success takes time | mastery.fm

Steve Pavlina:

The only question that matters for setting your standards is this: Are you doing your best? If the answer is yes, you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, regardless of how your results stack up against other people.

And:

What really got me out of this mess is that I made a committed decision to raise my standards. … No one was coming to rescue me — it was entirely up to me. … The outlook for the next few years looked bleak, but no matter what happened in the immediate future, I could still imagine being in a better place five years hence. It might get worse before it got better, but at least it would eventually get better.

And:

What if I were to ask you, “Are you doing your best?” and you honestly answer, “No, I’m not.” Then you’ve got a problem. You have unused potential that you’re just wasting. You’re living below your capacity.

(…)

What other people are doing is irrelevant. You know you’re capable of more, so step up and claim those results.

(…)

Follow the trail of better. Raise your standards. Can you perform today a little better than you did yesterday? And can you do the same thing tomorrow and the next day? Follow that trail, and you’ll come to discover just how incredible your best really is. I guarantee you it’s way, way out there. Your best is so far ahead of you that you can’t even see it yet. It’s going to take you years before you think you’ve even gotten close to it. And even when you think you’ve found it, you’ll discover it’s always one more step ahead of you.

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Steve Pavlina on 5-year commitments:

People commonly overestimate how far they can get in a year, but grossly underestimate how far they can get in 5 years.

If you actually want results, make a 5-year commitment to a particular path, like building an online business, developing your social skills, becoming a world traveler, etc. A lesser commitment is largely pointless.

And on time horizons:

Think about what you can achieve between now and 2025 if you commit to it. You can lose any amount of weight and develop any kind of physique you want. You can start your own business and make it profitable. You can meet the mate of your dreams and start a family. You can relocate to anywhere in the world.

(…)

You have an enormous degree of control and power when you think with a time horizon of 5 years. Don’t let that potential go to waste. Set a course now and get moving.

Jeff Atwood has similar thoughts on success and time:

…success takes years. And when I say years, I really mean it! Not as some cliched regurgitation of “work smarter, not harder.” I’m talking actual calendar years. You know, of the 12 months, 365 days variety. You will literally have to spend multiple years of your life grinding away at this stuff, waking up every day and doing it over and over, practicing and gathering feedback each day to continually get better. It might be unpleasant at times and even downright un-fun occasionally, but it’s necessary.

(…)

Obviously we want to succeed. But on some level, success is irrelevant, because the process is inherently satisfying. Waking up every day and doing something you love — even better, surrounded by a community who loves it too — is its own reward. Despite being a metric ton of work.

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