Are you set in a routine that bores you?

Good.

Talk to any person who has achieved big-time success, and you’ll hear one common refrain: Success is boring.

It has been repeated so often by so many people, but we’ll give the credit to our friend and KW founder Gary Keller, who has talked about it in multiple interviews, podcasts, and books, including The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, which he co-wrote with Jay Papasan (and which we highly recommend).

The basic idea is this: success is boring because it requires identifying what small things move you in the direction of your goal and doing them over and over and over again, predictably and systematically, regardless of your mood or whatever else is happening in your life. No exceptions. No excuses.

Depending on your outlook, you can see it as punishingly mundane, and arguably it is one of the hardest things for most human beings to master. Here’s where it commonly goes wrong for people:

1. They don’t know what they want. This one’s huge. How can you know what to do if you don’t know where you’re going? Without a long-term direction that excites and inspires you, you’ll drift.

2. Their goals are borrowed. This is related. But it’s distinct because it affects those who think they know what they want. We touched a bit on it in Volume 9 (“Ambition Without Anxiety”). Unless your goals are in genuine alignment with your deep, core values, you will give up when things get too difficult. And consistency at the level we’re talking about is hard. Your goal has to be worth it to you.

3. They haven’t figured out what moves the needle. This one can plague perfectionists or those just getting started. The solution is to simply begin trying things without fear. Run experiments with the curiosity of a playful kid. Discover what works for you and what doesn’t. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Take feedback from your failures as well as your wins, and use it to adjust your approach going forward.

4. They have Shiny Object Syndrome. It takes time (months and months) to establish which actions pay off. But a lot of people move on too quickly to gather any meaningful data. “Consistent” doesn’t mean consistent for a month before switching to something else.

When we talked about this topic at one of our recent team meetings, one of our agents asked, “But how actually do you keep going?”

To him, the prospect of endless consistency without eventual burnout seemed unfathomable.

Here’s what we told him (and what we truly believe is the key to unlocking all of this): Decenter yourself.

It's not about you. Become a giver. Live to make others’ lives richer, healthier, and more meaningful, in whatever way possible (small or large).

Think about it. Reflect once more on your goals. And there it is…

Your goals. Your wants. Your needs. You, you, you.

“I want X.”

“I would feel so much better if I could just X.”

It’s no wonder you’re burnt out. The reason self-focused goals are so exhausting is that they trap you inside your own myopic world. Your moods DO matter, because they’re all you can see. Every single passing thought, fear, emotion, or daily concern feels inflated 100 percent. It’s like walking through a fun house (only not so fun).

Instead, try this: Take a deep breath. Zoom out. Look around at the people living their separate lives all around you. Think about the individuals you know. Loved ones, friends, colleagues, clients, whomever…

Choose someone. For the rest of the day (just today), could you commit to putting that person’s needs ahead of your own? What would it look like if, for one day, you filtered all your decisions through the question, “What would improve this person’s life?”

Try it. And at the end of the day, ask yourself how you feel – and whether or not you want to try the same experiment again tomorrow.

Do that consistently for a year and let us know how much closer you are to your own goals than you were before.

If you enjoyed reading this, please consider forwarding it to a friend. We truly appreciate each one of our readers and subscribers. Thank you for being here!

Here's to your success,

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THE RUIZ GROUP
of Keller Williams Realty

Led by Pete Ruiz, REALTOR®​
DRE: 01974535