How to do in 1 Month, What others do in 1 Year
The steps to become better than 99% of people
Have you looked around lately, especially on social media, YouTube, or even your group of friends, and noticed some people are doing incredibly well, and some people are not doing that well, while both have a similar upbringing?
Now, a similar upbringing might seem so on the outside, while in reality their stories and situations might be miles away from each other. Most of the time, the appearances people keep are very different then their reality, and some have to deal with huge amounts of trauma while others don’t.
However, even though social media or YouTube might be deceiving and some show off rented cars or an Airbnb claiming to be theirs, there is still a whole bunch of people that have proven their success. Despite these appearances and traumatic childhoods, there are countless examples of people who became very high achievers.
I would go as far as to say that the Pareto Principle seems to apply here as well:
20% of people achieve 80% of the success
20% of people in a company, get 80% of the results
20% of the people you know, got further away in life than the other 80%
After observing some of these people, talking with them, and even calling some friends, I have computed a list of things they do, that propelled them into the 1% and made them better than the other 99%!
Take things head-on
There are many articles and books on this topic, such as Eat The Frog, which speak about jumping into the tasks at hand, without allowing you to sit back and reflect on the strain they might have on you, thus not allowing you to procrastinate them.
I also talked in the article below about the 2-minute rule, which is something I applied myself and allowed me to train myself to do things that I was postponing a lot. With this training, I managed to go after some of my dreams that I kept adding to my New Year resolutions, for a few years.
High Achievers don’t fall into analysis paralysis, over planning, and get straight to action. It’s always easier to sort things on the go, even though a bit more stressful, but more rewarding.
Trust yourself and your intuition — Be Confident
Intuition or gut feeling is something that’s been highly debated over the years. Some call it our higher selves, some call it guidance from Spirit Guides, Angels, or even God, while some others just call it an energetic message from our electromagnetic field.
Whatever the right definition, some people swear by it. High achievers I have talked with, just call it their brain taking a quick decision based on previous knowledge and experience.
Once you always learn, experience, and experiment, you can have better judgment in the future. That’s clear and proven. But as something becomes more familiar, the book Thinking Fast and Slow categorizes it as part of System 1 of the brain, automatic thinking. You will automatically make a connection and take a decision, without processing it.
Trust yourself and your knowledge. Don’t fall into overthinking!
Always be more steps ahead
A lot of people achieved success. But the number of people that achieved it time and time again, that’s a lot lower. A lot of gurus or billionaires have stated that they achieved success and managed to stay there by being one step ahead.
However, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and an entrepreneur I admire, stated that he is thinking multiple steps ahead. In 2020, he was planning for 2023, in 2022 he was planning for 2027. This is not thinking where I’ll be in 6 months, this is a complex analysis of trends and where the world will go 3 years from now. Imagine how his 2019 plans for 2022 were changed with a pandemic in the middle.
If you want to reach the clouds, aim for the moon.
Above it’s one statement that I live by. Dream big. Dream so big that people consider it unrealistic. Why? Because if you don’t reach the moon, you still go further away than your cloud goal.
People are limited by their beliefs. If you set the goal to the clouds, you categorize the clouds as something very hard to attain. If you aim for the moon, you categorize the clouds as doable and will work accordingly. The law of attraction and the energy you put in will take you there easily.
Keep Learning
Naval Ravikant is talking about specific knowledge. In a world where most of the ideas have been done, and there is high competition in many fields, you need specific knowledge. That’s knowledge that cannot be taught with a course, or tutorial. That’s real-life experience, that’s skills built through perseverance, that will make you stand out.
A lot of people get hit with a wave of motivation and learn or develop tremendously in a short period, and then they reach their goal, and they have an advantage. Now, once there, they relax. You are ahead of the curve already, why keep stressing? Because you don’t know how far behind the other people are.
Life is a race in which you have no idea where the other opponents really are!
But learning, developing, and struggling at a very high speed will make you burn out at some point. So what’s the solution?
