This is also a long-winded way of saying “be patient. " You’re not going to be the next Paul McCartney or Bill Gates overnight. Even they weren’t! You’re going to spend 1,000 hours being pretty terrible, the next 3,000 hours being okay, the next 4,000 hours being pretty good, and the last 1,999 being super until you finally get so amazing you can barely fathom your own superiority. Then you know – so no need to time yourself.
The next time someone offers you an opportunity and you’re not sure whether to take it, don’t listen to yourself and just do it. It doesn’t matter if you’re ill-prepared or unsure or doubtful of your abilities. Do it anyway. Turn that voice off; it’s doing you more harm than good. Get your hands on whatever you can. Do you want to be an astronaut? Don’t just read a book. Go to your nearest planetarium and stay until they ask you to leave and then do that every day until they know you by name and offer to show you around the back. Suck up to your professor until he breaks out the special telescope just for you. Just take action. Go.
There may come a time when instead of doing a sport, you pick up a part-time job. There will be weekends you need to spend in the library. There will be times when you can’t go out with the hot guy or girl even when it’s the only night they’re in town. These things have to happen in order for you to be as good as you can possibly be. You have to think of it as you ultimately doing yourself a favor. Your future self, sure, but still yourself.
The only way to avoid criticism and failure is to do nothing. Making a target of yourself means you’re doing something. You’re living. Thus, failing is good. It is natural and it is right. If nothing else, it’s strategizing and narrowing things down. When you have 10 possibilities and you know 9 of them don’t work, guess what?
While it’s important to analyze your successes (how can you recreate them?), it’s doubly important to analyze your failures. This can get frustrating and demotivating to an extreme, but it must be done. Don’t let it set you back! Remember: even a failure is progress. Being the best is about fine-tuning your skills.
No one has ever gotten to where they are without help from other people. Not only will you avoid doing things that have already been done, but they can tell you ways they’ve tried that haven’t worked, too. When you put your heads together, you automatically cut the work into parts. Being the best isn’t about being the best all alone – it’s about being the best with what (and who) you have to work with.
If you’re doing what you love, you’ll be happy. You’ll know you’re on the right track. If you keep on learning and challenging yourself, you’ll know you’re making progress. With time and effort, you’ll keep getting better and better. Setbacks happen, failures can wreak havoc, but at the end of the day you’ll still be pretty damn good. Once you hit 10,000 hours it doesn’t mean you can stop! Did Steve Jobs stop when he made the iPod nano? NO. HE DIDN’T. If anything, your best work will come after the 10,000 hour mark. Don’t you wanna see what you’re capable of?
When it comes to most things, there will always be someone who is better than you. By the time you become better than them, there will be someone else in the picture. And if you are better than them at something, there’s something else where they take the cake. Remember this. It’s how you treat those below you that determines your character, not your equals.
Know that you are not your brand or what people think of you. This has nothing to do with anything. You will not be happy if you create an image that caters to the world around you and not to you. If you became the best lyrical soprano this side of Vienna, would that really matter if you truly wanted to the next John Lennon? No. So cater to no one. Find yourself and work with it.
To be the best, you can’t reinvent the wheel. You can’t copy others. You have to do new, innovative things. You have to study biology when you want to become a computer scientist. You have to be yourself to avoid being someone else. Crystal clear?
If positive thinking doesn’t come naturally to you, make it a point to do it. Wake up in the morning, take a look in the mirror and say out loud, “I’m awesome. Today is going to be great and I’ll get closer and closer to my goals. " And when the negative thoughts start creeping up, squash ’em. You pick your thoughts, you know.
So much about succeeding in the real world is about actually wanting it. Remember all the times you turned in a crappy project to your English teacher and got an A because the rest of the class’ works were even worse? You got complacent and stopped caring. You lost your excitement. Heads up: Life ain’t like that. You gotta stay excited to turn in those papers that are actually worth the A. The real world is full of valedictorians and go-getters that are turning in A papers, too. It’ll be a lot easier to keep up if you’re chomping at the bit.
So the next time you’re sitting with your team and you’re devising a project on say, how to get Lindsay Lohan to star in your next documentary for film school, don’t laugh off Yoon’s comment on tunneling into her swimming pool via her old babysitter’s uncle’s backyard. Remember when people thought Galileo was crazy, too?
If you’re not comfortable with competitions, contests, and races, sour news for you: that’s gonna have to change. And the only way to do that is to immerse yourself full in. Once you get a handful of who’s-the-best contests under your belt, they’ll phase you less and less. And after a dozen, it’ll feel like breathing. Don’t go overboard. If you’re the friend that turns everything into a competition, you’ll soon find yourself friendless. Keep the contests to the skills that you’re actually trying to master – not life in general.
Remember to be realistic. Don’t aim to climb Mt. Everest if you don’t have legs. While your mom was sort of right when she said, “You can be anything you put your mind to,” she was sugar-coating it a bit for you. If you’re capable of it, it can happen. Just remember that.
When Bobby Fischer was 3, he didn’t pick up an advanced chess book and start taking notes. He was handed a chess set and shown how to play. He worked with competitors to improve his game. He worked with friends to devise strategy. He studied under chess greats. Two heads are better than one, remember?
Henry Ford had two failed companies before he succeeded. [7] X Research source Steve Jobs had a lot of things under his belt before he truly hit success. There will be trials and tribulations; there will be failures; there will be times when you’re unsure. You gotta go through with it anyway.
This “being the best” thing just is. It’s not an idea, it’s a not a goal, it just is. You just are. You are doing it. Done and done. Accept it. You’ve decided. Now it’s only a matter of time.
Once you have your six, pick one. Do it today. Let’s say you want to be a famous actress. Your six things are taking an acting class, contacting an old friend of yours who did it, contacting your local theatre/acting agency, making a budget to save money for moving, planning a new workout routine, and scouring Craigslist and other postings in your area. How easy is it to do one of those things? Once you’ve done one, replace it. Always have six things on your list.
It’s hard to be the best when we don’t feel the best. So shower, do your hair, throw on some clothes that say, “Here I am, world!” and get started being fantastic. Exercise, eat right, and get some sleep.
