March is officially halfway over. I hope it’s been fantastic for you and you’ve been able to put the Exceptional Success Tips (ESTs) to work to improve your life, leadership and habits. If you haven’t had a chance to read the previous #1 and #2 here they are for easy click-to-read!
EST #1 – Develop an Exceptional Mission Statement
EST #2 – Become an Exceptional Time Leader (of your life and schedule!)
I’ve received such wonderful feedback and love from friends, family, colleagues and new Exceptional people I have yet to meet. It’s a very humbling and awesome experience to see people benefiting from this work. I sincerely hope it’s helping you think a little different, perhaps tweak or improve a few things, and develop you into a more Exceptional human being.
Exceptional Success Tip #3 profoundly changed my life.
It’s essentially THE reason I am what I am (yam what I yam!) today and why I have what I have. I’m so excited to share it with you because (as I promised), we’re in this journey and we’re hitting our goals together.
In 2013, I set a personal goal to complete my first triathlon (someday in the near future) but here’s where I was physically…
20 (ish) lbs. overweight (yikes)
Hated Running…
And couldn’t even swim for the life of me…
I knew that if it were to EVER happen I needed to learn to swim. I had some background from swimming when I was little but it was YEARS before I actually swam a lap… but what I DID have was determination and a strong willingness to learn (thankfully) to try and figure out this swimming thing. So I picked up my gear (cheap stuff and hand-me-downs), found a pool nearby, and can distinctly remember while standing in the pool…“What am I doing…I have no idea how to get to the other side (25 meters or so), how to breathe or even complete a stroke!”
I gave it a shot anyway…
I pushed off, flopped to the other side and made it huffing and puffing….”wow THAT was hard!” and it was only Day Numero Uno…that triathlon goal seemed impossible then…
But I didn’t give up…
Little my little, day by day, I gradually and surely improved. I watched YouTube videos, asked my little brother (who swam in High School) how to breathe properly, and eventually went from only being able to do 25 meters (then be finished and wiped out), to over 1000m in about 45 days of learning. As with MOST sports or skills you can set out to accomplish, swimming is definitely not something you learn overnight…
I’m happy to share that thanks to awesome support team and embracing Exceptional Success Tip #3, I finally did complete my first triathlon in 2014!
Here’s a pic of me getting ready for the run portion in my first triathlon
Here’s Exceptional Success Tip #3.
Understand and Embrace the Law of Compounding Development
Everything worthwhile or substantial takes time, patience and a Compounding PROCESS to develop.
Everything has its own time. Most of us (me included) become impatient when it doesn’t happen soon enough. Understanding this EST means that YOUR development in ANYTHING – (a skill, habit, or a goal) requires a small amount of effort, compounded over a certain amount of time, to accomplish.
Compounding is an amazing word and resource if you study it and learn to embrace it. Not just with investments of money and wealth building, but also with your own personal development and habits.
Here’s some ways to maximize EST #3!
Know your limits. Successful goal planning and accomplishment means you must know what you’re capable of doing every day. If you hate reading a book (or studying), don’t set aside 2 hours to read every day…maybe start small, like 15 minutes or complete 1 chapter and gradually increase the time and effort…and perhaps you will begin to enjoy the book enough to finish it sooner…but it’s the starting small that counts.
Map it out. Just like setting a goal, map out and write down what you will do that day and week. Focus on a two week time frame…not the whole year. Instead of, “Run my heart out for 1 hour in the morning (if you’re not a runner)….you take a 30 min walk a day for a week….transition to 10 minute jog/run for two weeks and eventually into 15-30 minutes of comfortable running…but be patient with this. It’s profoundly simple but it is mind boggling to me how many people I’ve met that don’t understand this!
Love your process. The journey to accomplish something worthwhile IS going to be filled with frustration, a little heartbreak and some personal hurdles. Everyone has a certain TIMELINE of learning and you must know, learn, and LOVE your process. The moment you LOVE and EMBRACE your process, you’ll begin to feel better and let go of frustrations. Whatever it is for you, it’s just going to take awhile…and that is OK! That’s the beauty of learning and growing.
I hope this helped you see things a little better and provided you with an improved outlook to develop yourself or a goal, in small steps, over a certain length of time. If you’ve been working on something to improve or change, this is a great first step and methodology that is PROVEN to work. I know it does first hand, because like swimming – this Law helped me learn to speak clearly and phonetically over a period of 20 + years.
If you haven’t read my story you can read in more detail here.
Remember to love your process. Regardless of where you are in life, this Law will help you compound, improve and enhance yourself into a more Exceptional Human Being!
You deserve an Exceptional life.
Cheers,
Dominic