The 3 Factors of Greatness That Everyone Can Master

Everybody in this life has a unique talent, a special combination of features and characteristics that all mesh to make you the miracle that is you. Some people choose to push away and ignore their talents, rejecting opportunities to realize their dreams and cultivate their talents because of some deeply ingrained fear inside of us that we all have to face eventually. Yet everyone has a unique gift and vast wells of untapped potential inside them.

What separates the greats, the heroes, the legends of our times who have attained their dreams from common people who may have just as much talent as these pioneers of our planet? It has to do with a few important abilities that must be mastered before we can explore the depths of our power and live out our dreams.

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The 3 Factors of Greatness That Everyone Can Master

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

-- Napoleon Hill

1. Self-awareness

Time and time again, visionaries and business executives, actors and artists alike have constantly reinforced that self-awareness is one of the most critical aspects to master on the road to fully realizing your talent. What is self-awareness? It’s a commonly used buzzword that is tossed around at business conferences and self-help seminars, yet so few truly grasp the enormous capabilities that self-awareness can unlock.

Self-awareness is the ability to understand who you truly are and what your strengths and weaknesses are, comprehending and controlling your emotions by studying why they occur, and constantly learning from your mistakes and thoughts to advance yourself. It's the most important part of emotional intelligence.

READ: Know Thyself: Why Self-Awareness Is the Starting Point for Your Goals

Being self-aware is like a running on a never-ending improvement treadmill. But in this case, the treadmill is actually fun after you realize that you’re building on being a better person each day. You’re investing in yourself and compounding on your learning again and again and advancing forward constantly.

The perfect case study is actors or musicians. Successful actors and musicians are often viciously, unapologetically self-aware. It’s the only way they could rise to the top in a massively overcrowded field -- by staying true to their distinctive skill set and understanding all of the features that make them unique. Why do you think so many actors seem insane? They’ve harnessed every characteristic that makes them special and doubled down on it day after day. They’re larger than life, and I think most of us admire the authentic nature of their personalities.

2. Hard work

Hard work is vital. There are truly no shortcuts to getting to the place you want to be. If you take a shortcut, you miss out on the lessons and sacrifices that are necessary to forge you into what you want to become.

It’s going to be hard. People are often scared of committing to something because they think it will be too much work, or that it will be wasted time if they end up short of where they want to be. But there’s a huge secret that anyone who has achieved their dream will tell you: it’s all a mind game. It’s actually exhilarating to dig into the process of growth and learning while constructing the skill set that will take you where you’re meant to go. You’ll learn exponentially more about yourself through struggles, challenges, and roadblocks than if you stayed exactly where you are. All this time you’ll be watering your talent garden and learning new things about yourself that you never would have if you didn’t start down the path.

READ: How Moments of Adversity Are Your Greatest Opportunities

If you pursue something you want wholeheartedly, the lessons and knowledge you gain on your journey about yourself and your place in the world will pay you back enormously in every area of your life. The Universe will move out of your way and guide you along. Maybe you’ll find out that you want something different than what you first thought. But none of this can happen if you don’t take the first step down that path.

Keep walking and you’ll experience the excitement and momentum of working extraordinarily hard on your talents and dreams. Hard work becomes intensely gratifying.

3. Persistence

You’ve read all of the classic examples before. Michael Jordan getting cut from his high school basketball team. Steve Jobs being fired from his own company. J.K. Rowling being turned down by countless publishers. But it’s not just this type of persistence of character that is essential to making the most of your life.

It’s the persistence to keep learning and expanding your mind. It’s the persistence to be self-aware and grow a little bit each and every day. You must innovate and learn all the time. You have the miracle of your life, and the endless opportunities that it provides. Combining the persistence to deal with rejection from other people with the tenacity to continue learning and working hard forms you into an unstoppable engine of self-improvement.

READ: 3 Secrets to Persevering (When All You Want to Do Is Give Up)

Keep persisting and growing a little bit every day and see what you turn into in a month. A year. Five years. You’ll be shocked. I promise.

Find out what makes you special, what you’re truly talented at. Incorporate these traits into your life immediately and work at them. Start to notice the beautiful changes and the positivity that comes with them. Enjoy every moment of the process. You deserve the life you envision. You’re a miracle.

Discover yourself. Work hard. Be persistent. Your dreams won’t be dreams for long if you stay the course. Go out there and change everything.