Two of the blogs I follow recently had some very interesting posts about opportunity in your life and how to take advantage of them, even if you don’t see them. The Art Of Manliness recently posted a “Manvotional” with a passage from the writings of Edward Rowland Sill, where a man is at war, complaining about his sword, throwing it down and leaving. Then the prince comes by, picks up the same sword, and took down the enemy with it. It’s a beautiful passage that speaks to one man blaming his tools and another making the most of what he has. Last month, The Simple Dollar posted a great piece looking at doing better than where you are now in spite of “karma” and “bad luck”. (Side note: seriously people, there is some great stuff out there on the Web, stop watching YouTube videos and reading about the cast of Jersey Shore and start inspiring yourself a little bit!)
So I started looking at life in general and how you can put these ideas into action. People often think that opportunity has to be obvious and “knocking” like that cartoon guy in those car commercials. But there comes a time where you need to start creating your own opportunities. Those that accomplished things in life are the ones that grabbed life by the… ahem, horns… and made it into something great. Here are some tips that you can use to implement greatness in your life and pull yourself out of whatever gutter you are wallowing in at this very moment:
Ditch the “victim mentality” right now. Like, right now. We have been programmed in the last 50 years to point fingers. You can’t get ahead at work because your boss hates you. You can’t lose weight because you don’t have time. You don’t have any money because the credit card companies charge so much interest you’ll never get out of it. In the movie Network, a news broadcaster stands up on air and yells, “I’M MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!” Okay, now it’s your turn. Stand up and declare to yourself that you won’t take this crappy life anymore. You are going to take control and take all the blame. The reason people hang onto the victim mentality is because then they don’t have to feel bad for lousy parts of their lives. They get to let go of that guilt and push it onto something else. Take responsibility for your life and all the risks that come with it.
Don’t be afraid to fail a few times. In a presentation given at the TED conference a few years ago, Ken Robinson discussed how our school system stigmatizes failure. It’s true: we push failure as the worst thing in the world when you are in school, and you are a lousy student if you fail a lot. But schools should be teaching that failure is an opportunity to learn something. In the real world, failure does not mean you suck at life. It means you were trying something new. Take the knowledge of that failure and alter your game plan.
I ran a successful business – or what considered to be “successful” at the time – for almost 2 years. But after it failed and subsequent attempts to revive it quickly did absolutely nothing, I was forced to take a long, hard look at why it failed. That’s the key: when you fail, you need to answer the question, “Why did it fail?” If you can answer that question and fix that problem, you have a much better shot of making it work successfully the next time. That’s why businesses put out prototypes of products. They are expecting it to fail so that they can learn from it. The same goes for beta versions of software. Failure teaches you something. I sat down and put together a game plan that responds directly to my past business failures, and now I am on the verge of being back in business full-time soon, with a foundation that is ten times stronger than the one I lived on before. I would not have had that if I hadn’t failed once already.
Educate yourself and learn from others. Pride is a strange thing. It will keep us from listening to those who have already made the mistakes we are about to make. Stop refusing to listen to other people. They are trying to warn you or advise you for a reason. Take their advice to heart. This also means reading blogs related to your problems – personal finance blogs, health/fitness blogs, blogs about business building. There is more free advice out there than you can imagine, and a lot of it can help you directly.
Starting today, you will not worry yourself about what other people are doing. If you are at work and someone else is getting rewarded, even though they are being lazy at work, don’t bother. The only thing you can do is work harder yourself and prove your worth. Just because somebody else is successful doesn’t mean you can’t be. It amuses me when broke people make comments like, “The only people making money today are the people that have money.” I couldn’t disagree more. The people making money today are the ones who are focusing on their own actions and not concerning themselves with other people. If you are spending your time and brain energy resenting people who have had success, you will never get ahead. Take that to heart: stop keeping up with the Joneses. It’s your life, no one else’s.
Consider an approach that is against the norm. For years, I’ve been told that, to build a business, I need a formal business plan, funding from a venture capitalist, and blah blah blah. They also said that a college degree will ensure that you will get a good job. What happened to that? If you have an idea that flies in the face of what people are comfortable with, do it. But only do it if you can show yourself how it will work, and show yourself objectively. This leads to…
Hold yourself accountable to the facts, and answer to no one else but yourself. When analyzing your actions, don’t give yourself a sales pitch. Look at the hard numbers. For example, when analyzing my business now, I have a spreadsheet that tells me exactly how much money I make per week and per month, how many leads I have, how many clients I have, and how the money is spread out among the clients. This snapshot gives me a quick reference to see how stable my income is, how I can respond if I lose a client, and I can see the trends in my business to analyze risk. This way, when I pull the trigger, I can do it based on facts. Without it, I would be going on assumptions of how much work I’m getting, and assumptions will get you in trouble every time.
Stop reading and start doing. You can read all day, but nothing will change until you start taking action. Get off your butt and work on your life already!
Tom is an entrepreneur and freelance writer, working out of his apartment full-time, or wherever he feels like taking his laptop. He doesn't take long European vacations or blogs on the beach. He's an Average Joe that took control of his life. He wants you to do the same.
