Personal Motivation and Resultant Success

[AKM]

I've been doing a lot of research lately into aspects of life that I have previously all but ignored.  One of the things I have found consistently has to do with the whys and hows of personal motivation.  When I look at people who I consider successful, and the actions they took to obtain that success, most of the requirements appear to be about how they obtained the personal motivation to go DO whatever it was they set out to do, rather than doing what most people do, and just sit around wishing and hoping.  Much of that action and resultant success comes from how they view the world differently from most people.

In this thread, I'm going to be posting various examples of processes to obtain success, as well as people who have obtained success and how they did it (that is, the processes in action).

There's no particular order of importance here, I just put down what I happened to run across most recently.

 

UNDERSTANDING FAILURE

The is hugely important.  When I look at how I was taught to look at failure versus how successful people look at failure, there's a massive difference.  The general thought, throughout traditional schooling, is to beat a kid over the head with failure.  Thus, eventually, they will learn to avoid failure at all costs, and, by extension, become successful.  This is flat out wrong.  When you look at people who have been successful, you find that they are failures.  Repeatedly.  They failed and failed and failed.  But the difference was, they never quit.  That's the key.  They learned from failure, and understood that the vast majority of failure is not catastrophic.

Elon Musk talking about failure, and why NOT allowing it is bad.  In short, if you don't allow failure in your organization, you will kill innovation, as people will be so afraid of failure that they will not try.  "Failure is essentially irrelevant, unless it is catastrophic." - Elon Musk:

19:27-21:00,

41:23-46:35
 

 

 

TRY

I once asked the most successful person I ever knew personally when it was that they started having success.  The answer: "When I started trying."

There's no greater show of how both the system as it is set up, and our personal underlying fear of the unknown (this coming from our 'lizard brain', the part of the brain that still thinks we're out on the African savanna, worries that the tall grass hides a lion, and makes sure that we take the clearer, more defined, but lesser resultant path that is safer.) hold us back.  Most of us can do most things.  It is the personal willpower to push through failure after failure and the learning process that is required before obtaining success that most of us lack.

When you talk to successful people, one of the thoughts that come up repeatedly is: "The more formal education someone has, the less likely they are to be successful."  In my observations, this is true.  My friend, for example, never completed high school.  Nor did she bother getting a GED (high school diploma equivalent).

Generally speaking, most of your problems in life are fake problems.  YOU getting in YOUR OWN way.
 

 

 

Study Your Past

 

One of the best ways to obtain success is to have some sort of measure of improvement.  If you do not have a specific measure of improvement, while you may, in fact, be improving, you simply can't see it.  If you can't see it, you can't see the reward for all your hard work and effort.  Without that, you might wind up quitting before reaching success, or, worse, right on the cusp of it.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DON'T BE AFRAID TO TAKE CALCULATED RISKS

 

The most recent video by CaptainHoers, where he states: "I feel like by now this exercise is a bit limited in how much it shows off what I've learned..."  This is the result of pushing himself beyond his usual self imposed limits:
 

 

 

 

 

 

IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES

 

This is one of innumerable quotes from one of the best books I've ever read:

The Mission, The Men, and Me by Pete Blabber

He talks about how, when you open your imagination to whatever, no matter how absurd it might sound, you tend to get results.  Not immediately, and certainly not without a lot of effort, but it goes back to the one before about fake problems, and how we tend to get in our own way by keeping ourselves within set boundaries of thought.

An example talks of how certain individuals saw boxcutters as weapons, whereas we, in the U.S., never imagined outside our confines of thought (the ones that we like to think make us "civilized"), and thus, simply could not imagine such a use for a boxcutter.

[AKM]

BELIEF IN SELF

This is another basic part of success.  You have to be able to think long term in order to push yourself through the failures.  You have to believe in yourself, and believe that the outcome you are working toward is possible.  Sure, there are times when you're just on the wrong track, and you'll have to be able to sort that out from simply being on the right track, but not experienced enough and/or simply recognizing that a gain is small, and that many small gains will, in the long run, add up to that huge goal that you have.

"The amount of time we spend believing we can't is more than enough time to learn how you can."

[AKM]

LONG TERM OVER SHORT TERM

"The reason most people fail, instead of succeed, is that they trade what they want most for what they want at the moment."

 

Attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte

This is quite true, and you see it in the need for instant success, rather than understanding the long term nature of success in general.  The need for effort to immediately equate reward, rather than viewing effort as "not a guarantee of success, nor of immediate success."

[donttouchmethere]

I'm listening...

Spoiler

 

?

