THIS Is The SECRET to Getting Ahead In LIFE | Impact Quotes

This is the secret to life. You're not going to be judged by your intentions. You're going to be judged entirely by your results. And the only way to get results is to take action. Action at the end of the day is the bedrock of everything. It's the bedrock of a growth mindset. It's the bedrock of success, of accomplishment. Everything comes back to not what you think, but what you actually do. Make that the absolute core of your existence, that you're not going to be afraid to fail, and you're going to move forward. You're always going to take action. You're going to have a massive bias towards action. You're going to create momentum in your life. When you start doing that, when your reaction to every situation is to learn by doing, then you're going to become an unstoppable force. But it comes from recognizing that the most rich data stream in the world comes from action. If you've embraced that everything is your fault, you are well on your way to achieving whatever it is that you want in life. Now, this isn't about blame. It's not about feeling badly about yourself. This is about simply remembering that you're always in control. And by that I mean you can always make a different decision, and making a different decision gives you the possibility of having a different outcome. If you're looking to blame anyone or anything external beyond yourself, you then start playing the role of the victim. So, even though you may have every right to blame somebody else, it doesn't serve you. So, that's why you're going to take ownership of everything that you do in your life down to the last microgram of decision. It's all your fault, and from there everything becomes possible. As Henry Ford said, "When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it." The reason this is so important to understand is that inevitably there are going to be times in your life where it literally seems like the world is coming after you. And in those moments, if rather than panic, if rather than letting your mind run away from you, rather than getting bitter or angry or frustrated, if you remember in those times that forcing yourself to push through it, forcing yourself to find the opportunity, forcing yourself to find the lesson in that is going to be the very thing that gives you lift. It's actually constraints. It's having restrictions. It's having difficult times. Those are the things that allow people to really find and tap into the thing that's going to allow them to achieve what they want to achieve because it's going to push you. And I know that's never fun. That's not what anybody wants to hear, but the reality is if you want to achieve something great in your life, you've got to be going into the hard places. You've got to be facing down the difficult things. You've got to be going down that road that is intrinsically difficult. It's untamed. It's wild. And in that in that sense that it's coming after you, in that sense that you've entered truly hostile territory, in that is the very thing that's going to lift you up and allow you to do what other people haven't done. That's exactly why the terrain seems hostile. That's exactly why it seems like things are crashing down around you. Because you've ventured into the unknown. But it's only in the unknown that you're going to be able to find yourself. It's only in the unknown that you're going to be able to accomplish something that other people think is impossible. Because they only think it's impossible because no one's ever done it. And as Tullius Cicero said, "Whatever you do, do with all your might." So, as you go into this wilderness of the untamed, as you venture into this dangerous territory, go like a bat out of hell. Go like you've got something to prove. Go with a chip on your shoulder. Go knowing that you're going to face danger. Go knowing that you're going to have to stand up for yourself and you're going to have to fight for what you believe. Go knowing that you've got to get stronger. Go knowing that right now you're not the person you need to be in order to be successful. Go now knowing that failure is guaranteed. Go now knowing that in that failure you will learn what you need and by being willing to face that failure and being willing to learn from that and putting all of your energy into getting better, into taking responsibility, into focusing who you want to become. But, you've got to do it with everything you've got. Anything less is guaranteed failure. The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score. And that's where people lose years of their life. There's so much business in running up and down the field. There's so much sense of action and accomplishment that they realize that there's no objective because they don't know what they're reaching for. They don't know what their goal is and as deadly simple as that sounds, step number one, have a goal. Make it specific. Make sure you know the rules of the game you're playing. Make sure you know what a win looks like. In fact, that may be the most important question that you could ask yourself. The most pointed thing that you could determine in your life is to know what does it look like to win? Once you know what it looks like to win, then you can work backwards. Then you can figure out what you need to do to score. Then you can figure out the skills that you're going to need in order to get great, in order to go out and dominate, in order to be better than anyone that has ever come before you. But to do that, you've got to know what your goal is. And once you have that, as Dale Carnegie said, if you want to conquer fear, don't sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. So, now you have your goal. Now you're telling people what you're going to do. Now you're telling yourself who you're going to become. You're building something up inside of you, but are you actually taking the action? Are you actually getting out and doing something about it? And it is terrifying to me how people can pacify themselves with a sense of accomplishment simply by having a goal, simply by telling people that they're going to do something, simply by fantasizing about what they're going to accomplish. And let me tell you right now, the thing that separates the people who dream from the people who execute is a willingness to act. And at the end of the day, nothing is going to stop you. Not fear, not inability, not inadequacy. The only thing that will stop you is failing to start. Failing to start is your mortal enemy. You've got to find a way to get yourself going. You've got to find a way to take that desire, that interest in you and turn it into a raging inferno, something that's going to get