Early Acceleration of Success Leads to Continued Success
“A job begun is a job half done” — what a great quote, or proverb. I also like the one where it reads, “A job well begun is worth two half done.” What I am getting at here is that as I have studied successful people, one of the most common denominators is that they simply begin.
Procrastination is a killer of success, but taking the first steps toward any project, task, initiative or business is the killer of procrastination.
Before we dive into early acceleration of success, meeting with success, maintaining success and continued growth and success, let’s first look at a couple of examples from the world of selling or new hires. You see, new sales people, not just “new to sales” sale people, but any sales person moving from one company to another will be measured on their contributions and successes. The longer it takes for them to find and sell a customer, the more likely it is that they will be looking for success elsewhere.
Now the mistake here isn’t always on the new sales person, as a matter of fact, the mistake largely falls upon the company that hired them and who did not provide an adequate onboarding or training program to increase their chances of accelerated success. This is a shame because it costs a company so much money to recruit, interview and hire a sales person or any position within the company for that matter. Early accelerated success must be owned by both parties. Training, knowledge transfer and internal mentoring go a long way to ensuring a proper onboarding for any new hire increases the likelihood of success tremendously.
Another terrific quote is, “Success begets success.” And this is true. So if we can take step one, have a job that is begun and half done, we will meet with success. There is no doubt. And that level of success is up to us isn’t it? I mean we can place some of the responsibility of our success on our company, but if they do the proper training and coaching and onboarding, then the onus is upon us and our work ethic and behaviors. That is where we will meet with success.
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Now that we have had early and accelerated success, we have met with success, how do we maintain it? This is the easy one. We must simply do the behaviors that we did in order to achieve the level of success that we have achieved. Too often people who meet with success stop doing the very activities and behaviors that got them there in the first place. They change their attitude and work ethic and attempt to coast. And that is a recipe for disaster.
Lastly, how do we continue to grow once we have met with success and have established a solid and proven track record of success. This is where continuous improvement and learning comes in. Regardless of our age, we are never too young or too old to learn something new. And again, it’s as simple as taking that next step. Picking up the next book, going to the next seminar, subscribing to a podcast about the topic or activity you are trying to learn more about. Search out and find the right coach or mentor.
Success is a process, not an event. Success is a journey and not a final destination. Consistent with procrastination being a killer of success, time is also our friend and our enemy when it comes to success. Similar to procrastination, but different enough to call it out. Procrastination means we are intentionally putting something off, something we control. Time keeps on ticking, whether we want it to or not.
So how about you? I would love to hear your success story at GoToNorton@gmail.com and when we can remember that early and accelerated success can lead to long term and continued success, it really will be a better than good week.
Michael Norton is the president of the Zig Ziglar Corporate Training Solutions Team, a strategic consultant, business and personal coach and motivational speaker. He writes a weekly motivational column for the Vail Daily.
