Waiting For Your Big Break is The Worst Way to Succeed
By: Thomas Oppong
Tags: Work, Productivity, Self, Creativity

Waiting For Your Big Break is The Worst Way to Succeed

Waiting to be discovered or handpicked is holding you back

Most people are waiting for a big break — the day, week, month or year everything falls into place. They live with the stubborn illusion that one day they will make it big without embracing the real work.

It’s the worst way to live or aim for success. Waiting for the next big break in your career is probably holding you back.

The best way to succeed is to embrace the work ahead and proactively plan the steps and actions you need to get closer to the life you want.

Napoleon Hill once said, “Do not wait: the time will never be ‘just right’. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along.”

Consistent steps beat one giant leap

Success is the result of consistent actions and small wins. Even when someone looks like an overnight success, there’s always a lot of work behind them.

Stop waiting for permission or approval. The longer you wait, the more deeply embedded you get in your current lifestyle. Your habits solidify. Your beliefs harden. You get comfortable and lazy.

“There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction, ” says John F. Kennedy.

Waiting for anything outside of yourself to validate your art, your dream, your talent, or your worthiness is an illusion that will leave you empty.

“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it,” says Jordan Belfort.

Once you acknowledge this, you will embrace the action habit and you will do everything in your power every day to get closer to your goals or dreams.

There is never a perfect time for you to launch that side project, to write a book, change your habit, or embrace a new habit. There is no ideal time to do anything you care about. So do it now.

“We often avoid taking action because we think “I need to learn more,” but the best way to learn is often by taking action, says James Clear, author of Atomic Habits.

The results of action is an incredible feedback loop you can use to get better, improve, make smarter decisions and do more of what works.

You can only get better at anything with experience. And you can only gather experience if you stop waiting for a big break to change your life.

The 100th post as a writer will better than the 1st. Taking action accelerates progress better than waiting to be chosen.

More action = more feedback = ability to make real progress faster.

When you take your work and consistent action seriously right from the beginning, you will be ready for every opportunity in the future.

“Opportunities come — either by putting ourselves in the right place at the right time or simply by sticking around long enough. But good opportunities lead to great work when we make the most of them,” says Jeff Goins.

Many people are so busy scanning for big opportunities that they don’t start tackling the small actions that would add up to huge accomplishments. Everything takes practice. The more you work at it, the more opportunities you get to do your best work.

If you are serious about success, stop waiting to be discovered. Get started with small but consistent actions. Those steps will eventually get you somewhere awesome. Don’t wait for something good to happen to you.

Don’t waste your productive energy on getting “discovered” or “handpicked.” The only thing that’s guaranteed is the work — focusing on that will get you closer to breakthroughs.

Choose yourself, share your authentic work with the world, keep building your audience, take control of your career, and make good things happen for you. The long road to “success” is not a giant leap.

And always remember, the lessons, connections, strength, and confidence you acquire through incremental growth are what make the journey worthwhile.

Your job is to show up every day and work consistently and good enough that it’s worth noticing, sharing and recommending. Great things grow over time like a healthy financial portfolio. Give it time and compounding will take effect. Don’t wait for your big break.