5 Steps to Changing Your Destiny

TAKING THE LEAD

Scott Humphrey CEO, WFCA

5 Steps to Changing Your Destiny

Let me begin by thanking our members for their support throughout 2022. It has been another strong year for the WFCA. We have seen substantial growth in both our Primary and Associate Membership. Our fcB2B membership has grown to its highest level ever. Even with its transitions in leadership, CFI ended with one of its best training years in history. Our marketing and communications continue to adapt to meet your needs.

We now have a dozen G.R.O.W. groups, providing opportunities for you to learn from your peers across North America on a plethora of topics including leadership, legal issues, the commercial sector, the WFCA, retail, and many more. We continue with our flagship podcast: Leadership Live, Tom’s Tips, and Profit Matters. Our partners have also seen success in 2022. FCIF has seen continued growth in both donations and grants, and FCEF has paved the way for professionals in the field of installation to understand the exciting possibilities available. Add to that their success in graduating the first technical college class, one that is now accredited and expanding across North America. Yes, it has been a good year.

But enough about our year, I want to talk about your 2023 and all the years that follow. Every year many of you set goals for what you want to achieve or how you want this year to be different. I want to give you five simple steps to achieve success in 2023 and beyond. If you follow these five steps, I can promise you a better year and a better life. To make it simple to remember, each word begins with the letter “F”:

Step 1: Forge — In its simplest form, the word forge means to “make or shape by heating in fire” I want to focus in on the concept of making something new…of you. As per the definition above, this process is not easy. Change rarely is. Research shows the greatest minds of our time had one thing in common. They all overcame some challenge or hurdle to achieve their success. But I digress. I want to focus in on making something new by getting you to accept one simple fact. Writing down your goals is the first step to achieving them. Dr Gail Matthews, psychology professor at Dominican University in California conducted research showing that people with written goals are 42% more likely to achieve them. I could give you more, but if a 42% advantage is not enough for you, you likely will not read the rest of this article anyway.

Lesson 1: Write down your goals!

Step 2: Forget — The greatest thing hindering your success going forward is your propensity to look back. I ask people all the time what their New Year’s Resolutions are (or as I like to call them New You Resolutions). I am amazed at the number of people who tell me they stopped making them because they failed so often.

Forgive yourself when you fail. Failure is just a speed bump on the road to your success.

Research shows the greatest minds of our time had one thing in common. They all overcame some challenge or hurdle to achieve their success.

Please listen to me, your past does not define you. Just because you failed before, does not mean you will again. Failure is an event, not a person. Why would anyone pass up the possibility to improve even if for only a day? Take the example of quitting smoking. Let us say you have tried before and failed. You wanted to quit for good and you only made it for two weeks. That is not a failure. That is two weeks of success. You have proven you can do it…now do it again, but longer. Same with diet, working out, relationships, etc.

Lesson 2: Forget past failures. The past is a great place to learn, but a terrible place to live!

Step 3: Focus — Simply writing down your goals and not letting the past hold you back is not enough if you truly want to achieve success. You must focus on your goal or goals. This is the reason I tell people not to attempt too many goals simultaneously. I believe having one to two specific goals for each area of your life: spiritual, physical, emotional, and psychological, is best.

As my friend and author, entertainer, and juggler Dan Thurman can tell you, each ball you add to those you are juggling increases the degree of difficulty exponentially. When it comes to goals, fewer is better, and they should be important to your future success in both your personal and professional life. Henry Ford noted, “A weakness of all human beings is trying to do too many things at once. That scatters effort and destroys direction. It makes for haste, and haste makes for waste.”

Lesson 3: Focus daily on what you will accomplish. Limit your goals and make sure achieving them is vital to your success in work and in life.

Step 4: Forgive — As I noted before, our tendency is to quit if we try and do not succeed. You must be willing to forgive yourself for failing and not let the failure define you. It is important to determine ahead of time that failure is not the goal but is likely part of the process. If you quit after a setback, you could literally change your destiny.

I won’t attempt to give you all the details, but here are some famous failures: Oprah Winfrey (fired), Michael Jordan (cut), Walt Disney (fired), Steven Spielberg (rejected from film school), John Grisham (first book rejected 28 times), Henry Ford (first two auto companies failed), Jerry Seinfeld (booed off stage), Elvis Pressley (fired), Colonel Sanders KFC (rejected over 1000 times). Can you agree with me that these “failures” have impacted our lives and culture? Every one of them failed, and every one of them forgave themselves and moved on.

Lesson 4: Forgive yourself when you fail. Failure is just a speed bump on the road to your success.

Step 5: Finish — A goal without an end is simply a failed effort. You must have goals along the way to your success, and they must be focused and measurable. Many of you know that I am fanatical about doing pushups. I average over 100,000 a year and have done as many as 250,000. Each time I achieved that goal, I was determined to finish and knew the finish line when I started. Ironically, the year I did a quarter million was also the year I had a bad case of covid and missed an entire month. But that did not change the finish line, only the daily and monthly goal.

I knew how many I had to do each day to reach my goal when I started on January 1. I also knew how many I needed to be successful each month. I simply did more in the months to follow in order to finish successfully. See your goal in segments. To say, “I will lose 50 pounds this year” is a finish line that likely will not be met. However, to say I will lose one pound a week and 4 to 5 pounds a month, is a finish line that can and likely will be attained. Every step along the way is a finish line leading to your ultimate win.

Lesson 5: Starting is easy, but to finish you must make the goal measurable and break it down into achievable segments.

At the WFCA, we are committed to being part of your success. Utilize our resources and reach out to let us know where we can better serve you. Follow the five steps above and make this your best year yet. I know you will! ■