How to understand where your success is leaking

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Identify and close the gap that prevents you from achieving heights in your business.

A person usually has some skills at a professional level. As a rule, they are associated with work or a hobby that we have specially mastered. But otherwise, we're just amateurs. We succeed in doing something, but we make mistakes that a professional would never make. For example, you cook some dishes well, but you are far from the chef.

Entrepreneur David Cain explained why it's not so bad. It turns out that amateurs have a big advantage. This thought was prompted by Simon Rameau's book Extraordinary Tennis For The Ordinary Player. Rameau was an avid fan of the sport. He tried to figure out what makes some players better than others. As a result, he deduced a pattern between efficiency and professionalism.

Rameau noted that the pros don't just play better than the amateurs. They win in a completely different way. When two professionals compete, the slightest advantage of one of the players decides everything - in speed, attentiveness, or another carefully trained skill. Among amateurs, the winner is the one who makes the least blunders.

It takes a long and difficult journey to become a professional. The coach notices and corrects technical deficiencies. Players who make significant mistakes are eliminated in the process. Amateurs do not pass this selection, so they continue to make mistakes.

Identify and eradicate gross amateur mistakes in your actions one by one.

This is more effective than developing speed, strength, or occasionally making a successful throw. This principle applies not only to sports. There are classic mistakes in any area:

• Savings: buying lunch, not taking food from home; tighten the belt without keeping track of expenses.
• Meditation: attempts to muffle thoughts, meditate only in a good mood.
• Productivity at work: keep notifications on; switch to another matter when faced with difficulties.

If you keep repeating the same mistake, you will not achieve good results, even if you do everything else correctly. Each such mistake is a kind of hole through which your success seeps. If the hole is large or there are several of them, you will not advance beyond the amateur level.

Imagine that you are filling a bathtub, but it happens very slowly: while you are fixing the faucet, water flows out through the hole. By eliminating such a leak, you will noticeably improve your results.

Amateur mistakes usually come in two flavors: those you notice but don't think are important, and those you don't even know about. In any case, they are practically invisible until you stumble upon the correct method or someone points out your mistake.

Remember where you are stuck. Think about what mistake a professional would definitely not make. If you can't figure it out on your own, ask someone who has been doing what you are struggling with for a long time.