The 4 Steps of Traditional Success Programs and Why They Don’t Work

I’m about to save you a ton of money, years of your life, and lots of frustration. How? By giving you the 4 steps of “how-to succeed”. They are: 1. Set your goals (Know what you want)rn2. Do something (Take action toward your goals)rn3. Evaluate (Am I getting closer to my goals or not?)rn4. Try again (Adjust your approach until you reach your goals) If you’ve ever experienced a self-help book, speech, or seminar, you’ve probably heard those same four steps over and over, packaged in different ways. And it sounds great, doesn’t it? You knew this already, didn’t you? So you have everything you want, right? (sound of crickets chirping) What was that? You don’t have everything you want? Well, what’s wrong with you? Oh. You must not be motivated enough. rnOr you just don’t work hard enough.rnOr you’re not intelligent enough. rnOr maybe you’re just incapable of succeeding. Wait a minute! Are you kidding me?! Delete those sentences. After all, we can’t ALL be that stupid. The 4 Steps of The Real World Just like traditional success programs have given us the same 4 steps, there are also 4 steps in the real world — that would be like, uh, planet Earth. Here are the 4 basic steps I have observed about the real world (see if you’ve found these to be true, too): 1. The Fog (We don’t know what we really want)rn2. Treadmilling (We’re really really busy, but getting nowhere)rn3. Feel Like a Failure (We compare ourselves to everyone else and come up short)rn4. Try again (We keep trying and hoping things will be different) In the first step, we don’t really know what we want… or we don’t know what we really want… or we don’t believe we can HAVE what we really want…or we fear, “What will so-and-so say if I actually GET what I really want?”…or we think, “I don’t think I’ll ever get what I really want”… or “What if I get what I really want and then I’m still not happy?” … or…rnGet it? We have a FOG. In the second step, we are Treadmilling. Ever been on a treadmill? You’re working really, really hard and getting… nowhere! Look at my to-do list! I’m busy busy busy… but this view sure looks the same! rnAnd sometimes that treadmill is going uphill — Whew! I’m working working working, busy busy busy! But things STILL haven’t changed. Treadmilling. Are you with me here? Now we get to the critical third step, Feel Like a Failure. Now, watch this. There is an amazing parallel between what they’ve been teaching us in traditional success programs, and what we find in the real world. - In traditional success programs, they said to set your goals. Well, we don’t really know what we want, so we’ve got a Fog. - Then they told us to do something. Well, we’re really really busy, aren’t we? So we’re Treadmilling. - Then they told us to evaluate our progress. Well, what’s our subconscious evaluation of our own progress? You got it — we feel like a failure. We feel like everyone else is doing better than we are. We wonder why we’ve spent all that time, money and energy on all these self-help programs… and we’re still stuck. We look at all the exercise equipment, money-making schemes, diet pills, relationship advice, all the self-help products and programs we’ve invested in —then look at where we are in life and how we feel stuck — and inside, we feel like a failure. Boy, did I spend years of my life in this step. I don’t want you to spend one more minute there. And yet, even with all that – all the years of frustration and tens of thousands of dollars we’ve spent (with not much to show for it)… even with all that, we still do step four, and Try again. You see, you ARE motivated. You DO want to succeed. You HAVE kept trying, even though you may have “failed” in the past. You really deserve a medal for continuing to press on, even in the face of not getting the results you’ve wanted… even though you’ve never been given the right tool to do the job!