There are so many stories of wasted genius that it is almost cliche at this point. The athlete who bursts onto the scene as a rookie sensation just to fade away when the pressure of better competition faces them. The smartest person in your high school who got accepted to an Ivy League school only to crack under the pressure and flunk out after a year or two.

So what happened to these people? Who really knows for sure but one common theme seems to run through a lot of these stories. Someone with a lot of talent repeatedly gets told from an early age how great they are, how smart and/or gifted they are. Even if we are the smartest, the fastest or the most gifted people in our world, as we progress in life, the level of competition gets tougher. We will begin to face challenges that test our abilities. It is at that point we need to have a strong foundation of learning and hard work so that we can weather the storm rather than getting crushed by it.

Being either is or is not. It is a fixed state. We either are or we aren’t. Getting is an action. Getting is motion toward a goal.

Here are seven ways to ensure that continued improvement is part of your daily experience.

  1. Don’t believe the hype – Confidence is great. We should have confidence in our abilities. Overconfidence can lead us to make bad choices or to start to rest on our past accomplishments. We should, instead, use the awards, the praise, and accolades to act as a guide letting us know that we are heading in the right direction.
  2. Compare yourself to you, not to others – Our goal should be to maximize our potential not try to beat others. There will always be someone who is stronger, better, faster, smarter. We should see those people as role models who set a high standard. They show us what is possible.  We should use those examples to push ourselves to achieve more, learn more and be more. When we focus on how others are better, we lose sight of our true goal. Our only real failure is when we fail to give our best effort.
  3. There is always more to learn – There are things we can learn every day. It is impossible to know everything. We need to be open to learning. We need to be teachable. We can learn from friends and neighbors, from colleagues and peers at work or in our community, from books and videos and by seeking out those who are truly the best at their craft.
  4. Mastery is a process – Mastery is a fallacy. We hone our craft bit by bit. Those that are truly great got to where they are by continued practice and the application of learnings. They got there through trial and error, through failing many times. We get closer to mastery by learning, by making mistakes and discarding faulty methods. Slowly, over time, we get closer to mastery.
  5. Failure happens – Failure is an option. Because you failed doesn’t make you a failure. What we do after the failure is what counts. Learn from failure.
  6. 100% effort – leave it all out there. You can’t control the effort of others but you can control your effort.
  7. Keep your ego in check – stay humble. Focus on learning and getting better each and every day.