Starting down the path to success is simple.

To be successful at anything, you must commit.

But committing to anything means you make a transition.

When you commit, you transition from someone who dabbles to someone who goes all in; from someone who quits when things break to someone who takes it all the way; from someone who lets the claustrophobia of determination keep them from pursuing something worthwhile, to someone willing to face the loneliness of creation without hesitation.

When you commit, you make the transition from Hobbyist to Professional.

This transition changes everything.

From Hobbyist to Professional

Transitioning from Hobbyist to Professional changes your priorities.

When you finally take yourself and your work seriously enough to sell your product, you will find that things in your life start to prioritize themselves organically.

The things you thought were important - like watching the news or knowing pop culture trivia - fade to the background and become superfluous.

The things you had initially avoided as unnecessary discomforts – waking up early, writing every day, or never ending the day without a sale – become your lifeblood.

Transitioning from Hobbyist to Professional not only alters your priorities, it forces you to identify your focus.

In order to instigate (start, finish, and ship) successfully, you will need to focus entirely on one end-state, and this end-state will require all your time, energy and creativity to bring to fruition; it requires everything you've got.

To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls. Not to act upon that ambition is to turn our backs on ourselves and on the reason for our existence. [Turning Pro]

Becoming a Professional is no joke.

Closing Doors

Nothing great is created by half-hearted commitment, lack of follow through, or someone unwilling to take it all the way.

The Professional understands this and acts accordingly.

Success requires commitment and only the Professional, not the Hobbyist, is ready to take on the pain, heartache and seriousness of commitment.

Committing itself is simple: all you have to do is choose one end-state and make sure you get there (no matter what).

The difficult part of commitment isn’t the focusing on one end-state, nor the grit it takes to bring that end-state into existence (although that requires something special too); the difficult part is what focusing on one end-state means for everything else in your life.

Commitment means purposefully ignoring other end-states, other projects, and other courses of action.

Commitment to anything (a healthier lifestyle, a new project, your life’s work) means you discriminate; that you choose one goal over another.

Commitment means you close doors; that the only door you leave open is the one that leads to your chosen goal.

Wishing never solved the problem. If you wanna get it big time, go ahead and get it, get it big time. [Yeasayer]

Limiting Your Options

When we commit, we inevitably lose out on other paths, other ambitions, and other goals.

Sometimes it even means losing out on the people closest to us.

To do that willingly is tough.  It’s scary.  It's madness.

There’s nothing easy about commitment, which is exactly why most people don’t commit and instead “keep their options open” into eternity…

But here’s the catch: We think keeping our options open gives us safety, or power, or certainty.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

The only way to guarantee failure is to never close any doors at all.

All you have to do to make sure you never build your empire, or develop that healthy lifestyle, or create your life’s work, is to keep all your options open, to never close yourself off to anything, and to stay available ad infinitum; to seek and scan for success, but never focus to bring it into existence.

Closing doors is scary; you might choose the wrong one, miss a great opportunity, or regret the choice you make.

Close a door and something bad might happen.

You might fail.

Keeping all your doors open is comforting; you never have to live with the pain of second-guessing your choice, the regret of choosing wrong, or the responsibility of creating your life's work.

Keep all your doors open and nothing will happen.

You're guaranteed to fail.

There is no scarcity of opportunity…only scarcity of resolve to make it happen. [Wayne W. Dyer]

The choice is yours.

When the choice is to lose an hour of sleep or finish that proposal for a new client, what do you choose?

We all understand crunch time - refocusing and re-energizing our work to meet a deadline.

But let's say there is no deadline - that the only deadline is your life expectancy.  Could be tomorrow, could be 70 years from now.  When will you start on what matters most?

"You might well remember that nothing can bring you success but yourself."

Napolean Hill

Can you sacrifice an extra hour of sleep in the morning to wake up early to create?

Can you wake up before a full day of work at the robot factory and spend 5 minutes on your most important task of the day?  What about 60 minutes?

I've heard one idea repeated over and over by renowned businessmen and women, writers, artists, entrepreneurs, leaders, and all around instigators.  The idea is so simple it’s almost underwhelming, but, when implemented, it has the power to build empires.

The idea is this: wake up early and focus on your most important work first.

Earl Nightingale encouraged waking up early to reflect - it's the only time of the day to achieve true quiet.

Brian Tracy explains that all successful people wake up just a little bit earlier than other people to start the important work for the day.

Seth Godin, before he does anything else, writes (and has thousands of blog posts and 13+ award winning books to show for it).

Ford woke up early and invented the model-T.

Edison woke up early and invented the light bulb.

Steven Pressfield wrote three books on the topic of doing the work, day in and day out, no matter what.

The list of examples could go on for pages.

So how much is that extra hour of sleep worth to you?  You're tired, so why not sleep to the last possible minute before you MUST get up and go to work...

After all, we've trained ourselves to procrastinate, haven't we?  To not act until right before the deadline?

Here's the thing: the deadline you’re waiting for before you take action – it will never come.

Nobody will ever tell you when your important work is due.  Nobody will set a deadline for you.

So when you eventually reach your final deadline, will you be left with something to show for it, or will you be one of those people who always wanted to travel around the world, or always wanted to write that novel, or always wanted to start that project that would change everything?

Life is short.  You don't know how short.  Don’t be an always wanted to person.  Act as if the deadline is tonight.

Instigate before it’s too late.

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