This post is going to be about my “secret” to success. It will tell you how to succeed in anything whether it is affiliate marketing or creating some other kind of passive income online, learning a new language, or become in the shape of your life. In short, this works for anything.
I have to mention that this is (of course) not my own invention or anything, this is simply what I have learned by studying the life of successful people, and listening to what they say… and guess what, they all say (and do) the same thing.
Another thing that is important to say is that this is the exact same “secret” that I have used to achieve any success myself, that is above average.
One more thing that I feel I have to say to you before we start is that this “secret” is something that I was completely “unaware” of myself before, or at least I didn´t take it seriously…
I don´t judge you if you ain´t understand this yet, however, if you are serious about success, and want to accomplish something great, something above average, whatever it is, then you need to understand this and implement it in your own life right away…
You WILL see results if you do, it is just a law of nature…
The longer it takes you to understand this… Well, the longer time it will take for you to reach your desired outcomes, in whatever area in life you want to be great at.
The secret is that there is no secret
It is funny how hard it can be for us humans to understand things that in reality are very simple to understand. Or maybe we don´t want to understand, I don´t know, however.
For example,
I am in great shape, and I have been that for many years now,
I get a lot of questions from friends, and people at the gym all the time. Like “Hey John how many hours do you work out?” or “How many days per week?”
Or in my online business, I have been doing affiliate marketing for 5 years now, and some days I make more money than a normal 9-5 monthly salary…
And people ask me “Hey John, what do you do to make those amount of money online?” “What is your tactic?”
And I get the impression that they are looking for “tricks” or “secrets”!
And yeah, maybe there are tactics to use, but there are no secrets.
First of all, what may work for me may not work for you, we are different and different things (tactics) work better for different people.
However, one thing I DO… The MAIN THING I do… is that I am CONSISTENT…
and I KNOW it will work for you also, no matter the tactic you use.
You got to be consistent… You got to be consistent to be successful in ANYTHING.
Even my friends have a hard time to understand this
For example, I have many friends, and I have told them that they have to stay consistent when they tell me they want to get in great shape… and not only with their workouts but with their diet.
I always ask them, ok so what do you eat, what diet are you going to follow?
And (very rarely) they have no plan at all, they just say stuff like “I eat good”
Or they come to me and say (all proud) “John, I was eating a salad yesterday”… Like that would mean something lol!
That means absolutely nothing!
You have to do that at least 6 days per week for months to see results from “eating your salads” in order to lose weight… 1 day is nothing and if that is how you plan to do things then I would recommend you to not do it at all, as it simply won´t lead anywhere.
How to succeed in anything
You have to do it CONSISTENTLY for a longer period of time to accomplish ANYTHING. Whatever it is, in any aspect of life. Whatever it is, fitness, business, academics… You will only get better and become successful if you put in consistent efforts… Week after week, month after month, year after year…
You simply cannot do stuff sometimes and expect amazing results. I don’t work like that.
You cannot eat clean “sometimes” and expect good results, you cannot work out sometimes… You cannot study sometimes… You cannot work on your online business sometimes… But the funny (or tragic) thing is that many people do this…
Many times I get questions from people… “John, my website doesn´t get any traffic” or “John my posts don´t rank on Google” and things like that.
I always ask the same thing, “How often do you post new content?”
And (many times) I get the answer “Well, I post now and then” or something like that… In short, they do it whenever, or randomly…
Very rarely do I hear someone say “I do it every day” because if they did they would rank (if they use keywords of course).
Seriously… If you ain´t gonna stay consistent then do NOTHING.
I am serious, if you ain´t gonna stay consistent (in whatever area it is you want success in) then I would much rather prefer that you do nothing… than do something sporadically, and random…
You hear it all the time, right? People saying things like:
“Ooh but eating good sometimes is better than eating badly all the time”, or “working out sometimes is better than never working out”, or “publish sometimes is better than not posting at all”…
Personally, I would say NO, it is really NOT. You are much better off, doing nothing in that case. Because the results you will get from that nonsense effort is negligible. You are much better off just staying home, or at least put that energy into something that you really can do consistently.
Sometimes is NOT good enough… I’m sorry but that is just how it is on planet earth.
I think we all realize this if we are honest with ourselves… I mean,
- What if a teacher only showed up sometimes? (the teacher would get fired)
- What if you show up to work only sometimes (You WILL get fired)
- What if you only produce results sometimes at work (You WILL be fired)
- What if a kid only showed up sometimes in school? (The kid would fail HARD in school)
- What if you only water your flowers sometimes? (They would die)
- What if the aeroplanes only took off sometimes at the airport?
- What if Burger King only had hamburgers sometimes?
