The Three “F” Words You Must Know To Succeed.

I want to share with you three “F” words that you must learn and apply if you want to succeed.

1. Frustration.

When you’re frustrated at how your life’s going, that’s great! It means you’re ready to make a change for the better. Don’t ever think that feeling frustrated is bad. Frustration can kick start you to choose a clear direction in your life and move forward towards your goals or even just inspire you to solve a problem. Frustration is only bad when you do nothing about it.

What are you frustrated about?

Are you frustrated at being out of shape, or that your current job shows no signs of opportunity to be promoted? If you are, then you need to get frustrated, really frustrated. Let yourself get frustrated to the point where you say, “No more!”

Don’t let those fluffy, feel-good-all-the-time personal development folk tell you that feeling frustrated is bad and will attract boogie man to turn your life into a pile of steaming turd. Remember, frustration is only bad if you always remain frustrated and do nothing about it.

Let me show you how I’m using my frustration. I’ve wanted to start a business for a couple of years now, but because I’m an expat living in China, there are obstacles that make it very difficult.

Firstly, because I’m here on a “foreign expert” visa teaching, legally I’m only allowed to teach.

Secondly, an investment of USD100,000 in a Chinese bank account is required if you’re a foreigner doing business in China.

Thirdly, after talking to a Chinese lawyer I discovered that if you want to run a website on a Chinese server and have advertising on it, you need to have RMB30,000 in a Chinese bank account as well as apply for a business license. Even then I would have had to put the business into a Chinese person’s name.

Fourthly, many social media sites and blogs are blocked here in China making it all that much harder to build an online presence.

Finally, there are gray lines which need to be walked a long if you want to do business successfully in China. All these things make it difficult for foreigners to do business in China. It’s very frustrating for someone who can’t afford to fork out large sums of money.

Be prepared to make big changes when necessary.

For a while I bitched and complained a lot about this situation, including to my blogging mentor, Mike CJ. I bitched and complained so much that in the end my frustration allowed me to say, “No more!”

I know that I want to start a business, but I’m unable to change my environment here, so I’ll move to a different environment. I’m going to move back to New Zealand in July, 2010 with the sole purpose of living in an environment where I can build a business legally and more efficiently.

It’s a big move, but I know that whining about my situation here is not going to solve the problem.

In most circumstances, you won’t have to move thousands of miles onto a different continent. You’ll know what you can and need to do.

2. Fear.

Fear is good when it causes you to take action; fear is bad if it prevents you from taking action. An example of fear harming you would be when you say to yourself, “I’m not even going to try because I’m scared I can’t do it.”

How can you use fear to help you?

Let me show you how I’m using fear to motivate me to exercise when I don’t feel like exercising.

As some of you know, I’ve made a decision to get into shape. However, I find it hard to always be motivated enough to start exercising. There are so many other things I think I could or should be doing.

What I’ve done is made a list of things I fear could happen if I don’t succeed in my goal of losing weight and becoming healthier. I’ve gone further and even convinced myself that some of these things will happen if I don’t exercise today.

What Gordie fears will happen if he doesn’t exercise.

• Be teaching class one day and suddenly suffer a stroke collapsing on the floor, shitting my pants in front of my students.
• Have a heart attack.
• Develop gall stones and kidney stones.
• Develop colon or bowel cancer.
• Develop diabetes.
• Develop glaucoma.
• Be pick-pocketed but be too fat and out of shape to give chase.
• Be limited to only a few styles of clothes that are made large enough to fit me.
• Be stared at for being so fat.
• Get arthritis in my hips, back and knees.
• Suffer from high blood pressure.
• Get a hernia.
• Suffer from crippling back pain.
• Suffer from sleep apnea.
• Limit myself to which places I’m willing to travel to because I’m too out of shape and lack energy.
• Suffer from impotence.

These are just a few things that I know could happen to me if I don’t exercise and get myself healthy.

Sometimes I wake up and I just want to sleep in for another couple of hours. However, I quickly think about the above list and realize that the pleasure of not exercising now and sleeping in just isn’t worth the pain I’ll suffer later in life if I don’t exercise and get into shape.

You may ask, why not just focus on the positive effects of exercise and how good you’ll feel when you achieve your goal? I’ve tried that in the past and that type of motivation doesn’t last very long.

Tony Robbins said, humans will nearly always do more to avoid pain than they’ll do to experience pleasure. He says that you have to link not taking action to being more painful than taking action. This is the way to overcome procrastination.

That’s what I’ve done to get me exercising in the mornings even though I’d rather sleep in. It’s working for me.

Don’t mistakenly think I dwell on this list all day and night and worry. I just think about the negative results on this list when I need to get my butt out of the comfort of my bed in the morning and start exercising.

Make a list of things you fear will happen to you if you continue procrastinating and don’t take action. Focus on that list when you don’t feel like doing something that you know you must do. It’s the psychology you need to use to help you eat that frog.

3. Failure.

Let’s get it into our heads once and for all; failure is good and it’s only temporary. You only truly fail when you give up. Failure is a vital part of success.

Failure comes before success both in the dictionary and in life. The overused example of Thomas Edison failing 10,000 times before successfully inventing the incandescent light bulb is the perfect example of failing and moving on.

Embrace failure, learn from it and keep moving forward. Notice, I said learn from it. Failure teaches you what doesn’t work and tells you to try something else. If you keep failing, then try something else using the knowledge you’ve been accumulating along the way from your previous failures.

Fail and move on; fail and move on; fail and move on.

You’ve probably heard the maxim, “fail fast and fail often”. It’s true. To become successful you need to try new things and when trying new things, you’re going to fail. Even the best hitters in baseball strike out seven times out of ten.

Failure is your friend; failure is your teacher. If you want to succeed, you must be prepared to fail more than most people.

Conclusion.

1. Let yourself get frustrated to a point where you say, “No more” and then take positive action to change your circumstances and move towards your goals.

2. Make fear work for you by focusing on the pain you’ll suffer if you don’t do what must be done to succeed. Link not taking action with being more painful than taking action.

3. Make failure your friend. Learn from failure and never give up because of it.

Are there any other “F” words that lead to success? Let us know below.

Related posts:

1. Six Things You Should Do Daily To Succeed.
2. Are You Controlling Life Or Is Life Controlling You?
3. 5 Emotional States That Result In Bad Decisions.
4. Personal Development By George Clooney: How Much Does Your Life Weigh?
5. 10 Ways To Fail Efficiently And Effectively Every Time.