And how to master them.

Achieving extraordinary growth in any field has the same meta-recipe. But here’s the thing.

Together, they have evolutionary powers. They might help you level up just like Squirtle levels up to Blastoise.
However, if you have four of these but lack even one of these meta-skills, it might stop you from leveling up.
Hence, mastering ALL of these is crucial for your growth. In this article, I want to —

Give you simple how-to’s to develop each of these.
And also give you powerful takeaway mindset quotes for each. If you etch these quotes in your brain, it’ll be really easy to learn and instill these meta-skills in life.
Note: You can make the best of this article by getting a pen and paper, choosing a field you want to grow beyond recognition in, and then, figuring out how to apply each of these in your life.

Read also: 6 simple and practical ways to show up for yourself everyday

Let’s dive in.

1: Consistency

Consistency forms the foundation of greatness.

This is because ‘action’ is the only thing that guarantees real growth. Planning, reading books, researching the perfect way to do something — all of these are useless if you’re not consistent with your action.

Here’s how to be consistent:

Always choose consistency over intensity. People are often excited to start working on new goals — so they go all-in initially. However, soon this excitement vanishes, and they end up quitting. Don’t make this mistake.

Bias yourselves towards action. Many people over-plan because they want their first step to being perfect. They read. They research. They analyze. And often, all of this turns into procrastination from what they actually should be doing — which is to take action.

Build a system with accountability. The easiest way to do so is to break the skill you want to learn into a set of not-so-intimidating daily habits and then, build a streak on an application like Coach.Me. The streak keeps you accountable, and it bulletproofs your consistency.

Doing things even on days you don’t feel like doing them is exactly what will differentiate you from the ordinary.

2: Sacrifice

There are a lot of good things in life. Does that mean you’ll engage in every good thing in life? Not really. If you spend everything that you have on every good thing in life, you’ll not be able to invest it in the things that matter.

For example, if you buy everything you feel like buying, you won’t have the money to invest in learning & growing more in your field.
If you spend time with every friend you have a decent time with, you won’t have time left to work on being even greater at what you do.
Hence, to be great at anything, sacrifice is the name of the game. But sacrifice is tricky. Too little sacrifice ensures that you won’t find greatness. Too much sacrifice prevents you from enjoying life — eventually leading to burnout.

Here’s how to sacrifice well:

Use the “Hell Yeah! or No” rule. Invest your time, energy, and money only on things that make you feel truly alive – things that induce a “Hell Yes” out of you. All other things that are still good, but not that great, don’t engage with them.
For instance, spend time with a couple of friends that make you truly feel alive with. But stop spending time with friends that you just have a good time with.

No yes. Either HELL YEAH! or No.

— Derek Sivers

3: Standing on the shoulder of giants

Most people try to figure out everything themselves. They don’t try to learn from people who have already figured it out.

Stupid.

This makes achieving greatness much more difficult, and it makes you more likely to quit because you’ll not get the results you were hoping for.

This is how you stand on the shoulder of giants:

Find a great online teacher who knows how to achieve greatness in the said field.
If they have a course or a book — buy it! Yes, they might be sharing free advice on the internet, but if they have it all accumulated in a product, buy it. This is because a comprehensive course is much better than scattered pieces of advice on the internet.
Suspend your disbelief: After buying their product, stop using your brain. Stop trying to figure out if what they’re saying makes sense or not. Stop assuming that, “Oh, this sounds stupid. There’s no way it works.” Just stop. If you’ve found a good teacher, they know what they’re talking about. Suspend your disbelief — and do everything they say — verbatim. Only after a few months of blindly following their advice, start to judge it based on the results you get or don’t get.
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

— Issac Newton

4: Detail-orientedness

A common trait I’ve found among great people in any field is detail-orientedness.

They zoom in on every inch of their skill and tweak it to make it perfect. They’re obsessed with the smallest of hacks — that others would normally ignore thinking it doesn’t matter ‘much’.

But since they zoom in and make tiny tweaks all over — these minor improvements build up and lead to so much surplus growth that non-detail-oriented people just cannot muster.

How to be detail-oriented:

List down 10 micro-skills required in your field. For instance, coming up with good titles is a micro-skill in writing. Then, list 10 more. And then 10 more. Do this until you’re completely squeezed out. This ensures that you’ve zoomed in all over.
Then, focus on a set of 3–4 micro-skills and find ways to tweak them to perfection. The first set can be the one that is the most important. And then, you can advance into sets of micro-skills that are relatively less important.
A man’s accomplishments in life are the cumulative effect of his attention to detail.

— John Foster Dulles

Read also: 8 subtle habits of the super successful no one talks about

5: Patience

This is the most important meta-skill of all and also one of the most difficult to develop.

People want fast results.

They want to be a millionaire by 25.
They want to lose 12lb in a month.
They want to get 10,000 followers by tonight.
But it’s stupid. Great things don’t just take time — it’s time that makes things great. It’s like scotch. You have to let your greatness age. This means you have to stay in the game for a long time.

Here’s how to be patient:

Every field can be mastered through different paths. Don’t choose the one that’s short. Choose the one you can walk the longest for. As they say, the best diet is one which you can maintain for a lifetime. When you enjoy the path, you’re more likely to be patient and not quit.
Focus on nano-wins every day; these are very tiny improvements. For instance, every day I go to the gym — my minimum goal is to do one rep more than I did last time. These will give you a reason to show up every day, and keep you anchored to the game.
Celebrate small wins. Your goal might be to become great — and celebrating small wins might feel stupid. However, celebrating small wins gives you the happiness and confidence to keep chasing the bigger ones. So whether it be losing one pound or getting 100 followers on Twitter, realize and celebrate it.
Fall in love with patience early on to be able to be fast for the rest of your life.

— Garyvee

Tying it all together: The five meta-skills to help you grow beyond recognition.

Consistency.
The ability to sacrifice well.
Knowing how to stand on the shoulder of giants.
Zooming in and trying to make micro-improvements all over in addition to macro-improvements.
Being patient. Playing the long game.
Want to become a High-Level Thinker? Click here to download my free eBook where I share 5 tips to level up your cognitive abilities.

Contributed by Akshad Singi

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