You can’t microwave success. Since I began to provide guidance and education a few years ago to women all over the country aspiring to build their own personal blogs, brands and businesses, there has been so much speculation around the timeline it takes to breed results. In August, I launched a mentorship program that now has almost 400 members. What I immediately noticed the first month was that the women who felt things weren’t happening fast enough for them left the group shortly after joining.
Make no mistake, with the right information, success will likely happen much quicker for you than it will for someone else. For bloggers and Influencers specifically, opportunities are happening for them much earlier than they did when I first started. But undoubtedly, there’s a bit of audacity that dances around our frustrations of why we haven’t seen results from something we’ve been doing for what we feel like is long enough. Why is it that we feel entitled to instant gratification? Feeling entitled to rewards we have not yet earned?
What People Think Success Requires –
- An idea
- An LLC
- Pretty pictures
- A ton of support, especially from your friends and family
- Brand deals that find you quickly
- A process that gets easier and easier everyday
What Success Really Requires –
- Hustle
- Execution
- Discipline
- Ambition
- Sacrifice
- Patience
- Failure
- Focus
- Rerouting
- Trial + Error
Success is made in the slow cooker. It is not a microwave meal. Quit being impatient with something that takes EVERYONE time to do. Overnight success is not a thing. It may go quicker for some and slower for others, but it is never overnight. Even for those who magically go viral or become connected to someone with a huge following so that it seeps over onto theirs… what they have to do once that moment is gone is scatter to keep up because they weren’t prepared for the momentum required to maintain what they weren’t prepared to.
If you’re not familiar with the 10,000 hour rule, it’s a rule broken down by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers that supports the idea that 10,000 hours of dedication is the magic number required for you to become an expert. Ten thousand. Even if you worked 24 hours a day, every day, for an entire year – you’d still only be at 8760 hours.
I’ve been talking about success for a long time and am just now seeing real fruit from it. How much time have you spent slow cooking? Are you frequently taste testing your sauce and tweaking your recipe to get it just right? Or are you trying to follow someone else’s recipe but the flavor isn’t quite there? This year, give yourself time to perfect your recipe.
First of all, I’m so glad you’re giving us a blog post! Not to mention, its a GOOD one. I was just telling my husband how frustrated I’m becoming because I’m not growing as fast as I thought. RELAX he said -you’re doing great just keep working it won’t come overnight. Honestly, I haven’t spent much time in the slow cooker…! However, I am definitely tasting and tweaking my sauce along the way. This post is just a reminder that if I stay focused, and stay the course success will come. The journey may be tough but I also have to remind myself that what God has for me is already mine. Claiming victory and success!
Love this so much!
I love this. I just launched a new business that I spent almost a year developing behind the scenes including branding workshops, polling my targeted audience, etc. I spend so much time stressing that I wasn’t working fast enough and thinking to myself who takes a year to launch a business? I compared myself to people that seemed to just spit out ideas left and right. While the power to those people that can do that, it wasn’t helpful to compare me to them as I’m slower and more calculated thinking. Even then I suspect the success I’ll experience with my new business with take time to nurture and foster. Thanks for the reminder that it’s ok to put this in the slow cooker and failure might be part of the process.
I love and truly appreciate your wise words on success! Courtney you’re a light in many women lives close and afar.
Success isn’t rushed and I’m learning that now now than ever. I’ve been told it many of times but I felt like I should’ve been on a different timeline like those I see on my Instagram or Twitter account everyday.
However, I’m content that I will gain the necessary skills, the right information, and let God lead me to my park of success and happiness.