (and stay) a millionaire on the outside. Interesting…
So how would you do that?
You could ask yourself questions like: What beliefs does a millionaire have? What attitude do they have toward money? What sort of disposition do they have when it comes to giving and abundance? What’s their work ethic like?
And then, once you have those answers, you have a blueprint of who you have to become on the inside before you become a millionaire on the outside.
Of course, becoming a millionaire is just one example of a goal you might set. But do you see how achieving that specific goal isn’t as much about the specific strategy that a person uses as it is about who the person becomes in order to achieve it? And when you become better, it’s not just something that affects one area of your life. It’s something that carries over into everything you do.
If someone becomes a person who approaches life with an attitude of abundance, wouldn’t that affect the results they get at work, with their relationships, and with their health? What about if they have a strong work ethic? A generous disposition? Of course!
So something you can ask yourself (with whatever goal you set) is this:
Am I already manifesting in every area of my life the qualities necessary to have success with this specific goal?
Remember, it’s not just about hitting your targets. It’s about becoming the person who has grown and matured and developed themself enough to have hit those targets. Be better, become better, and you’ll see the improvements across every aspect of your life.