What do all successful people have in common? If you answered “luck”, you’d only be partially right.
That’s if you think Oprah Winfrey knows about luck. She said, “I believe luck is preparation meeting opportunity. If you hadn’t been prepared when the opportunity came along, you wouldn’t have been ‘lucky’.”
So what does preparation look like for successful people?
Forming good habits
For successful writers, that means getting into a habit of setting a writing goal every day and sticking to it. The American author John Steinbeck wrote one page every day. Stephen King’s goal is to write six pages before pushing back from his desk. American songwriter Lyle Lovett writes a new song, every single day.
Putting in hours of practice
Top athletes train every day, year-round, on holidays and special occasions. It doesn’t matter if you’re a tennis player, a marathon runner or a gymnast, showing up every day for practice is crucial to success.
The same applies to musicians. Daily practice is considered an essential key to success.
Setting goals
Jerry Seinfeld has his own technique to guarantee he remains at the top of his game. His “Don’t break the chain” system is a visual representation of his commitment to excellence. Seinfeld believes he needs to write new material every day to ensure he’s staying current and continuing to create value for his audience. To keep motivated, he starts every year with a blank calendar. He crosses off each day he’s worked towards his goal and tries not to miss a day – or break the chain.
How Teamup calendars can help you become successful
A Teamup year calendar is a perfect way to use Seinfeld’s technique to achieve any of your goals. You can try it yourself with this calendar:
If you didn’t start in January 2021, it’s not too late to do so for the rest of the year! Here’s the calendar for starting now:
You may notice that, after opening this calendar, there are many parameters in the calendar URL. Indeed, Teamup allows you to append link parameters to control the display of the calendar. Try to change some of the parameters to fit your needs, for example:
- Start date: Setting &date=20210501 will start May 2021 and end April 2022. Removing the date parameter would make it start from the current month.
- Number of months: To print the calendar only from May to December 2021, select 8 from the number of months dropdown list.
- Title: The calendar title can be easily customized as you wish, for example, replace the title parameter with your own: &title=My Training Calendar
Then use your browser’s print function to print your calendar, as simple as Ctrl-P on a PC or Cmd-P on a Mac. Learn more tips about printing a blank calendar for any purposes.
Making your own luck
Once you’ve put your own system in place, consider it proof of your preparation. According to Oprah Winfrey, you’ll then be perfectly positioned when opportunity strikes. Some may call it luck, but you’ll know you were prepared to be lucky.
Make sure to check out the Teamup blog to find other terrific ways you can use calendars to keep you on track for all your goals.
