Success doesn’t just happen. It’s not like you wake up one day and all of a sudden you’re a great big success and everything you have ever wanted is right before you. Even those who seem to have ‘overnight success’ have actually been working in the background for quite some time to make that ‘overnight success’ happen.
Along the way, there are investments you need to make to be successful. This isn’t a ‘you have to spend money to make money’ kind of argument, although that is a valid point. This is more about the investments you need to make in order to position yourself for success.
1 – Invest In Yourself
Absolutely number one, you must invest in yourself. This can take shape in many forms but the main point is that you need to believe in yourself and trust in yourself enough that you are willing to invest in you.
Back yourself! If you don’t feel confident in yourself, then make the necessary changes so you do. Success doesn’t happen because you’ve focused on one aspect. That would be like trying to build a house on one stump. It’s not going to work. You need to focus on you as a whole. All the areas of your life and set the foundation of success with you.
2 – Invest Time
As we said before, success doesn’t just magically appear. You can’t expect to be successful by investing just one hour of your time a day – despite what remarkable claims some people make. It just doesn’t happen.
If you want to be successful, regardless of what field it is in, you need to invest the time into making it happen.
Look at professional athletes who are successful. Do you think they just spend one hour a day training? No! They spend hours upon hours each day, plus more time strategising and perfecting techniques, plus more time working on their mental focus and more time working on their health.
The focus on all the different areas, they understand each area needs a certain amount of time dedicated to it and they invest that time.
If you’re stretched at the moment, invest what time you can. And, as you are able to, start investing more and more. Just remember that it’s about the balance of time too. If the athlete spends too much time on their training and not enough on their mindset, then the balance is going to be off. The same goes for any type of success you’re trying to create.
3 – Invest in Education
We are always learning, that is how we grow. Our education never stops, there’s always more to learn and more to understand. Isn’t that ridiculously exciting? It makes me super excited.
By investing in your education, I don’t mean you have to go off to University and get another degree. You don’t even need to have ‘formal’ education. Investing in your education is investing the money, time and effort it takes you educate yourself on a topic or range of topics.
This can happen in many ways! You can listen to podcasts, read books, read eBooks, watch documentaries, watch YouTube tutorials, attend classes, attend workshops and conferences, hire a coach, hire a trainer… the possibilities are endless.
4 – Invest in Your Health
“When you have your health, you have everything. When you do not have your health, nothing else matters at all.” – Augusten Burroughs
When we start focusing on being successful in our jobs, in our businesses, as a family… one of the things that seems to be easy to drop off the focus list is your health. Maybe you stop going to the gym because you’d rather work on your business, your morning walk doesn’t seem as important as fulfilling client orders and you just eat whatever is available whenever it is available.
The little investments you make in your health now will pay off in the long run. With good health, exercise and good eating habits comes energy, stamina and higher mental clarity.
If you’re exercising right and eating well, you won’t have such a big 3pm slump that makes you want to fall asleep at your desk. If you’re sleeping well, you’ll feel more refreshed and focused rather than trying to work yourself to the bone to ‘get things done’.
It all comes back to our number one investment – you. You have to make the investment in your health, however that looks. Whether it’s your time, paying a personal trainer, paying a personal chef, educating yourself on what healthy is or simply taking the time to make it all happen each and every day, investing in your health is going to be a key element in not only becoming successful, but staying successful.
5 – Invest in Risks
Nothing great was ever achieved without some sort of risk. Do you think those who we look up to as being successful got there by playing safe? Colouring between the lines? Sticking to their own lane? No way. They took risks.
“Most everybody thinks that if I want to get big rewards I need to take huge risks. But if you keep thinking that, you’re gonna be broke.” – Tony Robbins
Tony Robbins explains that it’s not about taking the big giant risks that have a small chance of paying off, it’s about taking small calculated risks that give you the biggest reward.
While your big scary risk might be to quit your job to pursue your dream of running your own business, a smaller more manageable risk may be to cut your work hours down while you build your business up.
Risk doesn’t mean putting it all in, win or lose, it means moving outside of your comfort zone, bit by bit, stretching it that bit further so one day you’re at the point where you only dreamed you would be.