7 Steps to Become Successful Sooner There are no overnight successes, but the process can still be expedited.
By Timothy Sykes Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In this day and age, we tend to want things fast. From weight loss to internet speed to a response to your latest email or text, it's all about instant gratification. This extends to the career sphere, too, where people tend to want to make money and become successful ASAP.
Truthfully, there's no single secret hack that will make you successful overnight. However, there are certain proactive measures you can take in your career that can help you streamline your journey toward success. Try these tips to become successful faster:
1. Set concrete goals.
To become successful faster, you first need a road map for your career. After all, you can't take shortcuts if there's no end point in mind. The definition of success is different for everybody, so it's important to get clear on your personal goals. What do you want to achieve in your career? Be as specific as you can, because it's only when you've defined concrete goals that you can create actionable steps toward them.
Big, lon- term goals help you create a framework for your career. With goals in mind, you can create mini goals that act as achievable milestones. By setting the bar high, you'll always have a source of motivation to work hard, which will help you become successful.
2. Establish a routine, and stick to it.
Most successful people already know this: There's a big benefit to repetition. Routines keep you moving forward and help you to keep growing. For one thing, if you follow a routine, it's much easier to monitor your progress over time.
For another, a routine helps you establish good habits that can advance your career fairly rapidly.
For instance, say your routine is to read publications related to your career path for an hour after dinner every night. If you set aside specific times for specific activities, after a while it will be like muscle memory. With positive routines in place, you often begin to see results quickly.
Related: The Motivating Morning Routines of 4 Successful Sharks
3. Find a mentor.
Many highly successful people have this in common: They had a mentor. A mentor is someone who is on the same career path as you, but further along. From a place of experience, they can offer relevant information and guidance on your chosen career path.
They can also guide you through things like how to avoid potential pitfalls, and how you might approach the next steps of your career. A mentor can often facilitate networking between you and others who can help further your career as well. Having a mentor can benefit you in many ways, and can absolutely help you find success faster than if you had no guidance.
4. Streamline your routine.
What if I told you that you could simplify your life and remove roadblocks that are keeping you from becoming successful by doing less? Positive routines can help you advance in your career faster. But bad habits and time-wasting routines can have the opposite effect. So how do you streamline your routine to remove the bad habits?
First, consider all the things that take up your time that are not helping to further your career. You know, things like checking Twitter every few minutes, or browsing on Amazon while you should be working. Once you've identified these time sponges, work hard to either eradicate them or at least keep them in check. It takes discipline to remove distractions, but you'll be able to focus more, which will get you where you want to go career-wise a whole lot faster.
Related: How to Avoid Time Wasters by Asking the Right Questions Up Front
5. Learn how to say no.
Writer Herbert Bayard Swope mused, "I can't give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: Try to please everybody all the time."
Saying yes is easy and it's gratifying. But if you say yes to too much, it could be sucking you dry. If you're a yes person, you're probably agreeing to take on way too many projects and commitments. Or you're the type of person who agrees readily to things and then flakes out at the last minute. Either way, these tendencies are not doing you any favors in terms of career advancement.
It can be hard to say no, but it is usually better in the long run. It shows integrity, and you won't find yourself wasting time on things that aren't advancing your career.
6. Be smart about money.
It's hard to get ahead when you're constantly playing catch-up or living paycheck to paycheck. If you want to become successful faster, you need to get smart about saving money.
Do yourself a solid and put away some of every paycheck in your savings account. Yes, it might be boring, but a little restraint now can add up to success in the not-too-distant future. Successful people often live below their means. This isn't to be stingy, but because they know that it sometimes takes money to make money, and they want to be prepared.
When you are smart about saving money, you'll be able to grow over time with a safety net. When it comes to making an investment or starting up a business venture, you'll be ready to move quickly and do it without breaking the bank.
Related: 11 Ways To Be Frugal Now So You're Rich Later
7. Learn from your mistakes.
As Truman Capote once wrote, "Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor." The more you venture out of your comfort zone as an entrepreneur, the higher the likelihood you have of making mistakes.
If you want to become successful, you can't let these missteps crush or break you down. Rather than seeing them as the end of the world, can you see them as an opportunity? Ultimately, failures can be our biggest teachers. After all, what feels like failure today could in fact be teaching you a lesson that will help you avoid a much bigger failure in the future.
Focus on progress, not perfection. If you can learn from your mistakes, you'll become stronger and more savvy, and this can help you become successful far faster.
