First, Make Sure You Have All Right the Ingredients
When I think about the recipe for success, it reminds me of learning to bake with my mom and grandmothers as a child. I learned from my mother to look at the recipe and ensure that you had all the ingredients before you started. That was a lesson that got reinforced over the years when I would start a baking project only to discover after I had already mixed in some of the ingredients that I was missing one or more of the rest of the ingredients. I learned a few substitutions over the years and made many mid-baking runs to the store to get the missing ingredients. When it came time to teach my kids how to bake, one of the first things I taught them was to ensure that they had all the ingredients before they started.
As a teenager, I learned another important aspect related to the ingredients in a recipe. I loved to make chocolate cake. It was kind of my specialty. One day, as I pulled the layers out of the oven, I noticed they had not risen. When I showed the flat layers to my mother, she asked if I had put in the baking powder. Now, in my mind, I thought baking powder and baking soda were basically the same things. And they are – both are leavening agents. But there are reasons that you use one or the other. There were a few times I just forgot to put in baking soda or baking powder. I laughed and called them brownies, but in truth, they were more like chocolate bricks.
Next, Make Sure You Mix them Correctly
Over the years, I got lazy about how I mixed the ingredients. I often just measured all the ingredients into a single bowl and then mixed them together. While the results were not as bad as my chocolate bricks, they were not consistent. When my daughter attended culinary school, she was adamant about creaming the butter and sugar. I noticed that she creamed it for a greater amount of time than I had ever had. Her cakes turned out far better than the ones I remembered making. She explained the science behind how the cakes were mixed and the importance of doing each step in just the right way. I felt humbled by her expertise. Then I chuckled inwardly as she grabbed the keys and headed to the store to grab the ingredients she realized she was missing.
I’m sharing these stories to illustrate these points: For a recipe to turn out successfully, you must ensure that you have all the correct ingredients. And you must mix the ingredients in the correct way and the correct order, or you may not get the best results. This is as true for the recipe for success as it is for my recipe for chocolate cake. Leave out an ingredient, make a poor substitute, or add them to the mix in the wrong order, and your results may not be what you expect.
Ingredients for the Recipe for Success
The recipe for success has three ingredients: a positive mindset, a worthy goal, and inspired action. From my own experience, I understand that this order matters as well. Success starts with a positive mindset. Next, you mix in a worthy goal. Finally, you will continue to add inspired action until you get the desired results.
The first ingredient, a positive mindset, involves the way you look at success. In last week’s blog, I explored the three aspects of belief: believing that you can be successful, believing that you will be successful, and believing that you deserved to be successful. All three aspects must be present to create the best results. While you might be able to avoid failure without all three aspects of believing that you can, the journey of success will have fewer detours when you have a positive mindset around success.
The second ingredient, a worthy goal, is what you are working toward. Some people mistakenly believe that success only comes when you arrive at the goal. The purpose of the goal is to give our journey a direction, not a destination. I call it the journey of success. Each step of the journey is a part of the success. If your goal is to earn $10,000, it takes earning $1 10,000 times to reach the goal. Each dollar is a part of the success and the first dollar that starts the journey is as important as the last dollar that puts you across the finish line.
The third ingredient, inspired action, is what you do each step of the journey that moves you closer to your goal. The steps in the journey are more than the pieces that make up the goal. The steps that you take to set your business up to earn that first $1 are just as much a part of the success as the money you earn on the way to your goal.
Instructions for Mixing the Recipe for Success
Just like the order of mixing the ingredients for a cake affects the outcome, so does the order of mixing the ingredients for success. Start with mindset. The quality of your mindset will directly affect the quality of your goal and your actions. If you do not believe that you deserve to be successful, for example, you may not choose a goal that makes the journey worthwhile. If you do believe that you can be successful, you may not take the kinds of actions required to move toward your goal.
A Worthy Goal
The worthy goal should be added to the mixture before you take inspired action. When you are not certain where you are heading, the actions you take may be wasted, or at the very least not productive. When the actions involve expending resources, like time, it’s wise to wait until the goal is well-defined.
A worthy goal has three characteristics. The goal should be something you have not done before and that you do not already know how to do. It should also be something that will take you outside of your comfort zone and fill you with awe. Finally, the goal should be something substantial enough to move your heart and inspire you to action.
If you set a goal that you don’t know how to do, how you will know what action to take? The saying, “A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step,” is the response. You may not know any of the other steps to take, but you can figure out the next step to take. Then trust that once you take the next step, the one after it will become clear to you. Some good first steps to take include asking for help or advice, doing some research, and learning about some part of what you want to accomplish.
The Final Results
Where the analogy between the recipe for chocolate cake and the recipe for success falls apart is in the end result. When following the recipe for baking a chocolate cake, you end up with a delicious cake. When following the recipe for success, you don’t end up with a final result. Instead, after all the ingredients are added and mixed together, you begin the journey of success.
I call this the journey OF success because, once you’ve assembled all the ingredients, the best part begins. You start by celebrating that you’ve begun. Then you celebrate each step along the way.
And you will continue to add to the recipe as you go along. As you complete each inspired action step, new ones will appear that will go into the mix and be celebrated. Find another worthy goal? Mix it in and celebrate! Find a better mindset? Mix that in, too. And don’t forget to celebrate that as well.
Ready to get a Rocking New Mindset? Download the free 21-day journal. You will get 21 days of activities and resources to help you get the first ingredient in the recipe for success.
