Last week we discussed the Five Keys to Success and over the next few weeks we will take a deeper look at each of these and see how they might help you go to the next level and achieve your own astounding, audacious, ridiculous goal.
Today we are going to talk about the first key to success: Show Up.
When given a choice, the majority of people stop showing up.
All across the world and in particular the US, you see this phenomenon occur every year on college campuses.
Throughout school, before college, attendance records were kept and in many situations were a requirement to complete a class, especially in high school.
Teachers, administrators and parents were all involved in keeping their attendance on track, but in college this doesn’t happen.
The best and brightest, the hardest working and the most creative high school students go off to college with a new level of freedom.
There is no one to make sure they get up in the morning, no one to make sure they go to class instead of going to lunch or hanging out with friends and this is a pitfall for many college freshmen.
I remember big lecture classes like history and political science that would begin with a couple hundred students and after a month, less than 100 were coming to class, and 6-8 weeks in at the drop date another 25-30 would be gone.
In a matter of two months the class would go from over 200 to between 50 and 70.
What happened to everyone else?
Did they all have life changing circumstances in the first couple of months?
Were they not smart enough?
Was history too hard?
NO!
They missed a class here, then another and fell behind; then two more and it felt like a monumental task to catch up, so they stopped coming, rationalized it away somehow and figured they would start fresh in that class next semester.
After all, it will be offered again, and they will be one of 200+ on the first day next semester.
It’s easy to show up and it’s easy not to.
No matter what you are doing, you have to be there consistently, over time to finish the race, we are talking tortoise vs. the hare here, take it step by step, and don’t miss.
This applies to your education, to your career, to your finances, to managing your health and weight, to spending time with your family, there are no shortcuts here.
We are all here to live a good life and you have to show up for all of the experiences, big and small, to live a good life. Over the next few weeks, we will continue to take a deeper look at the Five Keys to Success and how they might help you go to the next level and achieve your own astounding, audacious, ridiculous goal.
