There’s no magic formula. You don’t cross your fingers, Click your toes, and suddenly you become your greatest self. It doesn’t work that way. There is no quick-fix formula to do it. However, there is a way to do it and today I’ll share the five steps you can take to forge your greatness,
You create your greatest self. Similar to building a house, it’s developed by our choices made each day. If you consistently put forth the right effort and make the right choices, your true potential and best self emerges. More and more. Here are the five ways you can immediately start forging your best.
1. HAVE A CLEAR PICTURE OF WHAT “GREATNESS” IS FOR YOU
You need to have a clear picture of what greatness looks like to you.
- What are you looking for?
- What are you trying to accomplish?
- What does success look like to you?
This is the first thing you have to define. You can’t take someone else’s version of success for yourself because in time, that desire will fade. You have to know what you want to build for your life, for your career, for your health, for your family,
Because whatever your version of success looks like, it’s going to be different than mine. It’s going to be different than your neighbor and different than your coworker. However, until you have a clearly defined picture of exactly what you want to achieve – the greatness you want to bring about and create – you’ll be able to start building it.
Get a clear picture of what “being great” will look like to you. Envision it in great detail, and even draw it on a piece of paper for added clarity. What does greatness look like to you?
2. CULTIVATE A WINNER’S MINDSET
Successful people learn to build a winner’s mindset in their work and life. It’s not about what you’re born with – but what you choose to build. And the first step to cultivating a winning mindset is forcing yourself to show up every day.
If you want to have that mental edge, you got to train yourself to compete every day.
Competitors refuse to be distracted by what other people think about their process because they’re too focused on how they can improve their work or life. They show up and do their best every day regardless of how they feel or what position they started in.
Competitors focus on what they control instead of being distracted by what they don’t. And you will always control:
- Your attitude
- Your effort
- Your actions
You have 100% power on those three things – so don’t give that away to someone else.
You develop a Winning Mindset when you make the choice each morning to show up strong in your work, your workouts, and your relationships – regardless of the weather, how you feel, or what situation you’re in. Build your strongest mindset one choice at a time.
3. CREATE A POSITIVE, DAILY PROCESS
You have to create a positive daily process that helps you move the needle every day. Your daily process is going to look different than mine, but here’s a snapshot of how I start each morning to ensure a strong day:
- Wake up before 6am
- Stretch / mobilize while listening to positive affirmations
- Read 1 chapter of a book
- Hit the gym for a workout
- Check email and answer any immediate conversations
- Shower
- Start work – without opening email again until lunch.
This formula has helped me attack each day stronger by eliminating early morning distractions and priming my body & mind for the work day ahead.
I don’t try to do everything every day. I choose only three target actions to hit.
If I hit all three of those, regardless of whatever else happens in the day, that day is a win. If I don’t that day, I take a big “L.”
You need to create a daily process that gets you to where you want to go. Goals are awesome – but to achieve that great goal, you need to change the small things, like your habits. One of the best books I’ve read in years is Atomic Habits by James Clear.
In it, Clear discusses the importance of changing our habits and how the small actions – 1% tweaks that are almost invisible at the moment – lead to massive changes over time.
Success is not about doing everything in a day or a week. It’s about doing one thing every day.
The difference between most people and successful people is consistency. It’s not just showing up when you feel good or when you feel motivated. It’s showing up and making progress. Every single day.
4. PRACTICE PERSISTENCE
Grit and resilience are key to developing greatness because this is about what’s built over time, not overnight. Greatness is a long game.
It’s easy to want to rush building your best life, but you can’t.
If you were building this amazing house and the construction team threw it together in under a week, you might panic. You’d worry that parts of the house weren’t completely stable or that the work had been rushed – so anything might happen when a storm hits.
Just the same, it’s going to take time in order to forge your greatness. It can’t be done in a week.
Great achievements take time to build, and as I’m sure you’ve learned by now, most people don’t have the stomach to play the long game.
Remember on your big, clearly defined picture – and then dial in on what one step you’re going to take today. You build your endurance when you don’t let how far you have to go or how much you have to do distract you from doing something to advance.
5. SURROUND YOURSELF WITH THE RIGHT TEAM
I recently spoke on this topic on the Compete Every Day podcast in more detail (here). I’d recommend listening to that brief episode on how important #5 is.
Your friends choose your fate. In order to succeed, you have to learn to avoid certain kinds of people. The ones that constantly:
- have an excuse
- avoid responsibility
- are a “YES” man who just wants acceptance – instead of what’s best.
You’ll never achieve greatness by keeping those toxic relationships in your life. These types of people prevent you from growing upward. Jim Rohn said that we are the “average of the 5 people we spend the most time with.”
If you’re at the top of your friends’ group and the only one taking action on your goals, growing your career, and building a positive mindset, it won’t be very long before your 5 closest friends drag you down to their level.
You have to remove yourself from those relationships and invest in rooms where you aren’t the smartest, most successful, or confident person in order to forge your greatness. You need to be sharpened by people achieving more and encouraging you to do the same.
IT’S JUST FIVE STEPS.
They’re simple, straightforward steps. However simple doesn’t mean easy.
It’s a good thing too because as a Competitor, you understand that the easy things we do in life rarely make us proud. It’s the more challenging journeys we take that become the best talking points in life.
Take the first step today. Start forging greatness with your choices, making sure they align with the person you want to be in the future.