Thought of the day – A success story

Many people have many different philosophies about success.  Some say hard work, others say start your own business and some say remain a student and keep learning.  None of these people are wrong necessarily.  I know many people that made a significant success out of their careers and many of them used different methodologies.  There is however some key items that all of their strategies had in common.

• Deadlines

Meeting a deadline should not be something you are proud of. If you meet all your deadlines, it means that you are only doing the bare minimum to fulfil your job.  Completing tasks before the deadline is what gets noticed and what raises eyebrows.  On-time is simply not good enough if you want to excel.

• Quality

All people make mistakes some time or the other.  It is mostly acceptable to make mistakes if they are true mistakes.  What is unacceptable is not learning from them and making the same mistake repeatedly.  Even donkeys would only bump their head on the same branch once in their life.  Making the odd mistake should be a motivation not to make it again.  Eventually, you will do tasks perfect, everytime.

• Goals

Goals are not goals anymore once you meet them.  They become history and are known as achievements.  The problem is that if you do not set new goals all the time, you will not get any more achievements again.  Always raising the bar will help you to keep on achieving, and if you feel that a goal is too high, try harder, don’t quit or sit back.

• Innovation

If a process is working fine, it is time to upgrade or improve it.  There will always be a few small tweaks that will add value.  Always innovate.  Innovation is not necessarily inventing new things, but also improving current things.

If you had to firmly stick to these items, you will achieve a lot more in your career (and even maybe in your life) than most other people.