How do you become successful?

[WhyMrsRobinson]

I seem to have a few old mates, aquaintances who have become massively successful at their chosen careers. I took a wrong turn and lost the plot when I had kids, and it’s taken me a ridiculously long time to get some semblance of confidence back. I want to set up a business but struggle daily with focus and lack of self belief and housework and listening to various ancient relatives and Dh gong on.
How do I get focussed/ get going/ make progress? How do I get the mindset that successful people have? What even is it?
I feel like I’m pushing a massive moving cloud of stuff, and it’s just reforming around me.im just getting nowhere.
Tips very very welcome!

It's okay to not believe in your self. You don't need to believe you'll be successful. The most important part in being successful is just effort. You just need to put the work in every day. If you do that and when you start seeing success the belief will come. It's okay to doubt yourself the important is to just get on with it anyway.

If you get so hung up on focus and mindset.. you'll just forever find excuses and reasons to not start doing things. You just need to start working on it regardless how you feel.

If you wait for focus / mindset/ motivation to arrive in order to get started, you'll find it very jard to start.
Start by behaving differently, in small ways.
E.g. if you have trouble putting your own needs before other adults' needs (I'm sensing that ypu do!) then start saying "no" once a day. So to dh or rellys - I've got x to do right now, how about you tell me later.
Then try and say "no" more often.
But at least once a day.
Also carve out 30 minutes once a day that is YOUR time, not to be disturbed, for you to use gor whatever. Planning, thinking, resting, reading, but yours.
I've made the kind of changes your talking about, i got some good ideas from the book"tiny habits".

*hard

I agree with the above about starting with behaviour/actions and not mindset. One of the best bits of advice I read was
"To create change you just have to start acting in ways that create more of what you want."
So what's the next (small) step you can take OP?

What's the business op? What stage in setting it up are you? Could it be that it's very preliminary stages and the thought of how to get from here to there is overwhelming? Do you have a business plan?

Just from reading your op it feels like focus is lacking maybe because you've not crystallised yet exactly what to focus on?

Start by defining what “being successful”
looks like to you personally, and go from there. One person’s success is not the same as another’s, and if you constantly compare yourself to others in this regard you’ll never feel successful.

When you have your own version of success defined it will be so much easier to find the motivation to get started.

I respond very well to deadlines and schedules- if i have all the time un the world i get bugger all done. (And I'm in mid- senior position, not a teenager). I make myself focus by committing to a hard deadline, to my boss/ coworkers i still procrastinate, but my focus magically improves just in time to get it done. Worth trying perhaps.

Read some books to get you in the right mindset - there are so many wonderful books out there about achieving personal and professional success.

@Doorhandleghost

Start by defining what “being successful” looks like to you personally, and go from there. One person’s success is not the same as another’s, and if you constantly compare yourself to others in this regard you’ll never feel successful.

When you have your own version of success defined it will be so much easier to find the motivation to get started.

Absolutely agree with this.

Career wise I’m successful but my personal life… I would look at you married with kids & think of you as successful. Funny eh?

I want to set up a business but struggle daily with focus and lack of self belief and housework and listening to various ancient relatives and Dh going on.

When is your work time? Why are your husband and relatives interrupting it? Lock yourself away or go to a cafe and switch your phone off for an hour or make a plan of what you need to do, divided into hour long blocks of time and just get started.

And housework? Is that all “your job”? If you’ve been a sahp for a while you might be doing it all but to start a business you need to either have the rest of the family fo more, or pay for help, or just do less.

If you are already quite busy with the family and other peoples you cannot add in starting a business without carving out and jealously guarding the time to do it.

I agree about defining success too. My personal life is a lot different to yours but I’ve decided not to see any of it as a failure but rather my journey Yes that cheesy word journey but sod it, it’s true!

You can read all the books but that just wastes the time you could be getting on with the job. Success is about taking every opportunity you are presented with. You will never succeed unless you try. A bit like the lottery, you have to be in it to win it.
I never set out to achieve half the things I have done professionally, but when opportunity presented itself I grasped with both hands. Most people are too content/lazy to be “successful” they do not see the blood, sweat & tears or the immense amount of commitment & sacrifice it requires, they just see the end result and want it handed to them on a plate.
My advice is to stop making excuses and get on with it or accept that you are what you are.
I am now at the other end of the process, having sold my business I am able to live comfortably just doing a couple of days a week but without the stress of running the business. I feel successful not in monetary terms but the fact I could semi retire at 55 before I am too old to enjoy it.

