This article originally appeared in LADDERS
by Benjamin P. Hardy

Success is continuously improving who you are, how you live, how you serve, and how you relate. So why won’t most people be successful?

“Success” isn’t just having lots of money. Many people with lots of money have horribly unhappy and radically imbalanced lives.

Success is continuously improving who you are, how you live, how you serve, and how you relate.

So why won’t most people be successful?

Why don’t most people evolve?

The more evolved you become, the more focused you must be on those few things which matter most. Yet, as Jim Rohn has said, “A lot of people don’t do well simply because they major in minor things.”

To be successful, you can’t continue being with low frequency people for long periods of time.

You can’t continue eating crappy food, regardless of your spouse’s or colleague’s food choices.

Your days must consistently be spent on high quality activities.

The more successful you become — which is balancing the few essential things (spiritual, relational, financial, physical) in your life and removing everything else — the less you can justify low quality. As Greg McKeown has said, “You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.”

Before you evolve, you can reasonably spend time with just about anyone.

You can reasonably eat anything placed in front of you.

You can reasonably justify activities and behaviors that are, frankly, mediocre.

As your vision for yourself expands, you realize you have to make certain adjustments. You need to cut back on spending all of your money and time on crap and entertainment. You have to save more, and invest more in your education and your future.

The more successful you become, the less you can justify low quality. The more focused you must become. The more consistently your daily behaviors must be high quality — and increasingly higher quality.

This isn’t about perfection. It’s definitely not about being busy all the time. Actually, the balance of true success involves what Tim Ferriss calls “mini-retirements” or regular sabbaticals.

Yet, if your daily behaviors are consistently low quality, what do you expect your life’s output to be?

Your choices must become higher quality.

Your relationships must become higher quality.

Every area of your life affects every other area of your life. Hence the saying, How you do anything is how you do everything. This is very high level thinking. It only makes sense for people who have removed everything from their lives they hate. To actually live this principle: your daily and normal life can only be filled with those things you highly value.

When your days are filled with only those core essentials that mean the world to you — and you’re succeeding in those few areas — you absolutely will dominate in “all” areas of your life. Because the only things in your life are the things you highly value. Everything else has slowly been weeded-out. You are living intentionally and congruently. You have momentum and balance. You’re being who you truly want to be, every single day.

To actually do this not only takes time, but is extremely hard to live in practice.

Saying “No” to great but irrelevant opportunities is hard.

Giving up bad habits is hard.

Changing your belief system and expanding your vision takes courage. It’s so easy to revert back to small and mediocre thinking.

However, as you come closer to living on a daily basis with your values and ideals, amazing things start to happen. You’ll feel happier. You’ll be more present with those you love. You’ll spend your time better. You’ll pursue bigger dreams and ambitions. You’ll be more resilient during challenges. You’ll live at a higher frequency. And everything around you will reflect that.

But to repeat Jim Rohn, “A lot of people don’t do well simply because they major in minor things.” Said another way, most people are caught in the thick of thin things.

Hence, most people won’t be successful. Most people won’t evolve and progress.

But you will. You know it, and you can feel it. You’ve already begun. And everyday, you’re taking one step closer.

Soon enough, you’ll fully commit to being who you know you can be. Once you pass that point of no return, nothing will stop you.