Courtesy of HarperOne, a division of HarperCollinsPublishers
This post is an excerpt from “Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life,” by Gary John Bishop.
Success is never certain. It never comes without risk.
Even if you’re the smartest or the hardest working, there’s no guarantee of anything.
The people who go on to do great things in their lives know this. They also embrace it.
“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
Reflect on that Teddy Roosevelt quote for a minute here. Missing the target isn’t the worst thing you can do. Not taking the shot is.
You may look at successful people and think they’ve always had it figured out. Many of them seem to have a kind of confidence, charisma, or talent that makes everything they do seem easy. They certainly seem to have something you don’t, but believe me, their rise to the top was anything but certain or easy. Most of them doubted it every single day, sometimes hundreds of times per day. That’s right, they sat there, just like you are right now, wondering how they would make it, whether it was all worthwhile or whether they had what it takes.
There were days when they doubted what they were doing. Where they thought, “This is never going to work.” Many found themselves on the verge of giving up at numerous occasions along the way.
They didn’t succeed because they were certain they were going to succeed; they succeeded because they didn’t let uncertainty stop them. They did it anyway. They ignored their doubts and kept pushing forward. They were relentless when the only thing they had to fuel them was relentlessness.
Give some thought to all the people who have achieved something great, only to quickly fade into obscurity. I’m sure you can think of a few, whether they’re entertainers or business people or athletes.
Courtesy of HarperOne, a division of HarperCollinsPublishersIn my career I’ve coached many “successful” people who came to me because their lives had gone flat, and they had become uninspired and tepid. What happened? For many of them, they got comfortable. For years, they had pushed their comfort zones to get where they wanted to be. But as soon as they chose certainty over uncertainty, they stopped achieving. They hit the wall.
Why does it happen? Because when you’ve accomplished one of your goals, when you’re rich and successful, the future naturally seems a little more certain. I’m sure we’d all feel a little more secure with a million bucks or so in the bank.
But that mindset shift is exactly what creates the environment for our ultimate undoing. When we’re no longer uncertain about money, the desire—the need even—to pursue it recedes. When we’re no longer uncertain about success, our ambition can blunt or mellow. We get to wallow in our bloated illusion of certainty. Eventually we get to do that thing called “settle.” We settle for certainty.
That’s the kind of power that uncertainty has in our lives. It can make us or break us. It can make us rich or make us poor. It can be the key to our success or drive us in the other direction.
For many people, it ends up being both.
Printed from “Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life.” Copyright 2017 By Gary John Bishop. Reprinted with permission by HarperOne, a division of HarperCollinsPublishers.
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