Every once in a while you read an article on those start-up support sites like startups.co.uk, Entrepreneur.com and you think there’s nothing really new here. I already know all of this… However, I know, first hand, that the same material you say is ‘common sense’ and ‘too basic’ has helped thousands of start-ups build businesses doing hundreds of thousands of dollars in income (and in some cases more) each and every year.

So clearly something is going on here. When someone is only making £50K or £80K a year and they say they already “know all the information” and “there’s nothing new” in it for them… and when that same information is being used by others making 2, 3, even 5 times or more than they are, something is up.

Help Requires a Shift

What I have come to realize, is that the answer these people are looking for isn’t something that can’t just be pulled out of a hat. You see, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this issue. And what I've discovered is that...

...When someone purchases a course or a book, or attends a seminar and they come away thinking they know all of the information taught to them (yet the person that is teaching it to them is levels above where they want to be), a question needs to be asked…

That question is: “If I know all of this information already, why am I (stress on the ‘I’ part) not as successful as the person I went to learn that information from?”

Most people don’t ask that question…and so they shift the blame from themselves to the others. And most of us are smart enough to know that the approach of blaming others doesn't yield positive results.

The Real Issue

I started digging to learn more about why this is all happening. What I learned is that human psychology can teach us a great deal about this…

There are two kinds of intentions we need to look at here.

Goal Intention – The first, and most common, is called the ‘goal intention’. To put this in context, imagine you have just learned something new. You think, “that’s a cool strategy. I can use that in my business.” So you have now made a goal to put a new idea to work for your benefit. What happens next, is, well, nothing. Many people don’t take that idea and move forward with it. And that brings us to the second kind of intention.

Learning is critical. Yet it’s the easy part. Implementing is what brings real success.

Implementation Intention – The key here is to implement. This time, you still have a goal, yet rather than just saying “it would be great to start doing this in my business, I’m going to do that”, you take action and set a detailed plan of when, where and how you are going to implement that idea in your business to reach that goal.

In our articles and discussions, the biggest success stories we hear are from start-ups that not only spend time going through all of the information they possibly can online, they also take the strategies that would benefit their business and situation the most and ruthlessly implement them.

When people that set Goal Intentions hear about an idea they have heard before they tend to dismiss it as something they already know. “Nothing new here” they say.

My friends, this is one of the biggest factors that separates ultra-successful people from the wannabes. The first group sets goals and then tirelessly implements everything they can to ensure they reach that goal. The second group spends a great deal of time learning something, and then before implementing much of it, they are off to finding ‘newer and better’ information.

Instead, what they should be doing is filtering the best ideas that they have learned, and then put all their effort and focus behind those ideas by taking action and implementing everyone one.

Learning is critical. Yet it’s the easy part. Implementing is what brings real success.

I’d love to hear from you. What thoughts or comments do you have on this?