15 Ways To Ensure You’ll Be Insanely Successful In The Future

Forget the past

By

A woman faces a body of water, arms outstretched, at sunset
Tessa Rampersad / Unsplash

1. Forget the past

Why don’t you already have the success that you desire, you may be tempted to ask yourself at times. You want to analyze your past mistakes over and over until you find the one missing key as to why you feel so stuck. You can blame your parents, your ex or your job, but the honest to God reason why you haven’t’ made it, is your own lack of effort. Point blank period. Though the truth may hurt, don’t wallow in it for too long as it will only be a distraction. Did I mention daydreaming is a waste of time? Instead you should be doing #2.

2. Work Harder than You’ve Ever Worked Before

What exactly does it mean to work hard? It means that whatever your craft is, you do it. Every. Single. Day. That means when you’re tired, when you’re sad, when you’re broke. You do it and it may be terrible at it, but you do it anyway. Want to take a nap? Sure, go ahead. But when you get up, you work and you keep working your plan until your life looks how you’ve dreamed. When it gets tough and you just want to quit, remember what your motivations are. Maybe your parents are getting older or you just had a baby, or maybe you want to make everyone at your high school reunion jealous; whatever your incentives are, keep them at the forefront of your mind.

3. Be a Rich Extrovert or a Poor Introvert

Ever since Susan Cain taught us that being quiet is cool, it’s almost become an excuse to avoid social interactions. Instead we hide behind our computers liking and linking up, but when it comes to meeting people in the real world we freeze. Forget all of the bullsh*t, if you want to be insanely successful then you need to get along with people, even if you have to fake it till’ you make it. You are going to need to smile at strangers, ask them about their lives and care about their projects. You’re going to have to go to seminars and networking events, launch parties, and coffee meetups. You’re going to have to host your own pop-up shops, give speeches, sit on panels, volunteer your time and kiss babies. Pretend that everyone on this planet is your best friend and eventually your bank account will prove you right.

4. Live Below Your Means

And when I say work harder, I don’t necessarily mean at that job you hate. Yes, you are an adult now and you must pay rent, but you have a choice about how much that is. You must eat but you don’t have to have take out every weeknight, party all weekend and have brunch on Sundays. You don’t need to drive a Mercedes or live in Buckhead. If you aren’t living the life you’ve want, one main reason will be your attachment to a source of income that you aren’t passionate about, barely covers your expenses and takes away valuable time for you to work on your craft.

5. Be extremely kind and give back

During the time before your come up, life is going to stink and being in a bad mood will come naturally. You will be so full of yourself and your own problems that you won’t be too interested in anything else. This will turn you into a total asshole who no one will want to be around or support them to reach their goals. Which is exactly why you must be intentional about giving a damn about someone or something other than yourself. Make donations, help the homeless, wash the dishes, babysit your sister’s kids. Help others without expectations and Karma will come back to reward you generously.

6. Do the Drugs

The road to success won’t be easy and everyone has their own unique way of coping with the constant demands of their time and energy. Whether it’s coffee, music, or sex, all of us has our favorite stress reliever that rejuvenates the energy we need to take on the day. With all the mental strain you will be subjecting yourself to, don’t ignore your need to relax.

7. Turn it off

As I have mentioned before, success requires consistent effort and hard work which will require you to make sacrifices. Consumption is the enemy of creation and to produce insane amounts of content, you need to focus. This is not an option and will ultimately be the reason why our generation fails to get their engine started. We have so many distractions in the form of FWB’s, Facebook, Spotify, Netflix etc. To get shit done you will have to learn to quiet the machine and get over your obsession with technology. So how do you do it? The same way you form a habit is the same way that you kick it; with baby steps.

8. Have a life, not an obsession

On your road to success your time will be split in two places. One being completely submerged in reaching your goals where no one and nothing else matters. Alternatively, there will be times where you allow yourself to become completely unfocused and will seek out things to distract you. The tricky part is finding the balance between the two. One way to do this is to always include space in your schedule for the less productive time. Watch a movie after working, hang out with friends every Wednesday. All work and no play doesn’t just make you dull, it will eventually drive you insane. On the other hand, always being the life of the party without any purpose will become costly and when you look up and years will have passed by and you’ll have nothing to show for it.

9. Stick to a routine and take care of obligations

Curating your routine in the most efficient ways possible are very important key to success. Personally, I categorize my life into three parts; my health, my wealth and my relationships. Everyday I try to invest time into each of these things so that I am balanced. On the road to success there will be times where your wealth is the only thing that you can focus on, but I guarantee you that if you aren’t taking care of things like your children, your pets or your home, it will come back to bit you in the ass.

10. Quantity over quality

You won’t be able to predict exactly when or how your come-up will occur. Nor will you be able to pinpoint which blog will go viral, which song will hit the charts, or which painting Beyoncé will like of yours on Instagram. Instead of being anxious you must constantly be creating and promoting your work until something pops off. To do this and see actual results, you must always do your best but leave behind your idea of perfection. Whatever level you are on if you continue to get feedback you will get better until your moment arrives.

11. Be Yourself

You are attempting to find your tribe and the only way to do that is to be your authentic self. If people don’t like you for being you, then screw them, they aren’t your people. But the people who love you just the way you are will bring you constant joy, support and eventually money.

12. Don’t Quit Your Day Job

You will need consistent income prior to completely

13. Set goals

Get a sheet of paper, open an excel sheet or put sticky notes around your desk, whatever you do put down some concrete things you want to accomplish in the long term, then how you will accomplish them and from that list you have you weekly routines. Concentrate on com one at a time and eventually you will have made major leeway in the direction of your dreams.

14. Sleep

I don’t care what Donald Trump says, good night’s sleep is very important. I completely understand being excited about your next move or meeting but you are still an organic being that needs to recharge. Sleep heals your body, helps organize your thoughts and

15. Exercise

Exercising is like putting a magic success spell on yourself. It makes you feel good by giving you energy, helping with the creative process, building resistance and teaching you to be consistent. All crucial for creating achievement.

Bonus 16

Listen up, trying to change yourself and your future is incredibly difficult. So difficult in fact that most people give up before they do it. Instead they convince themselves that it would be too much trouble and that their jobs their husbands or bodies isn’t really that bad, and so they give up. I promise you that if you keep the faith and don’t quit, your life will be greater than anything you could have ever imagined. TC mark