School captures our most formative years. It serves as a venue for learning and socializes us in important ways. Intended or unintended, a formula for success emerges: “do this, and you’ll get that”. And if you follow this formula, your likelihood of receiving a good grade is so high that it is practically guaranteed. If you do your homework, your assigned reading, and practice the subject, you will be successful.
Unfortunately, life isn’t so simple. There aren’t any roadmaps and there certainly isn’t a formula for achieving a guaranteed output for a given input. Choosing a career that’s right for you, or building a business with impact and meaning, can be confusing and difficult endeavors.
Fortunately, there are principles to guide us. If you’re getting ready to graduate, preparing for a career transition, thinking about starting a business or lost and seeking a bit of direction, consider the following:
How to Achieve Success…and Fulfillment…Despite Uncertainty
- Choose the “right, next thing” – I have repeated this concept to myself more times than I can count. As someone with many interests who has dealt with uncertainty about which path to take, all you can do is make the best decision for where you are right now. You oftentimes can’t predict what steps 3 and 4 might be, but you can control the very next step you take. This leads me to the next principle…
- You can’t guarantee the outcome, so embrace the uncertainty and get started – little in life is guaranteed. Unmet expectations create stress. Therefore, the sooner this reality is accepted and embraced, the happier you become and the more likely you are to achieve success.
- Who you will work with and what you will learn are primary, not secondary considerations – the tendency to overemphasize pay and underappreciate who you will work with and the knowledge you’ll attain can be a fast track to an unfulfilling journey. Focusing on your development, I would argue, will be far more lucrative in the long run.
- Focus on what you can control – there are many things that cannot be controlled, like the weather, a crazy driver, priorities at work, or whether your business encounters a new issue today. What you can control is your attitude, your response (and whether you can or should respond), and taking constructive action.
- Eliminate distractions – there is more noise today than at any point in history, and we are surrounded by the opportunity for distraction at every turn. Countless detours are available by simply unlocking your smartphone. By eliminating the unimportant and spending time on what will move the needle, the odds of achieving what you want rise considerably.
- Consider what inspires you – what’s the point of pursuing something that is uninspiring? Figure out your purpose, move relentlessly in that direction, and you can’t go wrong.
As Tony Robbins says, “success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure”.
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