Just to qualify- there is nothing wrong with being content/lazy that’s exactly what I have become since selling my business.

The people around me who I would consider ‘successful’ in their careers love what they do, and have done it for a long time (10-20 years). So, with that being said, you need to find out what your passion is and stick at it and do the hard yards. I am on track but still in the early stages of being successful in my chosen career, but I can tell you, it can be exhausting, stressful, I miss out on a lot of social things and I can’t go on holiday for more then 4-5 days. I love it, but I pay a price for it!

Imagine your business is succesful, what hours would you expect to work? Well set those hours apart now as your working day, and let your nearest and dearest know. If disturbed within those hours you say 'Sorry I'm at work til xxx'. Then treat it as a job within those hours. I know it's harder when you're working for yourself. If you have a boss breathing down your neck with deadlines it kind of focuses the mind! So set yourself some deadlines and treat them seriously.

There's no magical ingredient that makes people succesful. Just the determination to work hard and to keep going when the going gets tough / resisting temptations to have a break to do something more fun.

Gosh I love mumsnet, you are so helpful.
I’ve taken your advice and am tucked up in bed ( bliss!) digesting this.
Life certainly is a journey, and not one you can predict that’s for sure.
You are right, feel the fear and do it anyway - there’s lots of reasons to be scared, but I’m realising being scared and not doing it is the scariest of all. Now I just have to use that thought to motivate me.
I hear you saying make a plan, make deadlines, guard your time, 1 hour blocks and keep at it.
And yes, everyone has different ideas odpf success. It is hard not to see how succesful some friends are and not feel a bit of a failure.
GinTonicIce yes that is funny. Hugs to us both!
Well done those of you who have started businesses.
And thank you, For perking me up. I still feel a bit like I’m the only person in the entire world who can’t do this, but am Making A Plan, and reading tiny habits.

It is hard not to see how succesful some friends are and not feel a bit of a failure

I think everyone thinks this way to be honest. Nobody has everything.

People have different versions of what success is

One of my favourite sayings is 'people like to do the things that the enjoy, not the things that they should be doing

I like to be organised, so I have a diary & I write lists of what needs doing & I get them done

I feel happy once the tasks are completed
Then I start the next list
Must do
Would like to do
Can wait until another day, but do if I have time

I do this at work & at home

Good luck

I am great at getting things done within a set deadline too

Thanks DenyDin0Dex.
I am getting better at lists - they are now all in one book, not seperate bits of paper. Am also trying to write a plan for the month, week, day. Which at last, is helping me - it’s so nice to it planned out - but I’m still getting knocked off track.
I’m hideously behind which is scaring me so you’ve helped me realise I
I am going to have to say no to all and every interruption. I thought I could chat to relatives while doing housework, but ive realised it is enough to throw me mentally off track, and I somehow can’t pick up again.
I have no excuses, I have a nice space to work in.the kids can do their own thing more or less. Now it’s Monday again, and I’m beginning to be super anxious I’ll achieve nothing again.
But that’s Not True! Let’s go!

You have to have a goal and drive towards it with determination. My friends joke that my business is my 2nd child. It takes dedication and a genuine love of what you do. When I first started a friend advised me to wake up everyday and say to myself 'how can I make this business a success. What will I do today for my business to get there'. That mindset has really helped. I find that people who are successful in business obviously have a good idea and decent business but more importantly they are super passionate about their business. Its personal to them and their passion for the business is infectious

Most people are too content/lazy to be “successful”

Remember that for many of us, myself included, a contented, lazy, stress-free life IS success.

@DENNYCRANE

Hear hear! Although I do have a burning desire to achieve more … but then I usually get distracted by the telly and realise a decade just passed.

Hear hear! Although I do have a burning desire to achieve more … but then I usually get distracted by the telly and realise a decade just passed.

😂😂😂 so true!