you moving and going ahead that will trample everything in its path. Once you're able to do that, nothing, and I mean nothing, will be able to stop you. As John Wayne said, courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway. Here's the secret. The people that do the most with their lives, the people that seem the most self-assured, the ones that seem to embody confidence, the ones that seem to define confidence, they're the ones that had to face down the most fear. They simply didn't linger in it. They faced up. They took action, and in action, they began to tame the fear. And that's the most ironic thing about being a human is the very thing that you're terrified of doing, actually taking a step into the unknown, taking that step, is the very thing that will cure the fear. It's the very thing that's going to suppress that. It's the very thing that's going to give you the confidence because in that moment, all you're trying to do is process what's around you, and your brain does not have the opportunity to explore and be afraid at the same time. And when you understand that, when you understand that the ally that you have is movement, the ally that you have is momentum, the thing that you don't need to be afraid of is fear, because that will be quelled by doing something. That will be quelled by facing your fear. That will be quelled by saddling up even when you are at your most terrified. And as Samuel Johnson said, "Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance." It's facing that fear and going after it anyway. It's falling down, the very thing that you were terrified of, embarrassing yourself in front of people, and getting back up. And that's the key. Getting back up is all that matters. You're all going to fall. Every one of us are going to embarrass ourselves not once, not twice, but over and over and over, if we're lucky, because it means that we tried. It means that we got up. It means that we cured our fear by taking action. It means that we took a risk. It means that we put something at risk. It means that we took that fragile part of ourselves that lives inside, that wants to hide, that wants to move backwards, and we ripped it open, and we laid it bare, and we said, "What will come will come, and whatever it is, I'm going to learn from that. Whatever it is, I'm going to push through that. Whatever it is, I'm going to persevere, because on the other side of perseverance is a sense of self, a sense of confidence, of being reborn, of being something new, because you built upon yourself. You took that ember of fear, and you turned it into something powerful, because you weren't afraid. You didn't back down. You weren't worried that that would be a permanent state. You understood that it was only a step on a longer journey. And when you can see your life as a long journey, and that you know perseverance is what it demands, then you'll stay the course. Then, you'll win. As Maya Angelou said, "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude." That's the best advice you're ever going to hear. At the end of the day, you should always be trying to change the things that you have the ability to change. There are inevitably going to be things that you can't change, but you're never helpless. You're never a victim. In that moment, you still have the unbelievable ability to choose to look at it in a new way, to choose to reframe it. And in that reframing, you change everything. You don't just change your own neurochemistry. You're not just changing the way that you feel. You're actually changing the way that you're going to approach the problem. Something that was moments before, something that seemed impossible, something that was breaking your will to continue to fight, with a change in attitude, becomes something completely different. And as Hans Selye said, adopting the right attitude can turn a negative stress into a positive one. And that game of mental jujitsu is what it's about. That game of flipping something on its head, of turning something around, of seeing it in a new way, so that you can act in a new way, is how you make forward progress. Understanding that, understanding your need to change your perspective, that's how you begin to get ahead. Once you understand your perspective is a choice, it is not objective truth. Burn that into your mind. It is not objective truth. The world that you see around you is simply the perspective through which you see it. All of life is a funhouse mirror. And when you acknowledge that, when you understand that you're looking at a distorted view of the way the world is, you realize that you can adopt a different distortion. You can adopt a distortion that allows you to see things more clearly, that allow you to see things in a way that empower you. And that should always be the first step is figuring out not what is, not what you can change, but instead understanding what you need to change it to. And understanding that that change comes from inside you. It isn't a manifestation that you have to make in the outside world first. It's a change you have to make inside yourself. It is a shift of perspective. It is simply stepping to the side of what you're used to and how you're used to seeing things and understanding that in reframing things, you take that negative and turn it into something that builds you up. But you've got to choose. You've got to decide. You've got to believe that you can do it. But once you believe that you can see things in any way that you need to to reach your goals, your life will change forever because you'll actually reach your goals. As Helen Keller said, "Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence." And that's the trick. It really is faith. It really is doing something even though you have nothing in the world telling you that it's real. It's something that you have to choose to believe in. It's something that is going to allow you to do incredible things simply because you believe that you can do them. But if you don't start with that optimistic belief, if you don't start by burning into yourself, by reinforcing over and over and over in your mind that things can and will work out, that your efforts are going to be rewarded, to believe to the core of your being that the harder you work, the more you're going to learn, the more you learn, the more you'll be able to do, the more you'll be able to do, the more you'll be able to manifest your dreams. You have to start with that faith that that's real. It would be just as easy to look into the world and see only the negative things. But once you understand that you can choose to have faith that things are going to work, that you can believe in something long before you have the evidence for it, and