Do you suffer from Microwave Success Syndrome?
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Recently I put up an ad on GumTree selling my old dyson vacuum cleaner and I manage to find a buyer for it, a nice lady, so I thought.
I met up with the lady, showed her the vacuum cleaner, she was happy, I was happy and we gladly made the exchange.
However in less than one hour, the lady had suffered buyer’s remorse.
She began sending me a barrage of messages on my phone.
Without realising it, in just 15 minutes, I received over 10 messages! What the F? Right?
Unlike most people I am not glued to my phone 24/7 and during that time I was actually cooking dinner.
So this lady thought I was been a bastard, ignoring her messages and just been dodgy because I didn’t text her back straight away.
As soon I saw the messages, I text her back and said sure just bring it back and I will give you your money back.
Honestly did I have to do this? No, especially after reading all the colourful messages that she sent me.
Why did I do this you may ask?
Apart from been a nice guy, I knew “instantly” she was suffering from a very common disease called “Instant Everything Disease”. That poor lady, she was going to be in for a rough ride.
You see, we live in a time of instant messaging, instant money, instant movies, instant noodles and even instant relationships.
And even worse, instant success, I call this “Microwave Success Syndrome”.
I too suffered with this for a long time in my entrepreneur journey.
Instead of success it led to endless disappointments, fear, anxiety, mediocracy, frustration and pain.
I felt like I a complete failure.
What made it even worse was, I kept seeing and reading about “People achieving overnight success” and believing that they had some magic pill and I didn’t.
This is where the first symptoms of “Microwave Success Syndrome” begin to show up.
Comparaitist
I started to compare myself to these people. If they can achieve success in 30 days, so can I. But the more I did this, the more frustrated and annoyed I became.
Lack of Persistence
I became more and more restless with my strategies and tactics. I would try something and was constantly tweaking things, instead of letting things play out. Or even worse would abandon it after a month or two after seeing things not working.
Why was this not working? This sucks plus many many curse words later.
Analysis Paralysis
Then it caused me to spend more and more time on analysing everything to the minor details, fearing I missed something.
This led to doing nothing but analysis.
Shiny Object Syndrome
I will then suffer from the Shiny Object Syndrome. I was a sucker.
I subscribe to every Guru “expert newsletter” and bought their Shiny Object because I think they can help me.
All these things led me further away from my dreams.
I became a jack of everything, but master of nothing.
Then one day I stumbled on the cure.
I STOPPED
No not QUIT, but STOP.
I stopped comparing myself to the world.
I stopped listening to those so call experts.
I stopped buying shit.
I stopped over analysing every thing.
I stopped wanting instant success
I stopped
Instead I began to look back into my past and list all the things I was successful at, from my education, career, hobbies, skills, life and relationships.
As I delved deeper into them I discovered five distinct things that I did that helped achieve my goals.
1. Setting Simple Goals
The first thing was setting simple and real goals that worked for me, like
– Graduate from University
– Work in the US
– Get my driver license
– Run 250km in a year
As you can see, the goals were very simple, most of them didn’t even have numbers, time frames or dates. And if they did I only put things down in which I can control.
2. Spend time on it
Then I just spent time on it, lots of time, hours, months, years. I just kept turning up and kept working on it until I got better and better and better.
3. Keep Records
I kept records on my progress. I love numbers. I realise early on in my life that numbers allow me to hack my mind. It kept me accountable and tracked my progress.
4. Evaluate
Then I would use these numbers to help make decisions. They told me what I was doing well and what I wasn’t.
It didn’t tell me that I was a failure, they told me things like ok it has been 12 months of doing x these are the results. Your business grew by x by doing the following activities.
With the areas of improvement I will then seek help and advice from the experts.
5. Believed in Myself
I just believed that If I did the work, spent the time and kept on improving, I will eventually get there and no sooner.
When I went back to this system of success, things started to work again strangely, I began to see a change in myself and my business.
I was less stress, happier, relaxed and my self-confidence returned as well.
I stopped doubting myself.
I felt like I was finally moving forward again, may not be a lot but I saw myself getting better and better and better.
Disclaimer
Look I am not telling people to not “Grow” themselves with education. Actually I love learning new things, but now I am more careful of my expectations.
Like it is not realistic to think that I can achieve the same results as the expert right away – instant success. It doesn’t exist.
Conclusion
As you can see Microwave Success Syndrome is such a devastating disease but it is curable.
If you are suffering from it, the first thing to do is.
STOP wanting instant success.
Rediscover your success system by looking into the past and see what made you successful, pick out the common things you did and create your own success system. Don’t use mine, everyone has their own system and you should too.
When you decide to try something new whether in your life, business, relationships or hobbies use your success system to help guide you into achieving your success in your time.
Do you suffer Microwave Success Syndrome? Do you need help? Just leave a message below and lets work through it together.