Just Believe In Yourself To be Successful, Here Is How

People tend to have a misconstrued

definition of success. We love to say

things like:

“I’ll be successful once I find a

career related to my passion.”

“I’ll be a success when I make my

first million dollars.”

“I’ll be a success when I find the

love of my life.”

Notice something about these platitudes?

They look at success as a

destination — a place we can all reach

and prance around with our success

forever after learning THE PLAN for how

to be successful. Yay!

Well, I got news for you: NO YOU

WON’T!!! The only  truth is success isn’t a goal or

destination — it’s a MINDSET you take

on to achieve your goals. And like all

other mindsets, you don’t just drop it

once you achieve your goals. Instead,

you adopt it so you can carry it with you

forever.

And I’ll be honest: Success isn’t an easy

feat to accomplish.

It’s human nature to look for the quick

fixes and get-rich-quick

schemes — even though those methods

are often temporary and incredibly

ineffective.

Our brain wants to use the path of least

resistance. If we really want to learn

how to be successful, though, we have to

go against our nature and challenge the

three mental barriers that knock us off

course:

1. Chasing “magic bullets”

2. Letting guilt control you

3.letting fear

Only by breaking past these mental

walls, can we truly become successful in

life.

That’s why I want to help you rewire how

you think about success and help you

break down these barriers once and for

all.

A magic bullet is the “ONE THING you

NEED to become successful.”

We’ve seen them all before in weight loss

commercials, cologne ads, and late-

night infomercials. That’s because

marketers know how powerful magic

bullets can be.

Whether you’re trying to start a

business, find a job, or improve your

fitness…MAGIC BULLETS DON’T EXIST.

It’s interesting how people fall into the

paradox of guilt — and don’t even

realize it’s happening.

After all, how often have you talked to

a friend about working out, saving

money, or studying for school and

heard them say something like, “Yeah, I

know I really should be doing that but…”

followed by some lame-brained excuse

as to why they’re putting off their self-

development?

“I know I really should be doing that” is

just code for “I’m not going to do that

at all.”

It’s the same with people in credit card

debt — many don’t even know how much

debt they have! They’d rather avoid

their statements and bury their head in

the sand than face the reality of how

much they owe.

Which is why I want to make it clear

that when I say you should be honest

with yourself and hold yourself

accountable, I DON’T mean “feel

incredibly guilty for the things you’re

not doing.”

And when you DO feel guilty, don’t run

away from it. Instead, follow these four

steps to overcome it.

Step 1: Acknowledge the guilt.

When you realize that you feel guilty

about something — like not hitting the

gym or saving up for retirement — I

want you to just take a moment and

acknowledge the feeling. Recognize your

guilt and ask yourself what is making

you feel guilty. That leads us to…

Step 2: Use the “five whys” technique.

This technique comes from a Japanese

industrialist named Sakichi Toyoda. He

developed the method in order to find

solutions at the root of recurring issues

related to his manufacturing plant and

helped blow up his company into a

household name — you might have heard

of it: Toyota Motors .

At the heart of the technique is the

question “why?” The idea is that most all

problems can be solved by asking “why”

five times — sometimes even less — and

getting to the root issue.

Say you feel guilty because you’ve been

meaning to open an investment account

but haven’t. You can utilize the

technique like this:

Why do I feel guilty?

Because I haven’t opened an

investment account.

Why haven’t I opened an

investment account?

Because I don’t even know where to

start.

Why is that?

Because I bought an investment

book years ago and haven’t read it

yet.

Why haven’t I read it?

Because it’s in a box in my

basement underneath the

Christmas decorations.

See what happened? In less than 5

whys, we figured out how to begin solving

this HUGE issue with just one step:

taking the time to find a book. Now this

person knows the first step to

getting started with his investments.

Step 3: Write it all down.

Take everything from steps 1 and 2 and

write it all down — your guilt, each of

the whys you asked, and how you can

solve everything. This will help you get a

clear understanding of how your mind

works when it comes to guilt and problem

solving.

It will also give you a good place to go

back to when you decide to finally solve

the problem — which brings us to…

Step 4: Take action…tomorrow.

That’s right. Once you write everything

down, I want you to step back and give

it some space.

Because we’re HUMANS — and as

humans we are naturally cognitive

misers and have limited willpower. Just

doing the five whys and investigating

your guilt takes a lot — so just pick it up

later when you’re fresh and ready to

take action. I suggest setting aside

some time in a day or two so you don’t

keep pushing it off.

Once you recognize and tackle these

barriers, it’s time to follow…

Fear of failure is a very real and

incredibly debilitating barrier holding a

lot of us back from winning.

