Corner Cutting

“You do not pay the price of suc­cess, you enjoy the price of suc­cess.“
– Zig Ziglar

Again, the inner you is your con­science while your con­nec­tion to it is your con­scious­ness. While you can act in accor­dance with or in oppo­si­tion to your con­science, you can’t betray your con­science for it is the wis­dom of the high­est that’s within. There­fore, if your goals ignore your con­science, they will uncon­sciously bring unnec­es­sary tur­moil in your life. But if your goals fol­low your con­science, you are then con­sciously purposeful.

If you’re like most peo­ple, you have cer­tain needs and aspi­ra­tions at this moment. You prob­a­bly want to reach higher goals, get pro­moted, make more money, spend more time with your fam­ily, find a bet­ter job, lose 10 pounds or so, take that vaca­tion in the Caribbean, start a busi­ness, etc. In other words, you want to improve your qual­ity of life right now and not at some point in the future.

I’m not say­ing that those things are not impor­tant. You may truly value their attain­ment and you have every right to want more out of life. How­ever, if you are focus­ing on goals alone, you are blind­ing your­self from that which makes you truly suc­cess­ful right now. You are ignor­ing the high­est that’s within you and, in the end, will achieve noth­ing that’s of any real significance.

For instance, urgen­cies will crop up from time to time and they can take you away from what really mat­ters in your life right now. When they appear, what do you usu­ally do? If you’re like most peo­ple, you will cut cor­ners (i.e., you will act in oppo­si­tion to your con­science or, in other words, act unconsciously).

There­after, you may have reached the goal but failed in some other way. Although you can be suc­cess­ful by cut­ting cor­ners, your suc­cess will not mate­ri­al­ize with­out some­how being at the expense of other goals or, more impor­tant, of other peo­ple (includ­ing your­self). Cut­ting cor­ners can only cut you down. They can also rip you off.

Remem­ber, there is a price for every­thing. What­ever you choose to focus on car­ries with it a price. But what’s impor­tant is not to avoid pay­ing the price but to ensure that you are get­ting a return on your invest­ment. Instead of cut­ting cor­ners, you should find out what you truly value in your life right now and focus on it.

Bil­lion­aire H.L. Hunt once said, “All my life I have learned that there are only two keys to suc­cess. The first key is to find out what you really want and the price you must pay to get it, and the sec­ond one is to resolve your­self to pay that price.”

You might think that the area in which most peo­ple fail is Mr. Hunt’s sec­ond key. While it may seem that way, the prob­lem actu­ally orig­i­nates with the first and not the sec­ond. In other words, if you knew what you wanted (I mean, if you really knew), you would have paid the price (i.e., had the patience, took the time, made the effort, etc.) to get it, wouldn’t you?

As Jim Rohn said, “When the promise is clear, the price gets easy.” Wayne Dyer also said, “When you are cer­tain of what you want, patience comes easy.” So, think of con­nect­ing with your suc­cess­ful­ness as a form of invest­ment. You’re like an intel­li­gent con­sumer look­ing for best value for your invest­ment and not the best price.

Hav­ing a clear pur­pose will make your jour­ney more cost-​​effective, so to speak. If you have a clear under­stand­ing of the essence of what you want, then you will get a bet­ter return on your invest­ment of time and energy.

If you either focus on or ignore your inner­most val­ues, you’ll always end up get­ting what you pay for. As Michael Ang­ier, the pres­i­dent of Suc­cess­Net, once said, “There is a price for suc­cess but there is also a price for fail­ure. Given the choice, the price of suc­cess clearly has the best return on investment.”

So, the crux of life man­age­ment is doing what is impor­tant and not urgent, or to change your per­spec­tive on that which you con­sider as impor­tant and to make it urgent. It is to focus on your pri­or­i­ties and to give them a sense of urgency. Con­se­quently, when you stick to your pri­or­i­ties you will be tak­ing short­cuts rather than tak­ing cornercuts.

About the Author

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