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To be successful in your career, motivational speaker and trainer Grant Cardone says you need to take the right amount of action. There are four degrees of action you can take, and most people fail, he argues, because they operate at the wrong level. He outlines the possibilities in his book, The 10X Rule:
First degree of action: Do nothing
Some people stop learning, achieving, or seeking control over important areas of their life. They are bored, lethargic or lack purpose. They still have to expend time and energy, but they do so justifying their situation.
Second degree: Retreat
Retreaters probably fear success. So they take action in reverse, to avoid the negative experiences they fear will occur if they plunge ahead.
"Retreaters claim to be doing so ... to avoid more rejection and/or failures; it is almost never the actual rejection or failure that has impacted them. More often than not, it's their impression and evaluation of what failing and rejection mean that is causing them to retreat," Mr. Cardone writes.
As with doing nothing, this is not effortless. It requires effort and hard work. He says justifiers will "spend as much energy justifying their decision to retreat as the most successful person will in creating success."
Beware, however: Retreating is not something that only others do and you always avoid. He suggests there are probably realms in your life in which you retreat because you have decided you can no longer advance and improve.
Third degree: Take normal levels of action
This is our normal behaviour - and Mr. Cardone considers it the most dangerous approach, because it is considered acceptable. But it will make you average and blend in, rather than help you to excel and stand out.
Is average good enough for you?
"Companies call me constantly to help the lower performers in their organization, yet they are overlooking the average and even top performers who are still only taking average actions," he declares.
Fourth degree: Massive action
When we were kids, it was natural to be in constant, massive action. "Until adults started telling me otherwise, I didn't know anything other than massive action," Mr. Cardone notes.
Returning to that zestful mentality means committing to what he calls the "10X rule" - setting targets that are 10 times what you think you want and then doing 10 times what you think it will take to accomplish those targets. You don't do what others do. You do what they won't do, even the unreasonable, to achieve greater success.
Such an approach will create problems, but with those problems come opportunities.
"No one is going to come to your house and make your dreams come true. No one is going to march into your company and make your products known to the world. In order to stand out from the crowd - and for customers to even consider your products, services, and organization - you must take massive action," he insists.
Harvey Schachter