The Misunderstood Power that Determines What You Get in Life
Everyone can make a difference in the world. Just by being alive you’re already contributing to society and moving the needle a little bit on everything. But people who achieve what they want in life don’t just get “lucky.” They sometimes put in tons of hard work and dedication; they might even be lucky, but it doesn’t change their ultimate responsibility for success. They have done something different than other people and it has paid off big-time.
The difference between the people who succeed and those of us who do not is sometimes difficult to identify. When someone’s life looks like a perfect example of what can happen, it is easy to assume that they were born in the right place at the right time and everything just worked out perfectly for them. This can make it seem like someone’s success is somehow a result of luck. They didn’t achieve anything on their own—they just happened to be in the right place at the right time and had a lucky break here or there. They didn’t get any breaks; they were just lucky.
There is not a person in the world who woke up one day and thought, “I want to be famous or rich.” Actually, the number of people who achieve success over a long period of time is really small. Only a few percent of the population do it—a fraction of 1 percent. Those people did not get lucky; they made choices and took action and worked hard to achieve their goals. They put in hours, days, years, and decades honing their skills until they were perfect at what they did. No one becomes incredible at something overnight; it takes time and effort to become good at something. But when people look back at their life, they often see opportunities and choices played out that led to the success they have today.
The real difference between someone who succeeds and someone who doesn’t is not in luck or circumstances. It is in what you’re willing to do. If you lack the internal motivation to pull it off, then you’ll always be a spectator, watching how other people move forward on their own terms. You need perseverance and dedication; you need to act as if it were already happening. Then happiness will follow suit and everything else will come together perfectly because your work has prepared the way for a great life. You need to stop thinking about how fortunate you are.
Many people who succeed do so because they think about what will happen in the future and then make choices that lead to that result. They are not just making quick choices without planning them in advance; they think things through before they act. An example of this is Tim Ferriss, a businessman who made a million dollars by publishing an e-book and then marketing it on his own terms. He got his book translated into many languages, and then he marketed it in different corners of the world. He sold over four hundred thousand copies by doing all of this alone, without an agent or a publisher or even much help at all from other people. All he did was keep track of how fast the book was selling and make wise choices along the way, which led to his success. He spent a lot of time in preparation, constantly moving toward his goal. He didn’t wait for things to happen; he moved things himself.
Another example of this is the entrepreneurs who run their own business without any assistance from an agent, publisher, or anyone else. They find ways to succeed without waiting for someone else to sign them on or do any kind of work for them—they do all of it themselves. In fact, most successful people plan their businesses with as much detail as you would a complex engineering project. They know in advance how everything will come together and how it will work. Then they make sure that it does work. This is how you succeed—not by waiting for things to happen without doing anything about them. Success is not just showing up and hoping for the best; you can’t be lucky if you are not willing to act in a way that gets you closer to your goal.
Within any group of people who have achieved what they wanted, the difference between people who succeed and those who don’t is not luck or circumstance or connections. It’s the steps they took, the choices they made, and the actions they took along the way that led to their success. Anyone can learn what they did and do the same thing.
When other people fail, they often come up with excuses. They say that they don’t have the connections, or enough money, or a rich uncle to give them a leg up. But you’ll never succeed if you only think about what you lack; you must also think about what you can do. This is where the action begins. You have to act as if your goal were already achieved and then plan out your actions in great detail so that it does happen. Then, when the time comes, execute intelligently and make sure things work out exactly as planned. If you follow these steps, then success will follow suit.
Spreading Happiness
Another reason that you need to stop thinking about how fortunate you are is that it’s a bad way to live. When people think that they are fortunate, they can become entitled and unsatisfied. Actually, it becomes much more difficult for them to be satisfied with what they have when they think of themselves as lucky or fortunate. If anyone gives them a compliment, they feel like they don’t deserve it; if anyone helps them out in any way, they feel indebted and obligated. They don’t want to say anything nice in case it seems like bragging or bragging is bad or uncalled for, even if the only reason people are giving them compliments is because their success deserves recognition.
The truth is that you are so lucky to be alive right now. You live in the greatest country in the world, and your family and friends love you. There are so many choices to be made in life, but you can live a great life without having to make any of them yourself—you can sit around and wait for things to happen while you work on not thinking about your own circumstance. You can choose to be happy and live well without thinking about any of this. You can get up in the morning and think about all the things you are grateful for instead, then take action to extend your happiness to others.
If you want to enjoy your life and enjoy yourself, then you need to stop thinking about how lucky you are, because it leads to self-centeredness. It doesn’t matter how lucky you are if you can’t appreciate it or have any fun with it. Sure, some people have a hard time with this—if they were born in Somalia or some other war zone where they have been through a lot of suffering, then that’s understandable.
Conclusion
The most important thing to remember is that you can’t make your dreams come true unless you believe they will. The only choice you have is to believe that what you want will happen. It may be hard at first, but if you do it for long enough, then eventually it will happen. This means that the power lies within your mind, and the only reason it doesn’t come out of the mind is because it’s not there yet. There are no absolutes—there are just what-ifs. If you don’t know in advance which decisions lead to a certain result, then you can make every decision once and decide for yourself what exactly will happen in each case.