[AKM]

THINK BEFORE YOU ACT - HAVE A PLAN, AND START EARLY
 

Most people who continue their education do so without a solid plan, and, almost worse, a solid understanding of what they're getting into. 
Case in point: My college room mate's wife went to school for a specific field.  Upon graduation with a four year degree, they were told that they could not legally work without a license given by the individual state.  This would require continued education.  Like most in her class, she was out of money, wouldn't or couldn't take out loans for the state licensing, and thus never did what she studied to do.  Thus, effectively, higher education was a massive waste of time and effort - the best years of her life.

Had she done the research, which she easily could have done herself, she would have known about the state licensing requirement.  Had she had a plan, she would have known "Oh, it's not possible for me.  Okay, on to Plan B."  The information was out there.  If she'd asked the right people, she would have gotten the information for herself, without wasting all that time.

 

 

HAVE A BACKUP PLAN, AND A BACKUP BACK UP PLAN, ETC.

 

But sometimes all you see is the goal.  I was there.  Got told by a doctor at 17: "Kid, don't try to make a career out of this.  You just don't have the physical requirements, and you're trying to get into one of the most heavily regulated sectors of the economy.  It might happen in the short run, but in the long run, your chances are almost zero of a full successful career in this field."  But I was 17, and had wanted since pre-school to do what I was at his office to get medical clearance to do.  So I listened politely - and promptly ignored him.  Well, guess what I learned?  When you have an old doctor, who's telling you something, you listen, because he's seen it before, many times.  Your situation is NOT unique.  Sometimes, no matter how badly you want something, there is someone in a position of power who will prevent you from having it.  Period, end of discussion, have a nice life.  No, it wasn't that man specifically, but rather the system and regulations that had been built up around that industry over the years.

He was right, of course.  I got through college, and ended up switching my major to something else.  The ONLY good decision I made in college was noticing that I was talking a LOT of courses of a particular nature, and looked at how many would be required for a minor in that subject.  Three.  So, I got a minor in that subject.  That was a backup plan.  Did it do me any good?  No.  But it was the right way of thinking.




UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM

 

Whatever that system is, you MUST understand it.  The background workings. How it works.  Don't just be a cog in the system.  Study it.  Figure out what's really going on and why.  True understanding of whatever system you're in is the only way you can position yourself well. 



 

 

 

DAILY HABITS DEFINE WHO YOU BECOME

Look at your life through a microscope.  Minutes, hours, and days WILL become months, years, and decades.  So do what the vast majority of the population does not: Sit down, THINK, and chart out your life - as soon as possible, and preferably while you're still young.

Want to take a particular course of action?  WHY?  Understand what that course of action is likely to get you.  Understand that doing something just because "That's what you're supposed to do, isn't it?" is WRONG!  Remember, it's your life.  No one, but YOU has your best interests in mind.  People WILL take advantage of you if you let them, and they'll smile at you while they're doing it, too.  You MUST understand that, understand the big picture, the whys and hows of how things work.

Understand the reality behind the statement '80% of success is just showing up' (some sources say 90%).  The vast majority of getting something done is just "sitting down" and doing it.  Getting started.  Once you're started, you're moving in a direction, rather than standing still.  Momentum begets momentum.

Another quote out of The Mission, The Men, and Me: "It takes action to make action."  You want results?  You must act to get those results.  Step one: Get out of bed.  Don't lie there for a half hour because it's nice and warm.  Get out of bed and get your day started.




 

READ

Whatever you're doing, it's been done before.  Maybe not in the way you're doing it, but someone, somewhere, has information you need.  Find that someone, and learn from them whatever it is that they have to teach you.

The Mission, The Men, and Me again: Always listen to "the guy on the ground".  [That person who has intimate knowledge of the thing you seek knowledge about.]  How to do this?  Two main resources: Books and the Internet. Most successful people understand the basics of the fact that there's information out there that will help them achieve their goals, all they have to do is seek out that information, learn it, then implement it into their own work.

2:07-2:30
 

If you want more, keep going beyond 2:30.  The whole video is worth watching in its entirety.

[Guest]

Ngl, I got to "try" & had to nope out. That presumes I have a level of mental health that I don't. Meds & therapy are great (well, actually they suck), but they don't let me be in control of my ability to try 100% of the time. If depressed brain tells me I'm not even going to have the motivation for a shower that day, I sure as shit don't have it to try much of anything.

[wokking56]

On 1/30/2022 at 12:45 PM, AKM said:

BELIEF IN SELF

This is another basic part of success.  You have to be able to think long term in order to push yourself through the failures.  You have to believe in yourself, and believe that the outcome you are working toward is possible.

 

So true, but sadly many people see a failure as the end of a project. Having the mind-set and fortitude to carry on however seems to be in short supply. Recently I have come across some great words to live by, that in retrospect I have always held true.

