You must have read the articles on this blog about the mindset of success and motivation. So you know how to be more successful. But there are degrees of success in any area of life. There are people who get in shape and there are people who become Olympic champions. There are people who launch a successful business, and then there are people who go on to become the biggest player in their industry.
Now, the big questions are:
How can you scale your success? What’s the difference between people who achieve small-scale success and those who hit it out of the park? What parameter should you tweak to go from small to huge?
OK, let’s analyze this…
If you remember from the article “The Greatest Source of Motivation”, when it comes to success, you are always in a circle – the circle of motivation, action, and results back to motivation. Every time you go around the circle, you achieve greater result, which leads to greater motivation, greater actions, and even greater result.
But how can you make the results bigger in each round?
The answer is that you should make the circle bigger. Remember that in the success circle, the result serves as a reward for more motivation. The longer you can work without reward, the bigger the reward will be.
The difference between lightweights and heavy hitters is in delaying the rewards.
Once you know you are on the right path, the longer you can keep going without reward, the bigger the final reward will be.
Think about it mathematically, for a minute. If you are in a venture that has high ROI (Return On Investment), the longer you stay the course, the bigger the final compounding profit will be.
In the investment world, those who stick around longer and ignore short-lived setbacks, reap the biggest rewards. On the other hand, those who are quick to cash their profits at every jitter, miss out on the big reward.
There’s an old saying that:
If you are facing in the right direction, keep on walking
Ironically, those who plan for the long-term are the ones who achieve great results faster, because they do the right things, while those who opt for quick profit, tend to cut corners and diminish the magnitude of their success. This may remind you of the famous story of “The Tortoise and the Hare” from Aesop’s Fables where the fast but undisciplined rabbit loses to the slow and steady turtle.
Hold off those Marshmallows
In a series of experiments by researchers at Stanford University, the kids who were able to refrain from eating their marshmallows in return for more, ended up being more successful in education, physical health, and other life success indicators.
But keep in mind that even though the Marshmallow experiment shows the correlation between success and delayed gratification, you should never think of delaying rewards as an innate personal trait that you are born with.
In general, the most disempowering thought is to believe in unchanging innate traits. You can change anything about yourself at any point in your life. The only thing that can stop you from doing that is your own belief that you can’t do it. Human brain is the most plastic device in nature, which is capable of changing and adapting to any situation.
The Bottom Line
Practice delaying gratification in small increments to train your brain to stay the course a bit longer. Before you know, you can take action for longer periods of time with no rewards and achieve greater success in any area of life and in any endeavor you undertake.
