Welcome to the Stop Sabotaging Your Success podcast, episode four. I’m your host, Cindy Esliger. This is the podcast for focusing on what we can do today to take control of our careers and overcome the inevitable barriers to success that we encounter along the way. 

What’s standing in the way of achieving what you want? There may be many obstacles between where you are now and where you want to be, but rarely is the biggest obstacle what you think it is. 

In this episode, we’re going to explore what’s necessary for you to achieve extraordinary success. Most of what’s holding us back is fear. Some fears need to be dealt with head-on, but some fears need to be overcome by concentrating on what you really want, and feeling that fear and doing it anyway, which will eventually build your confidence in what you do.

The role of fear is to keep you safe, but it lowers your confidence levels and it keeps you trapped, stopping you from doing what you want to go after in your life. Being brave enough to notice that is the first step in overcoming it. 

If you fear big success, you’ll either avoid it or sabotage your efforts to achieve it. The words “big” and “achievement” tend to scare people and generate thoughts like it’s hard, it’s complicated, it’s time consuming, it’ll be difficult to get there, and it’s complex, which tends to make you feel overwhelmed and intimidated before you even start. 

And sometimes we fear that big success brings pressure and stress, robbing us of time with family and friends, and our health. And we’re uncertain that we have the right to achieve something big, thinking that we don’t deserve it somehow. And we’re fearful of what might happen if we try and fall short. 

So we doubt ourselves and we downsize our dreams, because that feels safer. And we end up staying where we are, because that feels easier. When we believe big is bad, we’d rather think small and then big never happens. 

None of us really knows our limits. When we apply boundaries to our lives, the lines aren’t so clear. Do you think thinking big is realistic? Your answer says more about how you see your limits, or what your limiting beliefs are. 

So why not go big? Why limit yourself? When you allow yourself to accept that big is about who you can become, you may start looking at it differently. 

Big is a placeholder for a leap of possibility. Believing in big frees you to ask different questions, follow different paths, and try new things. And it opens the door to possibilities that, up until now, may have only lived deep inside you. 

Thinking big is essential to achieving extraordinary results. And success requires action. Action requires thought, and generating the feelings needed to take that action. The only actions that become springboards to succeeding big are those informed by big thinking to begin with.

Everyone has the same amount of time and hard work is hard work, but what you do during the time you work determines what you will achieve. And what you do is determined by what you think and feel, and how big you think becomes the launching pad for how high you can achieve. So think as big as you possibly can and base what you do and how you do it on succeeding at that level. And then you won’t limit yourself. 

Asking big questions can be daunting. Big goals can seem unattainable at first. But when you set out to do something that seems like a real stretch at the time, you may discover that it’s much easier than you thought. Sometimes things are easier than we imagined, but sometimes they are a lot harder. And on the journey to achieving big goals, you will learn and you will grow. 

It’s our feelings and our self-concept that influence our actions. Thinking big is a big deal. Big stands for greatness and extraordinary results. So pursue a big life, the greatest life that you can possibly live. 

You have to be open to the possibility that your life can become great and doing the right things with no limits attached. So don’t fear big because if we do, we consciously or unconsciously work against it. We start adjusting our wants or simply running away from the big ones. 

So avoid incremental thinking that stops at what to do next. Ask bigger questions. Set a goal so far above what you want, that you’ll be building a plan that practically guarantees that original goal. 

And don’t choose from the available options. Imagine outcomes that no one has thought of. And act boldly, because thoughts require bold actions. And after you ask a question, imagine what life looks like with that answer. 

Don’t fear failure. Adopt a growth mindset, and don’t be afraid of where it can take you. Extraordinary results are built on failure. When we fail, we ask what we need to do to succeed. And we learn from our mistakes and we grow. So see failing as part of your learning process and keep striving to reach your potential. 

When I began my career, I assumed that everything mattered equally, but not all work has the same value. I was attempting to do too much at once and trying to cram it all in. I got frustrated and I started doubting that I had the discipline or the will to achieve success at all. And my life fell out of balance. I was trying to live up to something that wasn’t even possible. 

I was overthinking, over-planning and over-analyzing my career and my life. And my long hours were not productive or healthy. I felt like I was succeeding in spite of what I was doing, not because of it. I felt like I wasn’t managing my time well. 