 

"There is no amount of expertise that will allow you to avoid failing."

"Failure is part of success, failure is part of learning, failure is essential in the process."

“Mistakes exist, so you can learn from them.”

"The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things."

"The problem isn't that things don’t work, but that things that don’t work the way YOU want them to."

[stingray1995]

If you actually believe in yourself, if you've found out the truth, you're going to make yourself more depressed.  Just change that “Believe in Yourself” to “Kid Yourself.”  At least have the decency to admit what it is, or are we not capable of seeing it?  That's a strong possibility.

[fishburger67]

3 hours ago, stingray1995 said:

If you actually believe in yourself, if you've found out the truth, you're going to make yourself more depressed.  Just change that “Believe in Yourself” to “Kid Yourself.”  At least have the decency to admit what it is, or are we not capable of seeing it?  That's a strong possibility.

True only for losers.

[AKM]

DON'T GIVE UP

 

In many areas of life, life has become ridiculously easy - and yet people today overwhelmingly give up when they don't achieve the all but instantaneous success society keeps insisting that they should get because, hey, they're entitled to it/deserve it!  Yes, I blame much of it on the constant message from the system, designed to make people not think/act for themselves.  But the internet has changed that, because now you get to see that no, it's not just you, there are a lot of other people like you.  You just have to read the information correctly, see that others did indeed get there, and if they did, in all likelihood you can too - IF you put in the work.

In reality most of it is based on the idea behind "Just exactly how badly do you want this (whatever it is you're trying and about to give up on)?

Examples of how hard life used to be would come from pictures from the early days of photography, where you see a middle aged looking couple, only to realize that, no, according to the information available, these people were in their mid 20's, not mid 40's or 50's.  Life was a LOT harder back then.
 

[AKM]

4 hours ago, stingray1995 said:

If you actually believe in yourself, if you've found out the truth, you're going to make yourself more depressed.  Just change that “Believe in Yourself” to “Kid Yourself.”  At least have the decency to admit what it is, or are we not capable of seeing it?  That's a strong possibility.

See the point I just posted.  Nothing personal, but it sounds to me like you just don't want to put in the work.  I know how that feels.  Been there, done that.  Got tired of it.  Decided I was tired of the same old boring stuff day after day, so I started pushing myself to make a specific change.  That was a year and a half ago, and I keep making mistakes, learning from them, and pushing forward.  I've seen my measure of success almost half in the process (no, not double, but go down by half!), but I refuse to give up.  Just today I learned yet another 'something new' that I'll add to my stack of 'Things I Have Learned'.  Eventually, this WILL work... or I'll reach zero on my scale and then have to quit.  Not because I chose to, but because I'll be out of allotted resources with which to continue that particular endevour.  And no, that doesn't mean all of my resources, just the ones specifically set aside for that project.  That's a big factor, too.  You can't pin all your hopes on one thing.  Yes, it could fail (and in all likelihood will), but see the above topic on failure, and understand that you never put "all your eggs in one basket".  Remember what Musk said: "Failure is essentially irrelevant, unless it is catastrophic."  You're going to have failure after failure after failure.  So keep failing until you figure it out, or until you find something that does work for you.  But to give up?  Giving up is a cop-out most of the time, and it will get you nowhere in life.  Again, I know this from personal experience, as that's what I did when I was younger.

[Guest]

[AKM]

9 hours ago, Wolfstorm321 said:

The problem is, when you start researching, digging, and really attempting to understand money, what it is, and how it works, you quickly realize that it's all fake.  Why is it fake?  The "money" is not backed by anything tangible of actual, real, value.  The only reason it has value is because we say it does, not because we can redeem it to the government (the entety that issues said money) in exchange for something of actual value.

Only a little digging tells us this: If THEY can print as much as they want, whenever they want, with nothing backing up the paper it's printed on, but WE have to work for those pieces of paper (our money), what it means is that, as they run the printers, the money we earned in exchange for the prior work we did is losing value, because there are more dollars, for example, in the system than there were when we were given dollars in exchange for our work.  This is why holding cash, beyond a minimum amount (an 'emergency fund') is a very bad idea.

It's also why you need to educate yourself.  There will be winners and losers, and it's only going to get worse.

Of course, a major problem with the kid's attitude is that, okay, he "earned" fake money, but suppose that whole system goes down.  What real skill does he have to trade/barter with when the system his "fake" money is on goes down permanently.  If you don't have it physically, you don't have it, period.  'It' being something physical of value to someone else.  One of the best stores of that value is, of course, a skill that someone else needs, and is willing to trade for something you need.  Investing in yourself is almost never a bad thing.

