Here at Charles Sledge we are all striving towards greatness. This isn’t a site for losers, whiners, or pussies. This is a site for men who want to get the absolute most out of life. Who want to ride the tiger until the very end. Who want to strive until the last dying of the light. That is the type of man who reads Charles Sledge and I’m betting the type of man you are or at the very least are very quickly becoming (click here to speed that process up tremendously).
However with this being said we all have to start somewhere. There are guys who are studs now who started out getting rejected by fat girls, it’s the truth. Likewise there are millionaires who started out in stockrooms and even Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. What I’m getting it at is that while it’s always good to keep the end goal in mind (greatness) remember that it all starts with taking the first step.
The Path To Greatness
I have a problem. I am someone who when wanting to eat an elephant tries to do the whole thing at once. For a long time in my life I tried to do everything at once. One hundred bucks in savings today a million next week. And while I had the right end goal in mind I bit off way more than I could chew and ended up stifling my progress more than anything. I had to learn that success is a journey, which I know sounds cheesy but it’s the truth.
Success isn’t something that comes all at once but something you must build toward. Like building a strong muscular physique it takes time. It’s not going to happen in a week no matter how hard you work or how high you set your goals. This of course doesn’t mean to not work hard or to not set high goals but rather to be okay with being good before you are great. I wanted to jump from obscurity to greatness in a single bound but that is not how it works.
Crawl Before Walk
You’ve probably heard the saying you have to crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run. This holds true in life as well as business. It’s okay to be mediocre at first especially if you went from being bad to being mediocre. Of course mediocrity is never the end goal but it is part of the journey. Give yourself permission to suck or to “be normal” temporarily, the key there being temporarily. Of course once you achieve that move on to the next but realize you have to crawl before you can walk.
It may suck especially when you know what you are capable of but just do it. For example you may know just about all there is to know about copywriting but when you start out you may have to take a 10$ rewriting some article online. That’s fine, remember keep moving. You’ll eventually tear your way up the ranks. Remember your not shooting for mediocrity as the end goal it’s simply part of the journey. Fail fast, fail often, and fail forward.
You Won’t Get Stuck
I know that many fear doing this because they fear they will caught in the middle but those who dedicate themselves to expanding their knowledge and then implementing that knowledge. Do this and you’ll never be stuck in the middle but don’t get me wrong you will have to go through the middle to get to the top. I know for most the middle is a graveyard. They stay there until they die never achieving greatness and never doing all that they can.
They get comfortable which leads to softness which leads to stagnation which leads to destruction. This will not be you. You’re not setting up camp, you’re just passing through. It’s okay to be good before you are great. Keep your end goal in mind. Those in the middle fail to set goals or if they do fail to follow through on them. You are different. You’re time in the middle will be short lived because you will quickly go to the top.
Summary
It took me awhile to learn this lesson. I wanted to jump over the boring middle part. I wanted to leap ahead of those around me but it’s not so much about leaping as it is passing. Your stronger, faster, and better but you still must run the same course. Crawling may suck but you pass through that faze ten times faster than all of those around you. If you follow the advice of this website and those like it your journey from bad to good to great will be a fraction of those around you. And remember it’s not about where you start but rather where you end up.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it.
-Charles Sledge
