There are no absolutes in life, and there are no givens. Everything is up for grabs. Most people dream of accomplishing something extraordinary, but life slips by, and their most meaningful dreams slide silently to the side while they’re getting everything else done.
“Never reduce a target,” author and motivational speaker Grant Cardone says. “Instead, increase actions. When you start rethinking your targets, making up excuses, and letting yourself off the hook, you are giving up on your dreams!”
Operating at an exponentially higher level is exactly what you need to do in order to be successful in your endeavors. Everything starts with a decision to aim higher than usual—only those with the right mindset, attitude, and skill can take advantage of the enormous human potential.
You can’t achieve extraordinary results with an ordinary mindset.
“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”―Michelangelo Buonarroti
Many people achieve far below their expectations because they have big dreams, incredible ideas, and fantastic goals… but put in little or no action.
As you build on your accomplishments and your confidence grows, you will naturally want to aim higher. Now that you’ve got some momentum going, it’s time to double your effort.
Extreme success on your own terms can be achieved by taking massive action with the 10x rule, a concept made popular by Cardone.
The 10x rule is based on the idea that you should figure out what you want to do—what goals you want to achieve—and multiply the effort and time you think it’ll take to do it by 10.
In his book, The 10X Rule: the Only Difference Between Success and Failure, Cardone provides an awesome blueprint for how you can rise above the status quo to take “massive action” instead of behaving like everybody else and settling for average results.
We have a tendency to underestimate what we can accomplish and therefore set lower goals and do not reach our full potential.
When you apply the 10x rule to your thinking, you can do more… and still have time to take care of a lot of other things on your to-do list.
Stay hungry!
“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” —Christopher Reeve
The idea of a 10x advantage is to aim 10 times higher when you set your goals, in business and in the rest of life. With a 10x mindset, if you come up short, you’ll still find yourself further along than if you had maintained your life’s current goals.
Don’t be subject to the tyranny of how things have always been done.
It also means you open yourself up to bigger possibilities for the future that make it increasingly easier to make decisions and take action in the present. You can move and work on your goals 10 times faster while being consistent and persistent.
But don’t underestimate how much energy and effort it will take to push things through. Your goals could take longer to complete or cost more than you originally thought—plan for some setbacks and plan to focus on achieving more using the 10x rule.
Thinkers and dreamers are undervalued.
“Between the great things we cannot do and the small things we will not do, the danger is that we shall do nothing.” — Adolph Monod
We’ve been conditioned to think small, simplify, and demand less from life. Don’t be subject to the tyranny of “how things have always been done.” Find your true north and push past the default.
For centuries, we’ve been trained to stop thinking and simply do as we are told. But dreamers and thinkers change the world; they don’t follow any set patterns. It’s hard to replace the dreamers with algorithms.
Can you build something people will look for or will talk about, or something we would miss if it were gone? Consider your capacity to think creatively and exponentially and your capacity to provide value to others. Start seeing things from a wider, more far-reaching perspective.
You should start thinking big without reservations. Practice thinking about your future being 10 times bigger and better, and you’ll develop a new 10x standard for viewing the world.
You can contribute more, learn more, become more, and stretch yourself and your own abilities beyond their current psychological limitations only if you give yourself permission to think beyond the obvious.
Turn mindset into action.
“The greatest turning point of my life, both professionally and personally, was when I stopped casually waiting for success and instead started to approach it as a duty, obligation, and responsibility.” —Grant Cardone
The right intentions will only get you so far; you also must act. A 10x mindset radically shifts your thinking, your decision-making, and the actions you take.
Start identifying actions that are blocking your progress toward 10x growth and get rid of them. Focus on doing even better at the things you’re already good at and stop worrying about everything you struggle with.
Tackle every project with the 10x rule, acting like you have to succeed because your life depends on it.
This post originally appeared on Medium.com and was republished with the author’s permission. Thomas Oppong is the author of Postanly Weekly, a free digest of the best productivity, career, and self-improvement posts.
