Success Leaves Clues

Success Leaves Clues – read those words a few times and think about it for a while.

Are You Ready to Go on a Scavenger Hunt for Success?

It’s so true isn’t it? I have to be honest thought – I didn't come up with that saying myself. I read it in a book recently and this particular section was talking about why people don't put themselves out there and ask others that have already succeeded for help or guidance.

So, if you want to become an auditor, if you want to become a self-employed contract auditor, who are the best people to ask for guidance? Of course, it’s the people that have already done it.

This is what this particular chapter in the book was about - Success leaves clues. It was quite interesting as I was reading through this as it is quite common for people NOT to ask, NOT to follow those clues.

Do you really want to be one of those people? NO!

I thought I'd share with you some of the reasons or excuses why people don't take action. So, to explain – this is when you have an idea, however you don’t take action to fulfill that idea, to fulfill that dream. So why? That's what we want to know.

What are the reasons or excuses that people use?

1. They can ask someone. Fair enough. We don't see others using these resources. So, we don't do it either. Our parents didn't do it. Our friends aren't doing it. Nobody where we work is doing it. So, we're surrounding ourselves with people that aren't leading the way, and therefore we think that's just not the done thing.

2. It's inconvenient. We'd have to drive across town to a meeting. We'd have to take time away from the TV or family or friends. When I read that, I think, well, you mustn’t want it bad enough.

3. Asking others for advice or information puts us up against our fear of rejection. We're afraid to take the risk. Okay. I think I can see that. I can see that this could be a valid point and quite common. It IS scary isn't it? I can accept that however we won't know until we ask will we?

4. Connecting the dots in a new way would mean change and change even when it's in our best interest. Is uncomfortable. Absolutely agree that it can be scary. Change can be scary and it’s easy for us to slip back into what's comfortable. Pushing yourself outside of those boundaries is change and it is uncomfortable. But again, as I said before if you want something bad enough, you will do it.

I'm going to get off track for a bit now sorry. I just thought of something that really made me uncomfortable many, many years ago. I would say it was 15 years ago, maybe 20 years ago where I always had the dream for my retirement of training two or three days a week, helping people with training in business – back then I didn’t know what exactly but that was my dream.

I followed that path though, even if it was scary. I still remember the first course that I facilitated. I had the owner of the business that I was contracting to in the classroom with me and he was observing and supporting during the training. On the way to that job, I felt physically sick. You know, anxious, scared and so uncomfortable.

Even though I had practiced and practiced, and I knew what I had to do back-to-front, it was the unknown that was scary. But you know what? I survived! I persevered because I knew that this was something that I wanted to do, so I pushed through that fear. I pushed through anxiety.

Obviously, if I didn't want it bad enough, I wouldn’t have pushed myself so hard. I would have said “I'm not doing that. I feel sick. I can't do it. It makes me feel sick”.  But I knew this is where I wanted to go. And now when I’m training in the classroom there is always still a little bit of uncertainty until you get to understand the room and understand the personalities in it.

Over these years, I've learned to deal with all types of different personalities. Once I get that all sorted then I love it - I have a ball. If you want it bad enough, you'll push through that uncomfortableness.

Now I’ll get back on track with the final WHY?

5. Connecting the dots means hard work and frankly, most people don't want to work that hard. And that sort of goes in line with what I've been saying doesn’t it? I agree that it is hard work, but you know what, when I read that, I thought, well that's good for us! It's good for us, for those of us that DO want to push forward because we do want it bad enough. We are able to push through that fear and we’re able to push through that uncomfortableness and continue to challenge ourselves and find out what we need to do to move towards where we want to head.

Remember, there are people out there that have already done it before. If you're going up the path of turning your experience into a career as an auditor, ask around. There's a network of people out there.

If you’re one of our students already, well, you are lucky because we have the awesome ATOL Community page to support you. You can message each other or if you live in the same state or region, you can catch up for coffee.

Do it – just do it! I still do it. I'm in contact with people I've known for 30 plus years, and we all help each other.

So, move through that fear and don't forget that if you do want to move forward in your auditing career, we have just released a new program called AMP. This program gives you access to me every week on a group Q&A where you can ask me whatever you want about your auditing career, your career journey, anything about audit processes and principles, and of course anything about management system standards for quality environment and OH&S. I love talking about this stuff!

If you want to head in that direction, it's a great program to further support you.

Remember Success Leaves Clues. Take a look at our AMP program if you want to be that person that asks for support and guidance to move forward.

And actually, this reminds me this is another example of change! This new program. This new process.

Tomorrow I'm going to hop onto a zoom with people I haven't met before. They're going to ask me questions that I don't know yet. I'm going to be nervous. I'm going to be anxious. I don't know what's going to happen.

Hopefully, the technology works 😊 This is all new but it's something that I want to do. Something that we wanted to do to share with you and make sure that your journey is the best that it can be.

Book reference: The Success Principles by Jack Canfield