To become successful, you don’t need to have the best resources, you need to be the most resourceful you can be. What you believe in, what you value, and who you are will push you to success.
Being part of a team and being a highly effective leader, you have a responsibility to keep improving. Being the best on the team is not what is important. The most important thing is to work on yourself every day, and to help your teammates to do the same.
Your team are relying on you to keep working on yourself. They are relying on you to help them. They are relying on you to NOT QUIT. Keep striving to reach the next level and even further, and keep striving for your team to reach the next level and even further. DO NOT QUIT.
1. Who Do You Compare Yourself With?
At this moment in time, you and I have still not reached anywhere near close to our full potential. Your teammates have not reached anywhere near their full potential either. We all still have a long way to go to reach this level, so it is so important that we persevere and don’t get disheartened and quit.
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Try not to think of your teammates, or others within your organisation and industry as competition. People who are not at the same level as you are not your competition. People are around the same level as you are not your competition.
People who are ahead, and even way ahead of you are not your competition either. There is only one person who is your competition: YOU.
You are the only person you should be in competition with.
Highly effective leaders are only in competition with themselves. They compare themselves to the person they were yesterday, and so should you. They reflect on the person they are today, and so should you.
They compare themselves and look forward to the person they are capable of becoming tomorrow, and so should you. If becoming a highly effective leader is a commitment, then you are the only competition you will ever have. So, do not quit on yourself.
By working on yourself every day to become better will keep you fully aware of how you are doing, especially when comparing yourself to the person you were yesterday.
If you don’t work on yourself every day, then you have no comparison because you will still be in the same position. For example, I read leadership books, or self-development books every day, mainly to improve my character.
I do this to expand my knowledge and make myself better than yesterday, so the comparison is obvious and I can be honest with myself.
Working on myself every day also gives me the knowledge of how far I have come in a certain amount of time, and how far is left for me to come close to my potential. This is part of reflecting on who and where you are in the present day.
When thinking about and comparing yourself to the person who you want to and could become tomorrow, when you eventually reach your potential can sometimes be difficult.
However, it is absolutely necessary to make this comparison. You will realise how far you have left to go to reach your full potential, and how much you need to improve. You will give yourself a reality check that we all need to have, and again be honest with ourselves.
When you are making these comparisons, make a promise to yourself. The promise is to not let failure, or the fear of failure to pull you backwards, or worse…quit. Instead use failure as a way to learn from any mistakes you made yesterday, or today.
2. How Do You See Failure?
When people talk about failure, they are not actually referring to failure as final, they are referring to learning something new about themselves or someone else. In your case you will be learning about yourself.
When you are learning to drive, during the lessons your instructor doesn’t say you are failing to drive when you make a mistake. No, he/she tells you that you will learn from that mistake. We should be exactly the same way with ourselves when we make any mistakes. We are not failing, we are learning.
This trait is also an excellent trait to teach your teammates to make the same promise and commitment to themselves. The learning to drive analogy works well too because most will not give up on their driving as they want to pass their test and buy their own car.
We must not give up on ourselves when working on ourselves every day and becoming highly effective leaders.
When you or your team are starting something new, it is essential that you must get comfortable with making mistakes. If you don’t make mistakes at the beginning then you are not going to learn, or figure out how to do things better.
Some people call mistakes failures, and some people call mistakes… mistakes. It is up to you what you call yours, but the point is that we need to use our mistakes in a positive way to move forward.
The most successful people and the most successful teams in the world have made many, many, many mistakes. The difference between them and the unsuccessful ones is how they learned from those mistakes, and then took action to move forward.
A highly effective leader has made lots of mistakes too on their journey, and they know how to be comfortable with making them, and then learn from them. Mistakes will never make a highly effective leader to give up on themselves, or their team.
3. Striving Towards Your Potential
As you strive towards reaching your own potential, and as you strive towards helping the team reach theirs, you must do it with high intensity. By keeping the high intensity up, it will energise you and the team, and your willingness to succeed will ever increase.
Whatever influence you have on yourself and your team today, it can always be increased tomorrow. If you think that you are great already, then you can always be greater tomorrow, make no mistake about that.
The question is: Do you have what it takes to increase your influence, become a highly effective leader, and strive to reach your full potential?
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If you are then you must work on yourself every day and not give up on yourself. Your full potential is in the distance, but it can be reached. However, it cannot be reached if you only work on yourself once a week, or even three times a week. It can only be reached if you commit to working on yourself every day.
You can only become a highly effective leader if you work on yourself with high intensity. You can only become a highly effective leader if you help others to work on themselves every day too, and strive to reach their full potential.
You can only become a highly effective leader if you remain positive, and work to improve your character every single day. You can only become a highly effective leader if you commit to becoming a highly effective leader. The only way to become a highly effective leader is: DO NOT QUIT
Quitting on yourself and your team is the easy way out. If you start something, why not work on yourself every day, help others, and make it a success that you can be truly proud of.