[AKM]

LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES - AND THE MISTAKES OF OTHERS

 

This was something I was told back in college, but didn't understand at the time; at least not as I do now.  The statement from someone else was: 'Every time I do this, I learn something.'

I discovered that today (again).  Found myself turning a major success into a considerably lesser success simply by not doing what I said I'd do.  'If X happens, then I'll do Y.' - and then I didn't.  So I learned one more thing not to do, and/or to do, and added it to my list of rules for when I'm doing this.  Like many things, you are your own worst enemy; and best friend.  It's all in how you choose to interpret the world around you. 

But you also have to learn from the mistakes of others.  Remember, you'll never live long enough to make all the mistakes yourself.

[Guest]

18 hours ago, AKM said:

The problem is, when you start researching, digging, and really attempting to understand money, what it is, and how it works, you quickly realize that it's all fake.  Why is it fake?  The "money" is not backed by anything tangible of actual, real, value.  The only reason it has value is because we say it does, not because we can redeem it to the government (the entety that issues said money) in exchange for something of actual value.

 

 

Actually the picture is a invitation to reflection: what is success? 

Is success always dependable on what others think? If I make something myself, and I'm satisfied with the results, and extract some happiness from it, would I not call it successful? If others don't like it, and I don't want to extract money or fame from it, would this affect its success? 

The same can be said about money. I've made money from crypto, but this is not show to the people. So people think I'm poor. I was successful, but not on their eyes. If it is fake or not does not matter here, what matters is what money can buy. 

The work of others is also affected by this measurement. We can say that Motörhead was successful due to their fame, but you can extract the same entertainment from their songs and from a underground band. So both were successful, technically speaking. Moods might be different, but they reached their purpose. 

You see, success is defined by purpose. What others think is only relevant if your purpose includes money or fame. Otherwise the success will be there if you are satisfied with the results. 

[KoolHndLuke]

Didn't read all of this for sure, but... a lot of success for ppl comes from being in the right place at the right time and having the means to do something with opportunity if/when it arises. Also, a lot about being successful is surrounding yourself with like-minded/supportive ppl. i.e. success breeds success. And.... opportunity can be a mixed bag depending on a lot of factors. One is that it's just as likely to be a bad (possibly disastrous) venture and another is weighing morals as to how far you'll go to achieve something. Let's not forget also that where you spot opportunity, chances are good that someone else did too and is racing you to it. Anyway, interesting topic I think.

 

One more important thing to note here is that we're working from the assumption that ppl have the freedom to achieve their full potential in the first place. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth for many of us. You do what you're told... or work within a framework that's constrictive.

 

 

[AKM]

Haven't watched this entire video yet, but here's another well known personality talking about the requirements, and why so many people don't take their own path in life.  at 5:45, he brings up the requirement to fail, and to understand what that failure actually means, rather than what society tells young people that it means.

8:00, "Get moving, take action, get movement", same idea from The Mission, The Men, and Me: "It takes action to make action."

 

Right after that, he talks about when he was 24, and the impermanence of life hit him.  This crap is temporary, so you gotta get going!  You gotta figure out your path to get you where you want to go in life, and you MUST get started, as soon as possible.  If you don't, you're going to find yourself on the back side of life, wondering what the hell happened; where all the time went.

So many people, myself included, waste their lives doing something they can do, sure, and maybe they enjoy it, okay, but just so far below full capability that it's mind boggling.

 

13:27 "Do what you wanna do with your life.  Don't be doing something you don't enjoy.  What is it that you really want to do?  Because if someone else is doing it, you can do it."  That's one of my favorite statements, that another guy I watch has stated repeatedly in his videos.  "If you're having trouble sticking with this, understand that there are thousands, millions, of people out there successfully doing this.  If they can, you can, too.  It's possible, I see it from people every day."

 

20:40 It's about how you define you.  So don't define yourself by your negatives of the past.  That's the past.  You can't change that.  What you can do, is change the future, starting today, in the present, because that's all we have.  The past to learn from, the present to take action, and the future to plan out the timeline for the results of today's action.

 

Life gets better as you learn from your past mistakes, and stop repeating those mistakes.

 

Do difficult things.

 

Don't put up barriers, artificial ceilings.  If something's in the way, you rethink, and find a way around it.

 

 

 

[AKM]

Some things (most things) take time.  You won't have success overnight.  There's a time period, often quite long, when starting out where you seem to be putting effort in continuously for no observable result.  This is normal, but it's also one of the primary reasons why people don't get started, and if they do, why they give up so quickly.

 

[AKM]

The man's name is Andrew Tate.  Super successful on multiple fronts, there are some things I like, and some I don't.  He says what many say; some variation on "Make yourself the best version of YOU you can be.  Always be improving."