Imagine yourself driving a car. You press the acceleration and the car starts to move. But you found that the car is not moving at its full power like normal. Only then you realize you forgot to let go of the handbrake. At this point, what do you do if you want your car to go faster?
Do you press the accelerator more? Or do you simply let go of the handbrake so that your car can go smoother and faster?
The answer is obvious, yet, most people don’t do that in life. They choose to press the accelerator more instead of letting go of what is stopping them from moving forward faster.
If you want to scale up your success and achieve greater results in both life and work, you must give up things that are preventing you from moving at a faster speed.
Here are the 10 things you should give up in order to go faster and scale up your success to the next level:
1. Give up the short-term thinking mindset
When it comes to achieving great success in life, most people only think short-term. Instead of projecting their lives far into the future, they choose to focus on the short-term and only look at things that are right in front of them.
Never let this happen to you. Successful people understand that if they want to achieve outstanding results in life, they need to think long-term and not short-term.
As what Bill Gates famously said:
“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”
Hence, don’t just think about setting goals for just a few short months or years, have a long-term vision so that you understand the kind of life and direction you want to go.
A very good example is about blogging. Many bloggers started a blog because they wanted to make quick money. They build a blog and think that they earn some quick bucks from advertisements from their blogs.
When you think about it this way, you will never be successful. Think about it, after putting in the hard work for 3 months and you don’t see any significant traffic to your blog and you don’t make much money, how do you feel?
Not good, right? And whenever you discover a “better” opportunity, you will jump at it and say that blogging doesn’t work, which is not true.
So, learn to focus on long-term success and not short-term gain.
Read: How to Think Long-Term: 7 Tips to Foster Your Long-Term Thinking
2. Give up the “shiny object syndrome”
The next thing you need to give up on is the shiny object syndrome, which means that you are always looking for the ‘magic button’ to success.
There are no shortcuts to success. Overnight success is a myth.
If your goal is to achieve financial stability and someone shares with you an opportunity where you can make a ton of money almost overnight, don’t buy into it.
We all know that there is no such thing as an overnight success, yet, many people fall into the trap because they want to see quick results without taking much action.
Therefore, give up the “shortcut” thinking.
Many people started projects after projects, businesses after businesses, but they are still yet to discover the “one thing” that can stick.
You just need to understand that there is no such thing as an overnight success. And remember that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. Your grass can be green too if you are willing to work on it.
So, stop looking for ‘secrets’ or ‘shortcuts’, instead, choose to work on the opportunity that you are now given. Work hard and build the success you want.
3. Give up on worrying about how others think of you
Do you always worry about how others think about you? Do you always care about how people will say or look at you? If your answer is yes, then you will never be successful.
The reason is simple – if you constantly worry about how others think of you, you will never take action on your own thoughts.
Someone who always thinks about how others look at them will live a peaceful life because they are constantly worried about others.
Ignore how others look at you because most people will never care about how you think.
I learned a very powerful rule from Jack Canfield. He called it the 18/40/60 Rule:
“When you’re 18, you worry about what everybody is thinking of you; when you’re 40, you don’t give a darn what anybody thinks of you; when you’re 60, you realize nobody’s been thinking about you at all.”
So, don’t worry about how others think about you, just be yourself and do what you’re supposed to do.
4. Give up playing small
If you want to scale up your success in life, you must quit playing small. What is stopping you from achieving more? Why do you set small goals that don’t inspire you?
Stop playing small and start imagining all the possibilities you can achieve in this life.
Envision yourself shooting an arrow at a target that is 100m away. Do you aim straight at the bull’s eye? Or do you aim higher?
This is common sense. We aim higher than the target so that we can hit the target. The arrow flies in the projectile and if you aim straight, the arrow will hit lower.
The same principle applies to life. When it comes to your thinking, you need to think bigger. When you set goals, set higher goals.
Do you want to learn how to set big and empowering goals that will inspire you to take massive and consistent action? Follow my Goal Setting Formula system.
5. Give up living the soft life
Stop living in your comfort zone if you want to achieve greater success in your life. No matter what you do in life, if you want to grow, you must give up living the soft life and start challenging yourself to do the uncomfortable.