For example:

We don’t apply for that job

because we’re sure there’s “no

way” we can get it.

We don’t talk to that cute girl or

guy because we think they’re “way

out of our league.”

We don’t take that course that

could potentially change our lives

because we think “what if it

doesn’t work for me?”

And I don’t blame anyone for it — I’ve

felt the very same fears myself before.

My good friend, James Altucher, the

author of Choose Yourself and a

successful entrepreneur, has failed

MANY times. A while back, he sat down

to talk to me about this for the video

below.

Pay attention to what James says at

0:40 — he mentions that even the most

successful people have fear…but unlike

most people they adopt specific

mindsets that help them avert that

fear.

If there’s one thing you should take

away from what James said, it’s this:

Fear of failure happens when you live in

the future rather than the present.

That’s why adopting a mindset of

themes helps fight that fear.

Rather than aiming to “earn a million

dollars,” you should set a theme in your

life like, “I want to add more value

everywhere I can.” Once you do that,

you stop fearing failure and start

embracing the moment.

To that end, we should then frame any

“failure” you do encounter as a source

of feedback and an avenue to succeed

the next time you try. Failure is NOT a

reason to give something up.

How to succeed in life: The

roadmap

Here at IWT, I’m not going to give you

hundreds of vague platitudes on how

you should “wake up early” or “never

quit.” Give me a break.

Instead, I’m going to lay out 3 proven

and actionable steps that’ll help you

adopt success mindsets today. This is

my best answer to the question, “How

can I be successful

Set a SMART goal

How often have you set a New Year’s

Resolution — and have it completely fail

by the end of the year?

Maybe you set a vague goal like, “I’m

going to get healthy this year!” And at

first, it’s exciting!

You buy a new gym membership, dig up

your old gym clothes, and start heading

to the gym every day. For a week too!

But then you miss a day. That’s fine,

you’ll just go tomorrow.

But then tomorrow comes along and you

realize that you actually have some

more work you’d like to get done.

By the end of the week you haven’t gone

at all and your gym shorts are just

collecting dust on your floor.

That’s because the problem with typical

goal setting is that the goals set are too

broad — and you have no idea where to

start. So when you set a goal like, “I

want to get healthy,” you end up

spinning your wheels.

That’s why I’m a big proponent of

SMART objectives.

SMART stands for specific, measurable,

attainable, relevant, and time-

oriented. And with each element in

SMART objectives, you’re going to want

to ask yourself a set of questions that’ll

help you develop a winning goal.

Specific. What will my goal

achieve? What is the precise

outcome I’m looking for?

Measurable. How will I know when

I’ve accomplished the goal? What

does success look like?

Attainable. Are there resources I

need to achieve the goal? What

are those resources? (eg gym

membership, bank account, new

clothes, etc)

Relevant. Why am I doing this?

Do I really WANT to do this? Is it

a priority in my life right now?

Time-oriented. What is the

deadline? Will I know in a few

weeks if I’m on the right track?

Knowing this, we’re going to want to

reframe that “I want to be healthy”

goal into something much mores specific

and actionable such as, “I want to eat 3

healthy meals per week and go to the

gym 2 times a week for 15 minutes.”

Do you see how much better the SMART

objective is than just vague goal

setting?

A few years ago, when I was feeling

overwhelmed. I was in the middle of

writing my book, building my business,

and was running around like a chicken

with its head cut off.

One of my friends asked me, “What’s

your number one goal?”

The question made me nervous so I

didn’t want to answer. I was afraid if I

said my single most important goal, I’d

be closing doors to all of my other goals

— which were many.

So I told him, “I want to be a bestseller,

but I also want to generate $X million in

revenue and I want to do this publicity

and blah blah blah —” He cut me off

and said, “Cut the BS. What’s your

number one goal?”

Again, I hedged. But he pushed me and

forced me to get crisp. I said, “I want

this book to be a New York

Times bestseller.”

There it was. We hate giving ourselves

constraints because it feels limiting. It

feels like we’re giving something up, and

that’s exactly what it felt like in that

moment.

However, it’s also freeing at the same

time. Once I actually said out loud that

I wanted to become a New York

Times bestselling author, it became

crystal clear what I needed to do in

order to achieve my goal. I focused all

of my attention on those things.

If you want to become successful — in

any area of your life — you have to have

that kind of focus.

Here’s an excerpt from an interview I

did with my longtime friend Noah

Kagan. He’s the one who called me out.

Noah is a master at helping people (and

himself) get laser-focused on their

goals. Pay special attention at 3:53

where he talks about the strategy that

he learned from Mark Zuckerberg that

has brought him success.