But success isn’t in all the things that we do, but in a handful of things we do well. 

You must believe that you are where you are meant to be right now, doing exactly what you are meant to be doing, and then all the amazing possibilities for your life become possible. 

Bad habits can be hard to break. And the new better habits can be hard to create. And you can drive yourself nuts, analyzing every little aspect of what you’re doing, or could be doing. 

So start with the big stuff, and see where that takes you. You’ll develop your own sense of what really deserves your attention, your focus, and your energy. Then apply it to all areas of your life and try approaching each area by doing what matters most, and including a timeframe, like right now, this year, in five years, to give your answer to the appropriate level of urgency. 

For example, for this particular project, what’s the most important thing I can do to ensure I hit my goals this week? Your direction will become clear and your work will become more productive and your life will become more rewarding. 

So make it a habit. Fully engage its power to get the extraordinary results you want, and stick with it until it becomes your routine. Clarify what you want in the big areas of your life. And then drill down to what you have to do to get there. 

You don’t want to be wondering what success will look like. Identify what absolutely matters most, and start there. 

You may uncover three categories of tasks: those that are doable, those that stretch you, and those that challenge what is possible. The ones that are doable are already within the reach of your knowledge, your skills, and your experience. You already know how to do those. The ones that are a stretch are more challenging. They’re still within your reach, but they might be at the far end of your range. And you might have to do some work to come up with a solution. The ones that challenge what is possible are the hardest answers to come by. And you may have to extend yourself to find the solution, but they expand and enrich your life for the better. 

Realize that the results that you want require you to go outside of your comfort zone, where the path isn’t laid out for you. And you can start by looking to others to figure out what they may have done, but you can’t stop there. You have to search for clues and role models to point you in the right direction, and maybe read books to find out what others have learned. Then look for what might come next, the next thing that you can do, in the same direction that they were heading, or maybe in an entirely new direction. And then your answer will be original and specific to your project.

And you’ll probably have to reinvent yourself in some way to make it happen because new results require new behavior, which comes from new thinking. So think big and specific. Set the goals that you intend to achieve. Then move from saying, “I’d like to do that” to “How do I achieve that?”. Explore what’s possible and it may require a transformation. And anticipate where things are headed, based on what you’ve determined from what others have done.

Achieving extraordinary results requires unlocking the possibilities within you. There’s a simple formula for achieving extraordinary results. It’s linking your reason why, committing to making a priority, and then making it happen. 

Your reason why is the big picture thinking, then narrow your focus by making it your priority, and the actions you take to achieve it. Allow your why to be the guiding force in determining the priority that drives your actions. You will make more happen when what matters to you most is driving your action. 

Our lives are shaped by our choices. And the simple formula that we can follow will help us build an extraordinary life with extraordinary results by linking your reason why to what you prioritize, and the things that you need to do to make it happen. 

Your reason why is a combination of where you’re going and what’s important to you. Your priority is what you place the greatest importance on. And the results come from the actions that you take. 

By making it your priority, you’re committing to taking those actions that you need to make it happen. Who we are and where we want to go determines what we do and what we accomplish. And an intentional life is the most powerful of all. No matter what, most of what we do in life is ultimately meant to make us feel better. 

The biggest challenge is making sure we’re not continually searching for the next thing that will make us happy, because that’s a losing proposition. How circumstances affect us depends on how we interpret them, as they relate to our lives. 

Once we get what we want, our happiness wanes sooner or later. We quickly become accustomed to what we have and eventually that leaves us bored and seeking new challenges. We may not even stop and slow down to enjoy what we’ve achieved, because we’re onto the next thing. 

We’re happiest when we’re challenged, not when we’re comfortable. So you need that next challenge. It’s knowing what matters to you and then taking daily action in alignment with it, which brings clarity, which leads to more conviction in the direction of your dreams, which leads to faster decisions. 

But aiming high enough and living long enough, you’ll definitely encounter your share of difficulties. And knowing why you’re doing something provides that inspiration and motivation to give that extra effort needed to persevere when things get hard. You have to stick with something long enough for success to happen.

When what you do aligns with what matters most to you, your life feels better. So pick a direction, start on that path, and see how you like it. Time brings clarity. But if you find you don’t like it, you can always change your mind. 

