The Road to Success

“Setting a goal is not the main thing.  It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.” – Tom Landry

You can’t have success without a mission.  To determine what your mission is, you need goals.  To decide what your goals are, you need planning.  To develop your plan, you need strategy and tactics.

Let’s break that down, starting with the final destination and working our way backwards:

Success:  Success is anything you want it to be.  Having lots of money, reaching the peak of Mt. Everest, providing fresh, clean water to a village in a third-world country.  But at its most basic, the dictionary definition is, “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.”  Achieving your aim or purpose is what makes you a success.  It’s up to you to define what that means to you, and to do that, you have to have a mission.

Mission: A mission is big-picture.  While a goal can be winning a Super Bowl (or five), a mission would be to become the greatest football player of all time.  To reach your mission, you have to have clear, measurable, obtainable objectives.

Goals: Goals are benchmarks, not destinations.  Because reaching a goal doesn’t mean you’re finished living.  Tom Brady didn’t stop after one Super Bowl.  To define your goals, you have to have a plan with strategy and tactics. 

Strategy: Defines your long-term goals and determines the path you take to reach them.  Strategy is hiring the best talent, providing thorough, ongoing training, and practicing your tactics until they’re second nature.  It’s also making sure each and every member of your team is familiar and on board with your mission statement.  A common goal is crucial to pulling together as a team and ultimate success.

Tactics:  The small, specific steps that lead you down the path that your strategy has defined. Tactics are the playbook, the drills, and the coaching techniques. 

While a very small percentage of human beings have the innate talent it takes to be part of a Super Bowl winning football team, everyone has the ability to be successful.  You can inherit wealth, you can be born with talent, you can have power thrust upon you.  Genuine success, however, takes a concrete plan and very hard work.

The road to success is rarely smooth.  In addition to a plan and hard work, you’ll encounter obstacles, lots of them, and some more easily overcome than others.  There will be times when you have to punt, times when you get tackled, times when you have to unexpectedly pivot, call an audible, throw a lateral (how am I doing with the football analogies?  Too much? Not enough?).  You have to be willing to fail and learn from your losses.  Take chances and never be satisfied.