How To Become A Professional Success

So far in this series you’ve learned:

  1. What the difference between personal and professional success is.
  2. Four new traits you can adopt to become more successful
  3. The five deadly sins you shouldn’t be doing

Which means now it’s time to, finally, learn just how you become a professional success. Which is a big reason you’re here, right?

Now in this article I’m going to show you how to become a success, regardless of your profession—because it’s nowhere near as hard as you might think. But you are going to need a few things before we start…

The ingredients for professional success

Before we get into turning you into a professional success, let’s look at what you’ll need before we get started.

1. Patience: There is no such thing as an overnight success. As Seth Godin once said, it happens “Gradually, then suddenly.” So be prepared for it to take time.
2. Confidence: You don’t need to have superstar levels of confidence. But you need to know that, whatever it is that you do, you’re brilliant at it.
3. Passion: Nobody else can drag you out of bed but yourself. So, make sure what you’re doing is something you want to do.
4. Work Ethic: You’ve got to be willing to work hard, and do whatever it takes to get to the finish line.

Got all four of those? You’re ready to move on.

Building your vision

The problem you probably have with success right now—that many of us, in fact, have—is that you have no idea what professional success means to you, do you?

It isn’t fancy cars, nice houses or a whopping great salary either. Instead, it has to be something more tangible. More focused, and more achievable. So what’s it going to be?

Ask yourself:

  • What does success look like? – Where are you going to be in one, three and five years time?Are you going to have your Boss’s job? Will you be working in another company? Will you be setting up your own business or freelancing?
  • Why is that important? – Why does it matter to you that you can take this next step in your career? Where does it take you, and what do you stand to gain?
  • Is it measurable? – How will you know when you’ve got there, or that you’re making progress?
  • Can you break it down? – Can you make it bite-sized, manageable and scale it back to fit where you are now?

There are really hard questions. And they shouldn’t be taken lightly, so write down everything that comes to mind for these points, and then come back to them with a fresh head.

You’ll appreciate them more in hindsight, and be able to cut out what shouldn’t be there too.

Professional success and the 10x method

In the last section I asked if you could break down what you’re doing and turn it into something smaller and more manageable. And here’s why…

Sales Guru, Grant Cardone, is a huge proponent of the 10x rule. Which is basically this: Whatever you want to do, it’s going to take 10 times the effort you think it will.

So the smaller you make the chunks, the more you can magnify what you need to do each day, week, or month.

Here’s my own personal example of this:

In February, I wanted to earn $3,500 from my Freelance Writing business. But I only had $1,700 guaranteed income. So I found one new website or agency every day and pitched to them, thinking that would be enough.

By the end of February, I had only managed $2,200.

So I decided, again, I wanted $3,500 in March. But this time I was going to write to 10 potential clients every day. The result? I had made $3500 by the end of the second week.

By taking my smaller, manageable chunk and magnifying it, I was able to meet my goal even sooner.

So think of how this can apply to you and your goals, because, well, it works.

Do less hard work, more smart work

Being busy doesn’t help you be successful. Being busy with work that matters does. And you don’t need to work your fingers to the bone to get to your version of success. But, what you do need to do, is do the right work that gets you there. What do I mean?

There is busy work that takes up every day:

  • Emails
  • Answering the phone
  • Paperwork
  • Filing
  • Organizing

And whilst this may be important in some ways; it’s not getting you closer to your goals, is it? Unless, that is, you want to get paid to send e-mails.

Instead it’s time to start identifying the work that matters:

  • Great customer service
  • The work your manager/boss/clients need
  • Prioritizing the work you need to do, over the work you’re asked to

This simple shift in thinking can have a huge impact on how quickly you achieve your success.

Help as many people as you can

You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again: it’s not who you know, it’s who you help. It’s all about making a difference in the world! And the more people you get to know, and the more problems for them that you solve, the more opportunities you’ll find yourself with.

Just be sure it doesn’t get in the way of that smart work we were just talking about.

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About the Author

James is addicted to being a true English Gentleman. Between moments of chivalry he runs his own Freelance Blogging company. You can hire him here

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