How to rise above rejection and achieve the impossible
Are you trying to discover your purpose? Maybe you have tried several paths before, and things just didn’t turn out the way you had anticipated. Perhaps you are a successful entrepreneur who has hit a plateau and you are actively searching for the system or idea/s that will take you from where you are to where you want to go. This article answers the most popular questions I receive from clients who are eager to learn how to rise above rejection and achieve their big hairy and audacious goals. My clients typically want to know the following:
- What is the right path for me?
- With so much uncertainty, is now the right time for me?
- What should be my next step?
Perhaps you share an interest in the answers to these questions. I agree with you. This is certainly a season of unprecedented uncertainty. However, the flip side to this reality is that thousands of men and women are not only surviving during this season but thriving.
Are you barely keeping your head above water, surviving or thriving?
I recently led a seminar with a group of investors in Marbella, Spain and they are fired up and excited about the future and their new ventures. I firmly believe, and you may agree, that it is never the wrong time to chase your dreams. For the thirty plus entrepreneurs who attended the event, they are prepared to do whatever it takes to make their dreams a reality.
Are you ready to do whatever it takes to make your dreams a reality or are you still stuck in the old paradigm of ‘the perfect moment?’
If you wait for the ‘right’ or perfect’ moment to appear, you will never get to take the necessary action.
The Right Path
“If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition…. you are not understanding yourself.”
- Bruce Lee
Part of figuring out the right path is figuring out ourselves. There are plenty of practical tools to use, and questions to ask yourself when you are considering a new direction or to clarify your potential opportunities. In our Cost Of Success workshops, we teach and train tomorrow’s leaders how to write a wish-list or to create a vision board.
Vision boards are an important part of my team’s 90 Day goal-setting process. It helps us and will help you to set and prioritise your goals, values, and intentions. Vision boards do work if you work them, here is how in five easy steps:
1. Buy a board such as foam core or re-purpose cardboard from a large opened box.
2. Visualise your future: Make a list of goals for the next 90 days or things you would like to see happen.
3. Go through magazines and find photos/words that illustrate your goals and cut them out.
4. Paste your photos/words to the board using a glue stick.
5. Place it in an area of your home/office that you can see easily and often. Allow yourself to become obsessed with the idea of getting/experiencing what you posted on the vision board. Review your goals, images, and messages at least once a day.
What are the things you really, really want to happen above all else?
Be mindful and connect with your highest goal priorities, this will encourage you to include what matters to you most.
Be patient with yourself. If you could ask for anything, what would it be?
Be specific in what you want, and this will clarify the right path toward achievement. You must really know what motivates you and what makes you feel bad and then you can set goals that feel good to you.
The Right Time
Everyone knows the story of the humble post-it note, and how it represents an ideas’ ability to evolve and flourish over time.
“Nothing else in the world…. not all the armies…is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
- Victor Hugo
In 1968, 3M’s Spencer Silver was working on developing an ultra-strong adhesive for use in aircraft construction, instead, a mistake led to the new adhesive called acrylate co-polymer microspheres, which were a weak, pressure-sensitive adhesive.
However, they had the unique characteristics of the microspheres being incredibly strong and resisting breaking, and sticking at a tangent to the surface, which meant that the sticky substance could be peeled away without leaving residue and re-used. Nobody believed in the product for decades and many people struggled to find a profitable application for the technology.
It wasn’t until 1977 that the product was finally tested for sales for the first time with a launch in four cities. Hardly anyone bought it. In 1978, 3M tried one more time by sending out large numbers of free samples to companies for them to try. To many people’s surprise, almost 90% of companies given samples re-ordered the product, which finally confirmed that there was profit potential and demand. The rest is history.
There is no shortcut to success, and there is no magic formula that can create success, however, there is one factor that rises above all others in importance: Timing.
Timing should not be ignored, and it cannot be substituted by paying more attention to other factors that relate to goal achievement. There is no scientific process for determining the timing of your idea that I am aware of. Timing comes down to a gut feeling and a little bit of luck.
Richard Wiseman is a professor of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire and the author of Luck Factor. Wiseman studied over one thousand people and as it turns out, demonstrated by his work — some people are very unlucky. In the book, Wiseman shares a case study of a woman who reported having eight car accidents in one 150-mile journey. She was also unlucky in love. After joining a dating agency, her first date fell off his motorcycle and broke his leg. The second date walked into a glass door and broke his nose. Eventually, she met her future husband and the church they were going to get married in, burned down the day before the wedding.
Can you change your luck?
Wiseman’s research suggests conclusive evidence that people can change their luck. He says, “Luck is not some thing paranormal in nature. It’s something that we are creating by our thoughts and behaviour.”
The Right Action
Luck comes from working smart, hard and taking massive action towards our goals. Our success depends on our ability to be consistent in practising self-discipline, determination and having a positive mental attitude. The manifestation of the goals you have placed on your vision board requires resilience and preparation for inevitable problem solving. Take full responsibility to develop a personal vision for your future success. Identify the right path, time, and action for you.
Try stuff, preferably take actions that move you closer to the achievement of the goals on your vision board. Unlucky people suffer from paralysis by analysis. Feedback from some of the more mature investors during our recent seminar in Marbella, highlighted the regret many of them felt for not taking enough action sooner in life. I think generally, we all regret the things we did not do, when we were supposed to do them and over time, we tend to rationalise our ‘failures.’ But we cannot rationalise away those things we never tried at all. So, keep trying new things. If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten.
Eliot Kelly is recognised as a serial Entrepreneur, and has been featured on CNN, BBC Three’s Be Your Own Boss and an extensive list of magazines and articles. His four books have been translated in over 7 languages and are sold in 29 countries, recently being shortlisted for Best Self-Help and Best Advice Books 2019 by The Author Academy.
