Monday Motivation: Thoughts on Persistence, Execution, and Taking the Path Least Travelled

Introduction

Success is defined by different people in different ways. Some define success as having a stable job, family, and home - students define success as doing well in school. At the end of the day everyone is greedy for this thing called success.
People often say, "One day when I'm a millionaire..." or "One day I'll become the best at..." and are usually oriented with the results of success. Honestly, how often do you hear someone saying "I'm so excited to work non-stop for four hours tomorrow so I can get better at numerical analysis," or "I'm going to work at this exercise until I master it, not because I have to but because I am truly passionate at what I do." In my experience I have found such people to be rare.

Excuses

People come up with excuses all of the time. "I can't work on that side project because I have work from 9am - 5pm" or "I love coding, but school always gets in the way." Sure, sometimes these excuses are valid, but the fact of the matter is you can always find time. Maybe watch one less episode of Desperate Housewives at 8:00pm, or instead of grabbing a drink with your friends on Friday night work on something you are truly passionate about.
Don't sell yourself short. Everyone has the capacity to make it. "I'm not smart enough," "Oh, I don't think I'm really cut out for that type of thing." The fact of the matter is you're losing the war before you even entered the battlefield.

Cut out the non-essential & Focus

Everyone has ideas, what separates the Mark Zuckerbergs and Bill Gates' from the rest is that instead of spending 4 hours a day watching reality television they were constantly thinking about angles in which they can gain an edge. To some point like Isaac Newton, you have to obsess over your craft. Whether that's cryptocurrency investments, software development, piano, guitar you name it.
At some point you do need to have a bit of self-discipline. You need to have something that wakes you up in the morning. Not too long ago I woke up at 11am, I felt lousy for the rest of the day and slept at 2am at night watching Netflix. I felt like something needed to change. I felt like I needed to live for my passion.

Internalize your craft

When you internalize your craft, you don't rely on Google to find your answers. When someone comes to you and asks you a specific question about what you do, you already know the answer because you've been working on it for so long.