Success: Extra Effort Required

I recently read a new book, The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure.  It was on my list of business reads for the summer, but I think there is a great lesson in the book that resonates throughout our lives – including our health.

I am taking part in a 21-day Productivity Challenge in one of my businesses, and was happy to read The 10X Rule that was a requirement. And so far I like the challenge itself so much that I might do it across multiple businesses.

The book is about taking massive action and achieving success. Whatever action you would take to accomplish a task or a goal, if you want to be successful you should do 10X the actions. Another point is that you really can have success in all areas of your life. I like that I am in control and can choose to want success.

In one of the middle chapters the author wrote about not looking for balance. That may be something I will struggle with because for most of my 50 years I have pretty much operated on keeping balanced, believing that balance keeps peace and happiness. In some areas I feel it contributed to success as well, especially when you think about balance keeping you from being negative.

However, I can also see that balance can hold you back. For example, if you want success in business or financial areas, holding on to the balance mindset is not going to get you abundance. You have to be willing to go out of your comfort zone, take some risks, and rock a few boats so to say!

The coach I am working with on the Productivity Challenge stated that “reading business and marketing books by authors who are wildly successful has helped me to see things from a new perspective”. I think it is important across all areas of our lives to study success and be open to try new things if we want to improve something or have goals to achieve.

The main point of the book is that you have to work hard if you want to be very successful. You have to do more than you think you would have to do for each specific goal, and you have to stay focused and complete that extra work. I feel today more than ever that we look for shortcuts or easy ways to reach success.  It might even work for some of us, or for a little while.

Ultimately, to achieve great success, there needs to be a tremendous amount of effort. Getting back to your health – this appears to ring true. There are many temptations to eat unhealthy. We are busy. We are rushed. There is fast food and convenience food, with little or no nutrition, everywhere we look. You can make bad choices all day long.

On the flip side, it is harder to eat healthy. There might be more preparation time when you eat fresh foods and vegetables that need cleaned, cut or chopped, cooked and seasoned – before you eat.  And then there is the taste. If we are honest, we must admit that many times we live to eat, instead of the healthier eating to live alternative.

It takes extra effort and a lot of extra work on our mindset to live healthy, to target wellness. We can look at examples throughout our lifestyles. I read this book as part of a business challenge, but it can definitely be applied to other areas of your life.