Lol! You get the point, right? ?
It is like that in EVRYTHING… You have to be consistent…
That is the nr 1 rule, and as long as you aren´t consistent don´t even look for answers on why you ain´t getting your desired results…
And I don´t speak about if you have been consistent for 1 month… Because that is not enough… Not even 3 months… Come and ask me why you ain´t getting results if you have been consistent for 6 months maybe, but not before that.
How do you start to be consistent if you have never been?
It is actually a lot easier than you might think, and believe it or not, it will make you feel A LOT better as a person, and something that is a great benefit is that you will actually become A LOT more confident by doing so.
I explain more about why your confidence WILL become HUGE in this post
In short, what you do is that you make a daily to-do list (the day before) on what you are going to do, and also exactly when you are going to do your things… And then you simply follow that plan.
This is easy but yet hard for people, but guess what, it is only hard in the beginning and once you start to see results it WILL kind of become easier to stick to it if you know what I mean ?
You will start to get addicted to those results… And if you stick to this for 1 month it will become a habit, and eventually something you will not even reflect over anymore… You just do it… They say it takes 21 days to build a habit, and that might be true, however, it will become easier and easier the longer you do it.
For example, me, I HATE working out, at least 90% of the times… But I just do it… I don´t negotiate on that for NOTHING… Yes, I am serious… Because I LOVE the results… It makes me healthier, happier, stronger, more energy, great looking body,
but maybe most importantly, it builds my discipline… Because every time I go (even if I would rather stay home on the sofa) I build discipline…
And I know… (it also works the other way around) if I would start to “skip” a workout here and there… It will become easier to skip one the next time, and even more easy the next time… and so on…
Discipline is just like a muscle… You build it stronger every time you use it… However, beware that it also works the other way around… You build your “skip muscle” stronger every time you use that one also…
It is actually dangerous NOT being consistent
I strongly believe that if you just do things randomly (you will, of course, get random results) you will get depressed because you ain´t getting to where you want to be.
I actually saw a study once on how they gave mice random punishment, and those mice went crazy… They eventually just stood still or just laying down… (they got depressed)… Then they died…
Am sure you understand that they didn´t do that experiment to see how mice will react on random punishment, they did it to see how YOU will react to random.
I strongly believe this is one very strong factor to why so many people are depressed today… They are not getting the results they want… and the reason they ain´t getting the results is that they are not consistent…
Also, if you have a daily to-do list there will be very little time for you to “think too much” and become depressed from your own thoughts… You simply will have no time for that… and why would you want to have time to feel bad?
==> Read why being consistent will give you GREAT confidence <==
So please, if you really want to achieve success in ANYTHING then start being consistent. Because that is how you will succeed in anything. That is the (simple) formula to do it.
I hope you found this article helpful and please share your feedback and questions in the comment section below and I will be more than happy to answer your comments!
I wish you success!
John
Founder of: $tart Make $top Waste
Erick says
I really do understand the concept of consistency because in my life I have used it to get in better shape, for me I started my fitness lifestyle on 2008 and yes I fail numerous times but still went for researching for a better way to fit my lifestyle, I guess this is no exception in the world of affiliate marketing its all trial and error until I find it works, then only difference for me is that now I have a full-time job that might affect a bit my schedule but order then that I am willing to try till I make it right. I wish I had a question for you but I am completely aware of this topic thanks for the advice.
John says
Awesome! First of all, thank you for your comment
Happy to hear that you understand this concept, I actually had a 9-5 (plus I worked out every day) when I started with affiliate marketing, so it is absolutely possible my man, it was not easy, but if it was everyone would do it, right? :o)
Thanks again for your comment!
Carmeta1 says
It is true that in order to be successful in anything you have to work on your goals by being consistent. The article is informative and helpful. I am always striving to be consistent in working on my plans of reaching success. This topic, in my opinion is a ‘must read’. What is going to be the result if you are not consistent? Looking forward in viewing more of your posts. Thank you for sharing it with us!
John says
Thank you for your comment! Glad you liked it and found it interesting and a must read :o)
Well, guess I could make a post on what the result of not being consistent is…
Can tell you right away that the main theme of that post will be “regret” and that is the worst pain in life I would say…
Thank you again,
/Sincerely
Lucas says
This is a very excellent topic John!
Impressive content backed up by your own life story. This is exactly what I needed to start working on my game plan. I will be sure to mention you in my success speech. “It is because of one gentleman called John that I got this far”
Ray
John says
Thank you! Appreciate that alot!
Would love to see you succeed and if you say that in your success speach I would live on that for the rest of my life :o)
Thank you again!
and remeber… Stay consistent NO MATTER WHAT.
/Best