I welcome hearing how this post has influenced the way you think, the way you lead, or the results you have achieved because of what you’ve learned in it. Please feel free to share your thoughts with me by commenting below.
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All the best,
Great read! This website has so much information on it and it’s all very informative you don’t want to stop reading it. Great job!
Hi Keri,
Thanks very much for your comment.
So happy that you enjoyed reading my posts. Let me know if you need any help on a specific area of leadership, personal growth, and influence.
All the best,
Tom
Hi Tom,
This is a great article. I totally agree with what you said about the only person we’re in competition with is ourselves. As a dancer it’s so easy for me to get caught in the trap of comparison but I’ll never be like anyone else anyway, so what’s the point in that 😂 all I can do is make sure that I’m becoming a better version of me both in dance and life, than I was yesterday. I definitely agree that there’s times in a leadership capacity where one will want to give it up, but you’re so right, the only way is through. Great article, love your perspective on this 🙂
Hi Natalie,
Thank you so much for your comment.
Really happy that you found the post valuable. Love how you say, the only way is through. It is, even if it’s through a brick wall. With the momentum we build up through getting better each day, we will be able to get through those obstacles and brick walls no problem…..as long as we don’t quit.
Keep working on yourself every day to become a better version of yourself. Compare yourself to yourself, and everything you learn pass on to others.
Especially being a dancer. My niece is 12 and she is part of a dance school in Liverpool, she loves it. I bet she could learn lots from you.
Keep up the great work and thanks again.
All the best,
Tom
Hi Tom,
Thanks for a well-written and motivating article! Sometimes I have situations where I know what to do but I lack the motivation to do it. That’s when it would be just too easy to quit. Another option is to search for motivation from somewhere. Like your post. After reading it, got an instant dose of motivation to work harder on my goals!
Best Regards,
Joonas
Hey Joonas,
Thanks for your comment. I’m so happy that you found motivation from my article.
Quitting cannot be an option for the likes of you and I. We have something to offer people, and we must rise above any feelings that we want to quit. It’s very tough but if we work on developing our character then we will become strong enough to be persistent.
If you need any help with your goals or anything else then please let me know.
All the best,
Tom
Hi Tom
Great article just what I needed to read today as I was experiencing self doubt. Quiting is definitely not an option for me. Its just hard work to stay motivated but I love the challenge because my goal is clear. I will definitely be following your site its really helpful even just on a personal basis. I would like to walk my walk more without comparing myself to others.
Thanks Again
Hey Angee,
Thanks for your comment. Really happy that you found the post valuable.
Quitting should not be an option for all of us, you are absolutely right to think that way.
Having a clear goal is so important, and walking your walk rather than just talking your talk is how to achieve your goals.
Thanks again, and I look forward to further engagement.
All the best,
Tom
This touched in ways i thought was impossible. Thank you so much for sharing. I will read more on the other. Thank you
Hi Rozman,
Thank you for your comment. Really pleased you found it valuable.
Let me know if you need any further help.
All the best,
Tom
You and I share a common philosophy. You must conquer yourself before you can conquer your dreams. Quitting is not an option for me. I am glad that my grandmother taught me how to strive for excellence and never give up. You must accept your failures and learn from them. Keep it up my friend.
Hi Adam,
Thank you for your comment. Really pleased you found the post valuable.
I still have to conquer myself every day. Leadership is not about you but it does start with you. Your grandmother sounds like an amazing person, you were very lucky to have her in your life.
I was the same with my mother.
Thanks again and keep engaging.
All the best,
Tom
Mistakes and failures are inevitable, we all have them. There are many things in this world we cannot control but we can control our reaction to them. What did Thomas Edison say when confronted with his own mistakes and failures? I haven’t failed — I’ve just found 10,000 that won’t work.
Hi Anne,
Great analogy about Thomas Edison. He is definitely an advocate of not giving up, and persevering through something.
Thanks for your comment and please do return and keep engaging.
All the best,
Tom
Nice title. I answered in my head “NO” but it kept me reading. I wanted to know more of what this is about. I thought this post was inspirational and motivational in many ways. Starting next week im going to the gym daily. Maybe article can keep me going.
Hi Dedrick,
Thank you for your comment. I am so pleased that you found the post inspirational.
Let me know how you get on in the gym and if reading my articles has helped you.
You have motivated me to keep going because I want to help more people like you to do the same.
Thank you for that and keep coming back and engaging.
All the best,
Tom
Read your article, and I believe I’m not a quitter, This is a great read, and I appreciate your sharing it with someone like me.
Hi Elizabeth,
Thank you for your comment.
Really appreciate your kind words, and I too believe you are not a quitter.
Please come back and keep engaging. There are a lot more articles to come.
All the best,
Tom