Successful people understand that if they want to produce greater results, they must do something different. If they continue to do what they have always done, they will get the same old results as they always did.
Hence, venture out of your comfort zone and start challenging yourself.
It is comfortable to do what you always did. And it is scary to go beyond your comfort zone and do something that is out of your norm. But that’s the only way you can grow.
The more you challenge yourself to do the uncomfortable, the more you can grow. And the more you grow yourself, the better success you can achieve.
Read: 15 Ways How to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone and Live Great
6. Give up your excuses
Do you always make excuses? When you try something and you fail, do you blame others or make excuses and don’t take responsibility for it?
You see, you are where you are now in life because of what you did, not others. Hence, if you want to make a change, you must take full responsibility for your life.
The moment your blame and make excuses, you can never grow. Well, because you are not the one who’s responsible, hence, there’s nothing you can about the situation.
Think about it, if you say your partner is the one who screws up your business, you are not taking responsibility. You are putting the responsibility on your partner. So what can you do then? Nothing.
However, if you take the responsibility and say that it is your fault because you didn’t choose the right partner or you didn’t keep an eye on your partner, guess what, you can do better in future.
When you take responsibility for everything that happened to you, you are in control. And when you are in control, you can make a positive change.
If you want to learn how to take full responsibility for your life, I strongly suggest you read this book from Jack Canfield – The Success Principles.
7. Give up the toxic people
If you want to go further, faster, and higher in life, you must not let others stop you. You must let go and give up the toxic people who are going badly influence you.
As what Jim Rohn said, “you are the average of the five people you mix with”. You become who you spend the most time with.
Therefore, you must choose to mix with the right people. Stop spending time with people who pull you down, people who complain and blame a lot.
When you play sports with people who are better than you, you will play full out and improve your skills because you want to win.
But when you play with people who are not as good as you, you will never go full out because you can win them easily. The more you play with them, the more you will become at their level.
This is why professional athletes seldom play with rookies. They only train and play with the best.
Thus, if you want to go to a higher level in life and success, first, get rid of the toxic people who will drag you down. Second, go and mix with people who are doing much better than you.
When you spend time with people who are much more successful than you, you will force yourself to step up and become better.
8. Give up wasting too much time on social media
Another thing that you must give up to achieving more success in life, is to NOT waste time, especially on social media.
According to this article, people spend an average of 144 minutes per day on social media. Think about it, most people spend about 2 hours on social media each day! Don’t you think this is too much?
What if you can use half of the time you spend on social media to build up an online business like your blog? What if you can use an hour each day to read books and develop a skill?
Do you know how impactful this can be after a year?
Therefore, stop spending too much time on social media. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m saying that you can’t spend time on social media, but you need to be moderate.
Do not overspend your time on unnecessary things that will eat up your life. Instead, be moderate and use your time wisely to create the life that you want to live.
“If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”
– Bruce Lee
9. Give up living a directionless life
There is no way you can be successful if you live a reactive and directionless life. Success is not going to happen by accident, it is by design.
Thus, live a proactive and intentional life. Learn to set goals and make plans for the life you want.
You can’t go through each day without having a clear direction or what you need to do. You need to identify your direction and put in conscious effort to get there each day.
People who live a reactive life will find themselves going nowhere. They let things happen to them rather than making things happen.
So, from today onward, be proactive. Find out what you want out of your life. Identify your goals, make plans, create actionable steps, and every day, take action to get there.
10. Give up the need for instant gratification
If you need to choose between playing games or working on your blog, which would you choose to do?
Most people choose instant gratification, which is doing things that give them immediate pleasure.
Highly successful people build up the habit to delay gratification. They will think long-term and choose to do things that give them the long-term reward.
Rather than choosing to enjoy and relax now, they choose to do things that make them uncomfortable now but get them greater rewards later.
Your ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short-term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long-term is the key to your success.
Therefore, choose to delay gratification and do what is difficult first so that you can enjoy the fruits of your hard work later.
“You either suffer the pain of discipline or suffer the pain of regret.”
Conclusion
Remember, if you want to scale up yourself and achieve greater results in life, you don’t necessarily need to go faster or work harder, instead, you can let go and give up on what is dragging you down.
Give up the 10 things mentioned above so that you can go faster, higher, and achieve better success in life.