Learning is a constant resistance walk. A marathon, not a sprint! Do it constantly, and at a realistic pace, just don’t stop. The ones speeding past you will have to stop and rest at some point or get injured.
Don’t put all your eggs into one basket — Diversify
In the financial and investment world, there is a golden rule to diversify. It reduces your risk massively. If you only have 5% of your portfolio in Tesla, and the stock crashes, you only lose 5% at the very most. The rest of 95% is still safe.
Same in life. If you rely on your salary and life paycheck to paycheck, you might be laid off surprisingly and while you are looking for a job, you have no way to pay your bills.
If you rely on the field you work on being very easy to find a job, and you resign without another offer, you might find yourself in a recession and things will get hard.
Side hustle gurus propose having multiple streams of income. This way, if you lose your job, or you can’t work for a few months, you can safely pay your bills.
If you are specialized in a small niche, you might want to learn some other niche or a broader skill as well. This will increase the number of jobs you can do and will give you an advantage.
Have a Productivity System
I have talked in previous articles about the importance of Productivity Systems. I have a great analogy to explain the need for one:
Imagine you have only healthy food in your fridge. Lots of it. You might think that eating 5 bananas, 2 avocados and a kilo of strawberries in one go was a very healthy powerful meal. But in reality, the strawberries went over your recommended dose of sugar, the bananas took you over your carbohydrate limit and the 2 avocados got you very close to hitting the fat limit for the day.
Same with productivity. You might know 100 tips and tricks, and hacks to be more productive. But if you use them chaotically, you can achieve the opposite. A productivity system will ensure you use the right tools, at the right time, in the right order.
Remove Distractions
When James Clear talks about removing negative habits in my favorite book, Atomic Habits, he is talking about removing the cue for the bad habit from your environment. A lot of times, the bad habit is triggered by a distraction.
High Achievers try to block distractions around them and focus on the things that will make them progress. Indeed, you can’t remove all distractions in your life because some are unexpected, but I can give you some examples that might work:
- If you are drawn to check emails or scroll Instagram, you can leave your phone in a different room for a block of time
- If you are drawn to eat sugary foods and want to avoid it, don’t buy them
- If you want to go to the gym in the morning, prepare your clothes and shoes, the previous evening
- If you are distracted by noise, use noise-cancelling headphones
- If you are distracted by sounds or voices, use headphones with white or brown noise
You need to identify what triggers you to be distracted and try to remove the cause. Sometimes, like with the sounds outside your house, you cannot control them. Then, you need to find an alternative solution to not hear those, or see them and get distracted.
Removing distractions is a form of discipline! You notice the cue, you admit it, acknowledge it, and make a conscious choice to not act on it!
Pay Attention to your habits
The number one thing that differentiates high achievers from the others, is their ability to take action.
A billion-dollar idea that is never actioned, is worthless!
Remember this:
- Many people thought about creating a social network before Mark Zuckerberg but didn’t.
- There were a lot of people who thought about creating an online bookstore before Jeff Bezos but they didn’t.
- There were a lot of people who wanted to create an interface for the hard-to-use computers in the 90s, but only Bill Gates managed to create the Windows OS.
Ideas are great, but they are nothing before they are implemented. And implementation means consistently taking action toward your goal. However, taking action needs to follow a plan, and be focused. This is where habits come into play.
Paying attention to your habits is the best way you can control the direction of your actions. Your habits can be what holds you back, what drives you forward, or what keeps you motivated.
One tip here: Do frequent checks where you write down on a piece of paper, everything you did that day, from waking up, bathroom breaks, scrolling social media, eating, daydreaming, and every little thing. This way you can identify where time goes and what habits you want to change.
In conclusion, I am sure that if you are reading this, you want to be in the top 1%. So, using the Pareto principle, you need to either do what 80% of the people don’t do, or do it better than them, or do it before they hear about it!
Implement the steps above and see your overall productivity surge!
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