Roadmap to success
Learned from endurance training
I love endurance training, obviously for the physical and mental challenge — but also because it gives me a mindset that can be used in everything I do. I like to think of it as a micro version of “real life” things — like starting a business, relationships, investing, getting in shape, learning a new skill, or whatever it might be. The same mindset and approach can be applied to everything. This is the approach:
Set a goal
Obviously, you need a goal in order to know where you’re going. Often we don’t set the right goals, though. We’re not specific enough, which makes it difficult to do the right things in order to get there.
“Run a marathon” is not a good goal. “Run marathon X in 3 hours” is a better goal, as it gives us a date and allows us to figure out the right training plan in order to finish the race in 3 hours.
“Invest” is not a good goal. “Invest so I can retire at the age of 50” is a better goal, that gives us a timeframe and allows us to ask ourselves the right questions in order to pick the “right” instruments(in quotes because obviously a lot of investments, like stocks, are never guaranteed) and figure out how much we need to invest e.g. on a monthly basis.
Research
Do the proper research in order to come up with the best possible plan. When I decided to do an Ironman race, I wasn’t even sure of the distances, I didn’t know what gear was needed, how the transitions were set up, what kind of wetsuit or bike I should get, how much I need to train, etc.
When I started my business, I had to do similar research — how to register the business, the best corporate form, how taxes should be paid, accounting, insurances, software, customer acquisition, etc. The list goes on and on.
Just to be clear, this research is just to cover the things you can think of before starting — basically to give you the confidence to actually create a plan and get started. There will be just as many things, that you didn’t think or know of, that come up along the way.
Make a plan
When you have a goal and have researched what’s needed, it’s time to make a plan. From the date you set, work backward to today’s date.
For running a marathon, this could be to run 4 times per week — sprints/hills, tempo run, easy recovery run, and long run. Gradually increase these over the next 14 weeks until the race(simplified here as this is not a post about marathon training).
For the investing example, the goal was to retire at age 50. In the research phase, we then figured out exactly how much money we should have by then and learned more about the different investments(like expected return rates, fees, compounding, etc.). Based on those things, we set a plan to invest X amount every month, 20% in stocks, 30% in bonds, 50% in mutual funds, etc. Basically just throwing terms out there, but it should paint the picture.
Execute
Time to get to work. Realize that the progress will be slow, but keep your head down and keep working — trusting the research you’ve done and the plan you’ve created.
Follow up
Even if you basically just need to stick to your plan until you reach your goal, it’s good to take a step back and evaluate the progress every now and then. Are you progressing as planned, or do you need to make adjustments?
Enjoy the process
If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, you’re not going to succeed. If you don’t enjoy it, you will not be able to stay as consistent as you need and put in the effort needed in order to succeed. The key here is to find positive things in everything and make sure the pros outweigh the cons.
It’s not like I enjoy setting the alarm on Saturdays in order to go do a 5+ hour workout, but I try to think about all the positive things it does for me — time to think, time to listen to good music/podcasts, enjoy the outdoors, how it’s good for my health, the feeling after the workout, etc. Besides all of those things, knowing the feeling I will have when I cross the finish line, achieving a goal I’ve set for myself, is worth the “suffering”.
Same with my business, it’s not like I love all aspects of it. There are a lot of ups and downs, and sometimes I have to do things I don’t enjoy. But thinking about the freedom I have, basically working whenever and wherever I want, earning as much as I want, etc. outweighs the things I don’t like.
Be responsive
Things happen all the time, and if you don’t react to those things you’re going to fail. Adapt and focus on the things you can control, and you’ll be fine. The pandemic was a great example. The pools closed down, which obviously affected my Ironman training. I didn’t sweat it, I knew that the worst-case scenario would be that I start swimming in May/June when the lake water was warm enough. In the meantime, I doubled down on running and biking, so when May/June came around those two activities were “ahead” of schedule I could shift my training to focus more on swimming.
The pandemic didn’t really affect my business, so I don’t have personal experience — but there are countless stories of businesses that had to change their products/services in order to survive (and actually thrived by doing it). Then there were those that weren’t willing to adapt, and those aren’t around anymore — or at least doing as good as before the pandemic.
Make sacrifices
Unfortunately, our time is limited. We can’t do all the things we would like. You have to choose those things that move you in the right direction, and leave out the things that don’t do it. This might be friends, parties, trips, you name it.
The hardest thing is getting started
But when you have started and gained momentum, it gets a lot easier.