Discover your big why by asking yourself what drives you. It’s why you’re excited. It’s why you’re doing what you’re doing. Then pick a direction. Pick something you’d like to accomplish, and then decide how you will do it. 

By knowing what matters most, you’ll know where you want to go, and trust that you’ll know what to do to get there. We have to always be doing something that will get you where you want to go, even just one thing a day. 

Goals and priorities work together. We have goals and plans to do what matters most in the present moment. Right now is all we have to work with. Our past is behind us and our future is still to come. So set your goals in the now and emphasize why you are creating the goal in the first place. The farther away a reward is in the future, the smaller the immediate motivation to achieve it, because we tend to mistakenly assume that the further away the goal is, the more time we have, and the less priority we give to it. And then we discount its value. 

So set your goals to the now. Set a future goal and methodically drill down to what you should be doing right now. Take your someday goal, to a five-year goal, to a this year goal, to this quarter, this month, this week, today, and finally, right now. 

You’re training your mind how to think, how to connect one goal with the next over time, and learning how to think big, but narrow your focus to what you can do right now. You can’t skip the steps and go right from the someday goal, to right now, that just doesn’t work. That moment is too far in the future for you to clearly see what you need to do next. You won’t see the results until you’ve added back in all those steps. That’s why most people never get close to their goals because they haven’t connected the vision to all the actions that it will take to get there.

So connect the dots. It matters. Visualize the process needed to achieve a desired outcome rather than simply visualizing the outcome. 

We tend to be overly optimistic about what we can accomplish, but we tend not to think things through all the way. So visualize the process, breaking down a big goal into the steps needed to achieve it. It helps engage the strategic thinking that’s needed to plan for and achieve extraordinary results.

When asking yourself, “What should I do?”, back up and ask yourself, “Where are you going?” and “Where do you want to be someday?”. When you’re able to come up with those answers, write them down because writing down your goals is important and it works. And once you know what to do, the only thing left is to go from knowing to doing. 

What is the one thing that you can do right now that will help you achieve what matters most to you? 

Begin by knowing your future goal and identify the steps you need to accomplish along the way, until you get to right now. Then put pen to paper because writing down your goals is important. And then keep them close. 

Productive action transforms lives. We’re always doing something. Even if we’re doing nothing, it’s still something. And what we do creates our results. So putting together a life of extraordinary results simply comes down to getting the most out of what you do, when what you do matters.

Getting more done helps you achieve better results. So on your calendar, block off all the time you need to accomplish the necessary thing you need to do today, to bring you closer to your goal. Then everything else must wait. Once you’ve done your one thing for the day, you can do more, but don’t quit until that one thing is done.

The key to making this work is to block time as early in your day as possible. Work on that necessary thing every day. And then don’t break the chain. There is magic in completing your most important task day after day. You may find that once you do the necessary thing, everything else you do will become easier. 

Create the mindset that until my necessary thing is done, everything else is a distraction. Your own need to do all the other things, instead of the necessary thing, may be your biggest challenge to overcome. There’s always other stuff that needs to be done. So when stuff pops into your head, write it down on a “later list”, and get back to what you’re supposed to be doing. Maybe do a brain dump and then put it out of sight, out of mind. 

It’s a myth that people who achieve extraordinary results achieved them by working more hours, because the truth is, they achieve them by getting more done in the hours that they work. 

Connect the dots. Extraordinary results become possible when where you want to go is completely aligned with what you do today. And tap in to your compelling reason why. Allow that clarity to dictate your priorities. Because when your priorities are clear, the only logical course of action is to do the work. And commit to doing one thing every day, and then don’t break the chain. Or maybe aim to never miss more than one day in a row, because we all know that life does happen.

And that’s it for this episode of Stop Sabotaging Your Success. Remember to download your Guide for Achieving Extraordinary Results at cindyesliger.com/podcast, episode four. 

Thank you to our producer, Alex Hochhausen and everyone at Astronomic Audio. Get in touch. I’m on Instagram @cindyesliger and my email address is info@cindyesliger.com. And if you liked the show, please tell a friend, subscribe, rate, and review. 

Until next week, I’m Cindy Esliger. Thank you for joining me.