In my experience, success rarely, if ever, happens overnight. Usually, long before the TV cameras and bright lights show up to tell the viewers about the latest brilliant success, that person or that company was toiling in obscurity for many months or years. 

Real Success is Sustainable Success — If you want to taste the sweetness of lasting success, you must realize how challenging the journey will be. The notion that success comes without effort or that it comes overnight is just contrary to the experience most of us have on this earth, isn’t it? Don’t expect success to be immediate, and for heaven’s sake, do not expect it to come easily. Manage your expectations appropriately, and get yourself ready to go to work. Expect to be working diligently on your goals for a long time, and enjoy the effort and the journey. Anybody can win a single championship. The teams that go down in history with the label of DYNASTY applied to them, have proven that they can win again and again.

Focus On the First Thing — Work on one goal at a time, and stay focused on that one goal until you COMPLETE it. There is a great sense of accomplishment in completion. Let yourself have that first taste of success by achieving your first goal, then move on to another goal. Be patient, and be proactive. Persist. By doing a little bit better every day, you will lay a series of forward steps, which over time become the stepping stones to your destiny. By staying on the path, and working toward your ultimate goals day after day, you will enable your ability to drink the sweet taste of sustainable success.

Enjoy the challenge, because it is the challenge that makes us stronger and prepares us to become more resilient in the face of adversity. When you can withstand adversity day in and day out, you will be able to build the foundation of sustainable success that will happen again and again, and recur over time. Perhaps you and your team can build a dynasty!

Michael Beach leads a team of coaches at Michael Beach Coaching & Consulting, a Twin Cities Based Business Coaching and Executive Development Coaching firm. Michael Beach Coaching & Consulting helps small companies to grow to become medium sized companies by building out their leadership teams, and preparing executives for future growth and sustainable success.