Ways of Being that Bring Success

Take Ownership, Build Credibility, Go Pro

Image by Earl Wilcox from Unsplash

People love to chase hacks.

We search for the silver bullet that will unlock big success with minimal effort. The truth is, no such shortcut exists.

The most powerful principles for personal and professional achievement aren’t sexy, aren’t complicated, and they are not hacks. The principles of fulfilling, sustained success are simple, and demand a fundamental shift in how you and I operate in the world.

Ways of Being That Make a Difference

There are three ways-of-being maxims to live by that have outsized effect on personal and professional success: Ownership, Credibility, and Turning Pro. These aren’t just feel-good concepts. They are the foundation and the day-to-day upon which meaningful achievement is built.

Ownership

OWNERSHIP is Accountability. It’s a mindset and a way of operating. You are responsible for your thoughts, words, attitude, actions — all of it. Ownership is the realization that you are the architect, that YOU are the Driver. Your character, mind, and attitude are yours and yours alone.

Retooling requires that moving forward, you regard yourself as the Executive that you are, the driver of you, who decides. It requires that you think of yourself as a brand and enterprise. You are an Enterprise. You are a BRAND, and you are the Chief Executive of both. YOU are driving and responsible for the Brand, Enterprise and person that is you.

Positioning in this way is liberating. It’s a game-changer because it places power that has always been yours squarely in your hands. You don’t control everything, but you always control how you frame things and how you respond. Ownership reminds that you are the protagonist of your story.

Credibility

CREDIBILITY is closely related to Ownership. Credibility is about doing what you say you’ll do. It’s about keeping your promises, first to yourself and then to others. You have to build credibility with yourself before you can do so with anyone else. You build credibility with Self by making simple promises to yourself, showing up, and following through on them.

When you consistently honor your word to yourself and others, you develop a muscle, a reliability muscle that will extend to every relationship, to every professional engagement, to every interaction. People begin to count on you not because of grand gestures, but because of the quiet consistency of your follow-through and character.

Turning Pro

TURNING PRO is about showing up day in and day out even if, even though, even when, independent of mood or motivation, to do work that matters.

Author Shawn Coyne notes that Turning Pro is free (all you have to do is change your mind) but not easy and not without cost. When we turn pro, we give up a life with which we’ve become comfortable.

Coyne describes Turning Pro as passing through a membrane. The passage is messy. It’s painful. It demands sacrifice. What you’ll likely find however when comparing life before Turning Pro and after is this: After is BETTER.

Mood fluctuates like the weather, but professionals operate independent of circumstance. Pros understand that excellence is built through repetition, discipline, and the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other determination to perform when it’s inconvenient, uncomfortable, even if, even though, even when.

Image by Effy via Unsplash

Ownership, Credibility and Turning Pro denote Ways of Being. They encapsulate principles that work in concert to support our success.

Ownership connects us to Agency. We act upon — we call the shots.

Credibility builds trust, first with self — then with others.

Turning Pro is about growing up in terms of mindset and responsibility. Rather than waiting for inspiration, permission, or ideal circumstances, you show up and do work that matters consistently.

Amateurs dream about what they’ll do someday.

Pros deal in Process — not excuses, and they deal with Resistance head-on.

The Professional subscribes to deliberateness and discipline, not self-sabotage, not avoidance, not drama.

In essence, all three principles and Going Pro in particular, involve Identity shift — claiming a new self-concept: I am Responsible. I follow-through. I am a professional. This is what I do. Pros build habits and stick to them in the face of boredom or whether or not they feel like it.

Turning Pro is leaving behind the wishful, half-committed parts of ourselves and stepping into maturity, into ownership, into consistency — the qualities that make someone a professional in their craft, vocation and life.

Ready to take the plunge? You’ve got all you need right now to take Ownership. You’ve got what you need to build Credibility with self by making simple promises and keeping them, and you’ve got all you need to Turn Pro. Click HERE to be in touch with your questions and updates friends. Let’s get to it - let’s go.