The Real Secret to Business — and Life — Success

As long as I’ve been in this business, and especially in the eight years that I’ve been teaching copywriting to would-be copywriting pros, I’ve gotten this question a lot:

“What’s the real secret to being successful?”

Well, I have good news and I have bad news.

The good news is that there absolutely is a secret. Well, wait—let me put quotes around that. There is a “secret.”

The bad news is that it’s not a super-sexy, insider trading-y kind of secret. It wasn’t divulged to me on a mountain top or passed to me at across a table, scrawled in a folded napkin.

This “secret” is the same thing that creates success for entrepreneurs, musicians, students, politicians, movie stars…you get the picture.

The key to success is consistency. Adopting effective habits and sticking with them.

Pitching five clients each day. Posting in three Facebook groups each day. Commenting on three Facebook post each day. Listening to one business podcast each day.

And the same goes for learning copywriting. When people ask how much time they need to dedicate to learning and practicing, I think they expect that I’m going to tell them they need to set aside two hours every day.

Hey, if you’ve got two hours a day every day, then great! But not only do most people not have two hours, but if they do dedicate two hours to it, they’ll burn out and not come back to it for a week—having forgotten everything they learned last week.

Instead, just setting aside 10 or 15 minutes a day will get them so much further! Why? Because of consistency. Sticking with it every day, even for just 10 or 15 minutes, will get them so much further than fits and spurts of a couple hours at a time.

Consistency and persistence —just sticking with that consistency — are the real keys to success.

Are they sexy? Nope. But you know what is sexy? Making $8 or $9 grand a month from your writing. Getting clients reaching out to you for jobs because you’ve been referred by someone they know. Watching your savings account go up and up and up while you’re actually enjoying what you do for a living.

If you ask me, that’s really sexy.

Your turn! What consistent habits are you going to (persistently) instill in your schedule? Let us know in the comments below!