you can believe in it because you know that's how the mind works. That's where humans generate their power. They don't generate it from seeing some evidence of something in the world. We generate our power by first believing that our efforts will be rewarded. You have to put that at the center of your being. And as Wayne Dyer said, be miserable or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done is always your choice. So if you want to do something, recognize there's no obstacle holding you back other than what you choose to believe. And if you want to be miserable, it's going to be there for you. And if you want to be empowered, it's there for you. If you want strength, it is there for you. It's a decision. It's something that you decide to believe in, that you can get strong. And that ultimately is the ultimate strength, to believe that you can get better, to believe that you can become whatever you want to become. So choose optimism right now. Choose to let it fill you. Choose to feel it, to sit in that sensation that anything you set your mind to is possible when you allow yourself to embody that, to believe it, no matter what anybody tells you, no matter how many people tell you that you're stupid, you're a failure, that you're never going to do anything, that you are going to believe in yourself. If you can do that, if you can choose that optimism, you can go anywhere. Because you realize everything you needed was in you all along. It was simply choosing to believe you could execute against it. So, have that faith. Go out and do it. As Matsuo Basho said, "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of others. Instead, seek what they sought." This is about knowing not what others have done. This is about not chasing somebody or replicating somebody or imitating somebody. This is about figuring out what you want. What do you want? And then really growing to understand that, really beginning to form your own opinion. And it doesn't mean that you don't listen to other people. It doesn't mean that you don't sit at somebody's feet and learn from them. It simply means that the goal is not imitation. The goal is understanding. And when you go into learning something, knowing that that thing has utility, that when you get that skill, when you really understand that thing, what it's doing is giving you a brick that you're going to be able to build something with. But remember, the goal is the building. The goal is to create something that didn't exist before. And the only way to do that is to actually understand what you're doing. Mimicking the motions of somebody else will not allow you to create something that has never been before. It will not allow you to bring something into the world that has never before been seen. It will only allow you to replicate. And your goal in life isn't to be a copy machine. Your goal in life is to express yourself, to create things that only you could create, that your mind in this time period with all the unique things that you've encountered, that you've learned, the connections that you've made, the way that you bring things together. that's never ever going to exist again. It's all you, uniquely. That's your job in this life, is to build something from that place. But to do that, you actually have to understand what it is that you want. And as Erwin McManus said, there are few things more powerful than a life lived with passionate clarity. But that clarity only comes when you understand, it only comes when you take your time learning to really grasp the concept. To not read a book to tell someone that you've read it, to not complete a task to check it off a list. The goal is to actually understand how to use that thing. Knowledge isn't power. Used knowledge is power. Putting that to use to actually do something, understanding it well enough to create from that thing. That's the end goal. So, don't worry about what other people think. Don't worry about what other books other people have read. Don't worry if you ever make it to the last page of anything. Simply ask yourself, do I understand what I need to understand to build the life I want to build, to bring to this world the things that I want to bring? However counterintuitive, however weird, it doesn't matter. If it's a moment of beauty for you and you understand how to build it, build it. That's the greatest joy you're ever going to experience in life is being truly and uniquely yourself. But first, you have to do the work to understand who you really are. Do that work. As Gloria Steinem says, the truth will set you free, but first, it will piss you off. The reality is, if you want to achieve something great in your life, you've got to be willing to accept who you really are right now. You've got to know exactly what you're good at and what you're not. And the reason that the truth is going to piss you off is it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt to acknowledge that you're not yet who you want to be. It's going to hurt to know that you're not yet capable of the things that you want to be capable of. And it's really going to hurt to know that the things that people say behind your back, the things that they say to hurt you, that they're actually true. That they're right. They have a point. You aren't good at that thing. You aren't as good as you could be. You did embarrass yourself. You have fallen down. All of those things are almost certainly true. But when you can look at those things, when you can stare nakedly at your inadequacies, when you can really stop and not protect yourself with ego, but protect yourself by knowing that you're going to learn from where you failed. You're going to learn from the places you've fallen down. You're going to learn your inadequacies so that you can build something new. And as Michio Kaku says, "All great ideas come from a picture." You've got to know what you want. You've got to know what that thing is that you're building towards. You've got to know exactly who you're trying to become. And once you have that crystal clear vision of who you want to be, it is far easier to acknowledge who you really are. So you've got to start with that picture. You've got to accept the reality, pain and all. But you've got to have that picture. You've got to know where you're going. You've got to know what the skills are that you need to build in order to get there. And once you do that, once you have that picture, and that picture is your obsession, it's the thing that you think about, you dream about, you put it up on your wall, you tattoo it in your mind, you know exactly who you're trying to become if you are honest with yourself about where you are, and you know exactly where you want to go, you can go anywhere.