We do not grow because we are afraid to fail.

… or if we ask our good friend Confucius about failure:

"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail." ― Confucius

& what’s even worse about “failure” these days?

The numbers + analytics available to us can easily make us think we are failing even when we are NOT!

& this alone can kill overall life enjoyment, business growth & especially overall willpower to push through real failure.

How do I know this? because I’ve lived it. (& still am living it)

For 3 years I’ve been building an audience on the internet, including 25,000 subscribers on my YouTube

But last week I had a single day where I lost 45 subscribers!! ouch

wait, but is it really ouch? saying “ouch” was my knee-jerk reaction too, but in reality, this decline is a progressive one.

the numbers may not show it, but there needs to be context behind the numbers so you can accurately evaluate them.

So here’s the context & why this “failure” is actually progress.

Failure as a form of progression

The context of my progress hidden in the above-declining analytics goes deeper than just financial incentives.

This progress is about living a life worth living & developing a path for myself to fulfill that mission I’m on.

People unsubscribing from my YouTube channel are actually doing me a massive favor.

Since I’m switching up my content quite a bit I want anyone to unsubscribe who won’t watch my new stuff.

This means better click-through rates because people have unsubbed from me & in turn more exposure outside of my current audience on my videos.

Seeing this decline also set in stone for me that this gut punch to my numbers (not my actual gut, or even actual progress) does not hurt as much as I thought it would

The abundance of fun & fulfillment I get from writing about & making content on what I’m really interested in replaces that void of the number going down 10 fold.

Yes, I’m making a lot less money now, I’m also failing a lot more in standardized metrics.

But in relation to my goal of creating a more fulfilling life & better life I am skyrocketing, not in measured progress, but in an internal feeling of being on a never-ending self-fulfilling mission.

All of the failures I face now give me a large amount of inspiration & hope that tomorrow I will be able to remain crafting a life worth living, for myself.

In this case, & many others: Failure is progress because without it we would not evolve or grow.

Goals are good, actionable output is better.

forget your goals.

what???

I don’t mean to say that you shouldn’t set goals, I do mean however that you should set goals, then forget them (for the most part.)

Something I’ve been doing unconsciously for the last few years to make progress which will likely benefit anyone is the process of setting goals & then figuring out the outputs I need to complete to make them happen.

I’ve fallen off track a few times, but getting back on track is easier when you aren’t just reaching for a goal but have outlined things you can do to get there.

Putting this into an actionable process:
Set 3 BIG goals, and WRITE THEM DOWN.

Come up with 3 actions or tasks for each goal that you can do daily, or weekly that would help you reach your goals.

Example: You have a goal to get a six-pack. So you’re 3 tasks or actions may look something like the following: - track calories every day & eat under maintenance - go to the gym 4 days a week - walk every day for 30 minutes

After figuring out your output tasks, you can forget about your goal, tear it up even, & all you need to do is focus on the things pushing you towards the goal & get that sh*t done.

+ I have something for you: a free daily planner template

I’ve been using this daily planner to make sure I complete the output tasks that will help me reach my goals.

Go download it & add your daily tasks + a weekly reminder note underneath for your output tasks.

Numbers ain’t sh*t

Paying attention to numbers is killing your life enjoyment & business growth.

As mentioned above, numbers without context are pretty useless.

& focusing on the wrong numbers also adds to this.

Sure you’re goal may be to make $10,000/ month, & but is tracking how much you made every month going to help you make more money?

Or is following up on tasks & things you can output going to make you more money?

Right, right, you get it (please say you get it)

Okay well here’s my proposal for progress:

Spend more time on the things that push you towards the end result, & less time on anything else.

anything else in this case may be = staring endlessly at numbers of your prior month’s income.

Your numbers and the stats of your life are nice to look at, but what pushes you forward most is not analytics…

it’s doing the tasks that accumulate to progress on your goals.

If you can make $1 you can make $1,000,000

The internet allows you to leverage what’s in your head & scale it to the moon (or at least to millions of people with the same interests as you)

This could be you making $1 online, scaling your product or service via the internet (how many customers you have, how much of it you can sell, potential buyers, etc) to making $1,000,000.

It can also mean that if you can make someone subscribe to your newsletter, or do a specific action on the internet then you can get millions of more people to do the same.

There are of course exceptions to every rule, however, if you think outside the box of limitations & explore potential solutions you will find there are more ways to make this happen than you thought.

Here’s what I mean:

If I can get 46 people to click a button that unsubscribed them from my YouTube channel, surely I can get Four HUNDRED and Six people to also click a button to subscribe to my newsletter.

Frik me I’ve already gotten 315 people to subscribe to my newsletter (you’re one of these people if you’re reading this probably)

So if I can do that then I have the ability to do so much more, all because of the internet, I have access to billions of potential people of which 100s of millions have similar interests to me.

Now all I need to do is focus on the things I can do to up my odds, & it all circles back to what I mentioned earlier

Output.

Do things that bring you closer to your BIG goals every day, forget about the goals, and focus on your output.

That’s all for today’s post. If you read this post & felt any tingly tangly feelings or had some sort of awakening then consider sharing it with a family member or friend via the links at the top.

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Your favorite friker,
jack ♠