Enduring The Road To Success: Keeping Your Feet On The Ground

Image courtesy of Gajanan Adalinge

Last week was the first installment of this ‘Enduring The Road To Success’ series.  I am going through the common stages that we encounter as we seek to reach new heights of success in our lives.  As a guide to the process, I am pulling from my experience as a self employed computer consultant.  Through the ups and downs of my journey to build my business I’ve encountered many situations that I will share with you as we walk this road together.

If anyone needs to see numbers to backup the notion that our society has a tendency to ‘over shoot’, all they have to do is check out the daily headlines.  Sure, our economy’s woes are incredibly complex and created by multiple factors, but the overwhelming number of businesses and individuals who went overboard while the bubble was inflating is staggering.  A few years ago, things were moving so quickly that if you were a real estate agent you would have thought retirement at 40 was nothing less than a certainty.  As a result, many got a little too aggressive and much too confident.

This brings me to the next obstacle on our journey.  We’ve just pushed past the first valley and have started to increase in elevation as we make our way back to the peaks of progress.  Only this time, it’s not just adrenaline, but informed optimism that is fanning our flames.  Now we grow confident as we feel the first true sensations of success.  But just as the valleys threaten our voyage, so too does this exciting new hill bring danger to our designated destination.

The confidently climbing computer consultant.

About 4 and a half years ago I was climbing with just this kind of confidence.  I’d learned much from my ‘first valley’ experience and was excited to continue moving forward with a more educated engagement.  The money was just starting to flow with more consistency as my name began to establish itself among the local community.  The more clients I encountered, the more efficient and effective I became.  I was really starting to get the hang of the whole thing.

But fairly quickly I started making my first ‘post valley’ mistakes.  For one, I was spending money with the perspective that things were always going to flow with ferocity.  This not only kept my financial buffer quite thin, but it began building bad habits.  Secondly, my imagination started taking over my goal setting as my immature success made me feel amazingly invincible.  Just like a good run can boost your endorphins, so too can a mountain ascent bring on floods of feel good hormones.  As we start to see the world once again, perched on our high mountain peak, loss of perspective finds its way back.

And if that weren’t already a plate of potential mishaps, I went one step further as I found myself lightning my load of self taught technical training.  As a computer consultant it is absolutely crucial that you stay ahead of the curve with the latest technology trends.  The last thing you want to do is fail your client by falling short.  So constant intellectual updates are a must.  But with everything going so well, I started to become complacent in my computer curiosity.

The danger of the self induced valley.

It’s one thing to find yourself in the lowlands because of uncontrollable circumstances, but all too often it is the result of confident complacency that gets us into trouble.  As I just mentioned, over confidence in my misdiagnosed maturity was weakening the very wheels I had ridden to win the first race. I had done what many tend to do, as I disregarded the very same growth that had helped gain my positive progress.  I had found a formula that worked and then depleted the dose as if my recent increase in elevation would take it from there.  I joined the ranks of so many who frequent the valley as if it were their second home, as I started to see my ascent turn downward.

One unique characteristic about this particular path is that it moves with momentum.  Once you start your decent, just like a train slamming on it’s breaks, you can only sit and watch as you skid down the surface of the mountain.  As I started to run into those unforeseen slow times, I wasn’t prepared to properly proceed with the pursuit.  My finances were depleted, my daily habits, set for a sustained success that wasn’t currently accessible and my technical skills were starting to rust.  This wasn’t an on/off switch situation.  It was in those moments that I not only realized my mistakes, but had to accept a foreseeable future of a valley voyage.  I knew it would now take some time to repair the damage, learn from my recent over reaction and start the upward climb I so desired.  It was in this second valley that I was once again faced with a split in the path.  There were two arrows pointing opposite of the other, one promoting progress while the other pointed perilously to a path that provided a quick and easy escape from the pains of my previous elevation.

5 Tips to help you keep your feet on the ground as your progress continues to push upward.

So I’ve presented you with some images of over extension and under estimation that help reveal my inability to stay grounded when things were looking up.  It was this lack of personal gravity that pulled me up and then pulled the rug right out from under my shaky foundation.   But it wasn’t all for not, as I came away with a few notions of new knowledge that would help me not only regain my footing, but maintain longevity in the higher altitudes ahead.  So here are some tips that I would like to share with any who find their ability to maintain a positive momentum to be minuscule at best.

1. Continue with the formula that works. If I could give you only one piece of advice concerning sustained success it would be this very point.  It may be a simple step, but easy it is not.  The low points on the journey make it hard to maintain motion, while it is the peaks that leave us light headed and overly optimistic.  So it is absolutely crucial that you not only find this righteous routine, but that you run with it regardless of your current elevation.
2. Be frugal whenever possible. With anything in life, money is often the ultimate voice of progress.  It speaks to us in reward as well as recourse.  But it is what we do with these multidirectional decibels that determines our destination.  The saying may be true that it takes money to make money, but I would suggest with certainty that much of our spending does not come in the form of progress.  It is especially crucial during these high points in the journey that we take advantage of this successful surge.  Because the buffer we are building will become our life raft when inevitability finds its way back once more.
3. When viewing from a peak, take your vision and dial it back. (Translation: Don’t let yourself get overly confident.)  I made the mistake of riding my new found success right back down the mountain.  As my elevation started to increase, the view seemed to become more beautiful with every upward turn.  But it wasn’t just the situation that was changing.  My ability to see the fine details of my journey were becoming obscured as well.  And with this diluted determination, I was much more prone to make mistakes as I calculated my course.  This is why it’s absolutely imperative that you base your decisions on the previous steps of success instead of the hypnotic hype that the hills tend to harbor.
4. Avoid complacency at all costs! As I mentioned, it was during this particular ascent that I began to let off the throttle of sustaining my skill set.  But I would urge you to avoid this immature act and always be at your best.  The fact is, there are many who are competing to maintain footing on this very path that you pursue, and it will be those who keep their focus fixed on their foundation that will make the most headway.  So always stay sharp while maneuvering your way up and down these monumental mountains.
5. Plan for the next valley. As I stated in a previous paragraph, some of the valleys we face are an inevitability.  So it’s just as as important that we plan for the next descent as it is to pursue our upward progress.  Following the steps I just laid out will benefit this future battle plan, but we also need to prepare our minds as the adrenaline will certainly stop pushing our forward potential.  The best example I can think of when describing this process is with the cycles of blogging.  Monday starts off strong with emails and comments and traffic, OH MY!  Then continues the motion of this joyous momentum as the week goes on.  But as the weekend starts finding its way closer to the current moment, we see a significant lull in the action.  It is during these times that, if unexpected, may be perceived as a negative reflection of our Internet offerings.  But for those who are aware of the cycle and therefore prepared for the minuscule motion of the two days before Monday, it is just another weekend, a ‘mini valley’ so to speak.  So whether or not you blog, and therefore grasp this grossly simplified concept, it is absolutely crucial for your perspectives to be prepared for all that lies ahead.

Please join us next week as we continue down this road of excitement and uncertainty.  Now that we have covered the two points of extreme positions, we will move onto the dangerous ‘middle ground’ as we touch on the temptations of distraction while facing boredom.