Do you want to know a secret to success?
Give up. Or, more accurately, G.I.V.E. U.P.
No, I’m not talking about giving up on your goals and your dreams. Instead, I’m talking about you giving up your negative mindset and bad habits.
Specifically, here are the six things you can G.I.V.E. U.P. in order to get more done and start seeing more success:
G – Grouches
I – Inactivity
V – Vices
E – Excuses
U – Uncertainty
P – Perfection
- Grouches
If you want to be more successful, then a good place to start is to G.I.V.E. U.P. the grouches in your life. These are the people who’re negative.
You’ll hear them say things like:
- You can’t do it.
- You’re wasting your time.
- Choose something reasonable.
- That’s silly.
- That’s impossible.
- What makes you think you can do it when so many others have failed?
Worse yet, every time you fail or have a setback (and you will have setbacks from time to time), the grouch says, “See? I told you this would never work! Stop wasting your time now.”
This sort of negativity is infectious. The more you hear it, the more you’re likely to start believing it.
It’s like a drum beat that starts playing in your head, too. And if you hang around grouches long enough, pretty soon you will find yourself failing more and more. The grouches will feel justified. They’ll say, “I told you so.” But what they don’t know is that once you make the choice to eliminate the grouches from your life, you WILL start seeing more success.
- Inactivity
The next thing you need to G.I.V.E. U.P. is inactivity. In other words, stop procrastinating.
Easier said than done, right?
Sometimes procrastination is happening because of fear. You’re afraid of failure, so you don’t take the necessary steps to see the project through to completion. Or maybe you’re afraid of success and the changes it will bring. But the end result is the same: you procrastinate so that the project never gets done.
Do you know what the cure for fear is? Action. And you can start taking more action by following these steps:
- Create a daily to-do list. Be sure to list the tasks in bite-size chunks so you don’t feel overwhelmed.
- Get accountable. One good way to do this is to find someone who’ll ask you every day whether you completed your to-do list.
- Force yourself to take the first step. Action tends to cure fear, but taking the first step is often the hardest. Once you get some momentum going, however, it gets easier. And that’s why you may need to virtually force yourself to take the first step. You might start with something you like. Or you might set a timer for 15 minutes and just force yourself to work, focusing on quantity rather than quality.
Do these steps for a few days or a few weeks, and you’ll find it easier and easier to take positive action.
- Vices
Do you have bad habits in either your business or personal life? If so, it’s time to G.I.V.E. U.P. those vices.
For best results, find a good habit to replace the bad habit. And then make a concentrated effort for at least three weeks to get rid of the bad habit. After 21 days your good habit should indeed be a habit.
Example: Maybe your vice is spending too much time in front of the TV. Perhaps you can replace this bad habit with a good one, such as walking for 30 minutes. If you take a walk every day during the time you’d normally watch TV, by the time three weeks have past your daily walk will have turned into a habit – and you won’t be watching as much TV as a result.
- Excuses
The next thing you need to G.I.V.E. U.P. are your excuses.
Remember, whether you succeed or fail is up to you.
When you succeed, go ahead and take credit. But when you fail, don’t make excuses – instead, take responsibility and learn from your mistakes.
Likewise, don’t make “pre-emptive” excuses.
Example: Maybe you made a goal to get a new blog up this week. And maybe the week is coming to a close, but you find yourself saying things like:
- I’ve been so tired this week.
- It’s been a really busy week.
- It’s been a stressful week.
You know what? Those are excuses for why you CAN’T do something.
If you want to see more success, you need to give up your excuses for why you can’t, and start looking for reason why you CAN do something.
- Uncertainty
The next thing you need to G.I.V.E. U.P. is your uncertainty (which is your fear). This leads to second-guessing yourself, which leads to procrastination.
End result? No progress.
Listen, you won’t know the best answer until you give something a try.
So if you’ve made the best decision you can based on your research, then stop researching, stop second-guessing, and start taking action. If you fail, consider it a good lesson of what doesn’t work and keep moving forward. As the saying goes, “Fail forward and fail faster.”
In short: You’ll find your success far faster by doing something – even if it turns out to be wrong — as opposed to being immobilised by fear for months or even years.
- Perfection
Yes, you want to do a good job. And you should produce quality work in everything you do. But you need to G.I.V.E. U.P. the idea of perfection.
It doesn’t exist. And if you’re seeking perfection, then you’re probably in the grips of fear, looking for an excuse to not let a project see the light of day.
Take a look at just about any big company in the world, and you’ll see that they don’t strive for absolute perfection.
Example: Software companies routinely put out software that isn’t perfect. That’s because it would take too much time and money to make it perfect. Indeed, it would never see the light of day if they waited until the software is perfect. So, what the companies do is ship out good quality products… and if the users tell them the software isn’t perfect, they patch and update the software as needed.
You can do the same thing. Let go of your fear and give up the idea of perfection. Commit to always doing your best and putting out high-quality work, but don’t get stalled by trying to be perfect.
Conclusion
When someone tells you to give up, it sounds like quitting. It sounds like failure. But when I tell you to G.I.V.E. U.P., I’m telling you to reach for success by giving up these six negative habits and mindsets:
G – Grouches
I – Inactivity
V – Vices
E – Excuses
U – Uncertainty
P – Perfection
Go ahead and G.I.V.E. U.P. starting today – I think you’ll like the result!
