Success is not Guaranteed.

The road to success is not straight. There is a curve called Failure, a loop called Confusion, speed bumps called Friends, red lights called Enemies, caution lights called Family. You will have flat tires called Jobs, but if you have a spare called Determination, an engine called Perserverance, a driver called Will Power, you will make it to a place called Success.

Everything worthwhile is uphill, the climb is steep, and the journey is the reward, as success is not guaranteed, but the struggle is. To make your wildest dream come true, you must be willing to sacrifice, endure, persist, persevere, commit, and relentlessly execute. Whether it is building a business, running a marathon, learning a foreign or programming language, following through on a fitness regimen, becoming financially independent or any other goal you set, it will require a lot of effort, self-discipline and dedication. Success is not guaranteed, and it is also never an accident. As author and motivational speaker Jim Rohn often said: “Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day, while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure. Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices.”

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in. and day out. – Robert Collier.

Former UCLA Bruins basketball team coach John Wooden, who won ten NCAA national championships, defined Success as the peace of mind that is the direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming. Wooden remarked, “True success is attained only through the satisfaction of knowing you did everything within the limits of your ability to become the very best that you are capable of being. Success is giving ioo percent of your effort, body, mind, and soul, to the struggle. That you can attain. That is success.”

Success as the peace of mind that is the direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming. – John Wooden

Only bad things happen quickly.

Only the bad things of life happen quickly; the good things in life take time to build, nurture and scale. This is how author Dr. Gordon Livingston puts it in his book, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now:

When we think about the things that alter our lives in a moment, nearly all of them are bad: phone calls in the night, accidents, loss of jobs or loved ones, conversations with doctors bearing awful news. In fact, apart from a last-second touchdown, unexpected inheritance, winning the lottery, or a visitation from God, it is hard to imagine sudden good news. Virtually all the happiness-producing processes in our lives take time, usually a long time: learning new things, changing old behaviors, building satisfying relationships, raising children. This is why patience and determination are among life’s primary virtues.

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day, while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. – Jim Rohn

There are no guarantees.

In Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike, co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc., Phil Knight, writes about running as an endeavour with no guarantees.

“For that matter, few ideas are as crazy as my favorite thing, running. It’s hard. It’s painful. It’s risky. The rewards are few and far from guaranteed. When you run around an oval track, or down an empty road, you have no real destination. At least, none that can fully justify the effort. The act itself becomes the destination. It’s not just that there’s no finish line; it’s that you define the finish line. Whatever pleasures or gains you derive from the act of running, you must find them within. It’s all in how you frame it, how you sell it to yourself.”

“Every runner knows this. You run and run, mile after mile, and you never quite know why. You tell yourself that you’re running toward some goal, chasing some rush, but really you run because the alternative, stopping, scares you to death.

It takes what it takes.

In It Takes What It Takes: How to Think Neutrally and Gain Control of Your Life, mental conditioning coach to elite performers Trevor Moawad posits that it takes pressure to succeed in every venture. He writes:

A habit has no hiding place in sports. Good or bad. The film will be watched. You will be graded. Your competency is forced on you. You can’t hide behind ignorance. You can’t say “I didn’t know,” because the team also has video of the coach telling you the thing you were supposed to know. And to anyone reading this, if you think you’re hiding behind ignorance in your non-sports job, you’re not. You may not have a “tell- the-truth Monday” with video in your office, but that doesn’t make the reality any different. It takes what it takes in every walk of life. In your relationships—it takes what it takes. With your health—it takes what it takes.

To get promoted—it takes what it takes. Average people become average by doing average shit. It takes a specific set of behaviors (or lack of them) to be average. No one is born that way. People can behave themselves into mediocrity. They also can behave themselves out of it. The right set of behaviors doesn’t guarantee wins. Embracing pressure doesn’t either. This still isn’t about an outcome. It never will be. It’s about creating the opportunity to win by behaving like people who win. It’s about creating the opportunity to succeed by not ignoring pressure when you know it’s a necessary challenge that anyone who achieves must navigate. It’s hard. You accept that.

The right set of behaviors doesn’t guarantee wins. Embracing pressure doesn’t either.

Meditations

Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – Lessons

Learning to reframe past mistakes, memories of past blunders and faux pas can be charged with emotions. When we recollect these blunders, it can trigger negative emotions. Step back from the painful memories and create some distance from the feelings and the narratives surrounding it.

Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – Another Way In