There are many ways to be successful in your business, your career, your life. The internet is ripe with examples of people achieving tremendous success by doing one thing right and seemingly becoming an overnight success. However, deeming someone an overnight success dismisses the many failures, struggles, or hardships suffered to materialize that success.
With so many business books and articles available, it can feel overwhelming to choose a philosophy to adopt. While some offer a complete solution touting alleged success if followed, these transition from philosophy to dogma and thus include a large time investment with a high price of failure. Use the following general mindset shifts to diminish your cost of implementation and ensure, whether successful or not, that the experience will still be profitable.
Step 1: Push your boundaries
It’s natural to want to avoid frustration and the discomfort that comes with stepping out of your comfort zone. But if you want to advance in your business, career, or life, you have to equate the feeling of frustration with that of learning. When I start to feel too comfortable in my life, I know I haven’t pushed my boundaries lately. And while I don’t enjoy it, in order to see progress, I know I have to feel that uncomfortable frustration. That’s what leads to more money and success.
Step 2: Always learn
While frustration is key to growth, learning something new doesn’t always have to be frustrating. In today’s fast-paced world, if you are not continually learning, you’re likely being left behind. No one wants to be the business owner who hasn’t raised their prices in ten years, or whose office feels like a trip back in time. Perpetual learning keeps your business or career at the front of the pack. This doesn’t have to be formal training. I often conduct tax research I don’t charge for since it provides a focused opportunity to learn and expand my knowledge into a topic I know is relevant to my clients.
Step 3: Be more marketable
As you acquire different skills, it’s important to keep in mind how marketable they are. While you may not want to change businesses or careers, the market can make that decision for you; industries rise and fall constantly—prepare for a shift by being marketable. Market trends can help you identify what is or will be marketable. In my early career and business ownership, I had acquired a lot of valuable skills to lead a small business but few of them were marketable if I wanted to change careers.
Step 4: Learn from mistakes
More than anything else, learning from your mistakes will undoubtedly propel your business forward. It’s equally important not to dwell on your mistakes, which tends to happen when money is involved. Learn to identify sunk costs and disregard them so they don’t hold you back. When you’ve made a mistake, identify it and endeavor to do better. If you happen to be stubborn, like myself and most business owners (also known as having perseverance), you might need to make a mistake more than once to learn from it.
Step 5: Build systems
In business, one method for success is to document your process in order to systematize it and make it more efficient. This can also be applied to building habits, in life or in business, which will allow optimization. I’ve personally realized the value of habits and systems, and thus am reluctant to adapt to a new process unless it contributes to a bigger goal. This mindset also helps avoid knee-jerk reactions to crises by forcing you to evaluate the decision you make as part of a broader framework.
When you own a small business the barriers between business, career, and life are nearly nonexistent which allows you to leverage the knowledge you gain. You have to take it one step at a time or seek the help of professional coaches to help develop a system that works for you. Unfortunately, there isn’t an all-in-one solution for success, even if some programs make that claim. Practice distilling the information you acquire and refining it into a system designed for your business and your life.
This article originally appeared on Forbes