Why Shortcuts to Success Don’t Exist: 7 Reasons to Consider

Have you ever known someone who seemed to have everything come easily to them? Maybe they were born into wealth, with a super-star face, athletic abilities, or charming personality, and it all falls in their lap effortlessly. Meanwhile, it feels like you battle like a Lord of the Rings montage for every scrap of progress in your life. Nothing is handed to you. In fact, it sometimes feels like the universe takes a thrill in creating obstacles so you have to go the long way around. You would give anything for a break. Winning lottery ticket? Fortune from the death of a long-lost relative? Genie lamp? Yes, please! But here’s why I suggest shortcuts to success do not exist, and you should consider these seven reasons before taking any shortcuts.

The Ski Lift Reason: Success is a feeling, not an event.
The Butterfly Reason: Shortcuts reduce your strength to create more success.
Dumbo’s Reason: When success happens by fluke or shortcut, you never learn how to re-create it.
The Impostor Reason: You won’t have the stories, strategies, and strength that make you an insider.
Odysseus’s Reason: The road to real success is paved by failure.
The Habitual Reason: Shortcuts miss all the practice that make your success habits second-nature.
Michael J. Fox’s Reason: Real success in life comes from knowing who you are, having confidence that you can face our fears, and stepping up to the plate courageously with love and integrity.

1. The Ski Lift Reason
There is a difference between feeling successful and reaching a benchmark that appears to mark success. Success that comes from struggling and fighting for something generates a feeling that you earned it. The journey changed something inside of you. You know now that you are capable of so much more. The only thing you know when you ride a ski lift to reach the peak is that you can sit in a chair. It’s fun and scenic but you feel no accomplishment. Same mountain peak. Different feeling. Shortcuts may help you reach the benchmark, but they diminish the feeling.

2. The Butterfly Reason
Shortcuts reduce your strength to create more success. When a butterfly struggles out of its cocoon, it pushes fluid into its wings for the first time. This makes their wings strong. Butterflies need to struggle. When we are going through our struggles, it’s tempting to wish for someone to come and cut us out of our cocoons. But the struggling process does the same thing for us as it does to the butterfly. It makes us strong. Success that comes from struggling and fighting generates a strength that serves you throughout your life.

3. Dumbo’s Reason
If success happens by fluke or shortcut, you never learn how to re-create it. When Dumbo loses his magic feather, he is paralyzed. He doesn’t know how to fly without the shortcut. Our brains are wired to look for patterns. When we are working hard and making progress towards our goals, we’ll continue to repeat these patterns. Shortcuts to success may be responsible for our seeming success, but they will weaken our confidence and strength. If all you have is a magic feather, you have nothing substantial to rely on when you really need it.

4. The Impostor Reason
People who arrive at success by their own hard work and ingenuity have earned their sense of pride. They have stories and strategies to share. When you arrive at the top on a ski lift, and a group of people who hiked to the top, you feel out of place. “How did you get around that huge log over the trail with the bees nest right next to it?” And you’ve got nothing to share. You will feel like an impostor. If you arrive at success by shortcuts, it will be harder and harder to hang. You won’t have the stories, strategies, and strength that make you an insider. Eventually, you won’t stay on the top of the mountain for long.

5. Odysseus’s Reason
Success is not just one event or one achievement. It is a series of struggles, fought repeatedly, that change who we are. The lessons learned on the journey are far more valuable than arriving at the destination. Taking shortcuts to the destination misses everything you could have learned. Real success is the sum of all these battles, not just one achievement.

6. The Habitual Reason
Successful people develop habits based on what they learned from past failures. They develop their own systems that consistently work for them. These habits become so normal that they don’t even think about it. Shortcuts miss all the practice that make your success habits second-nature. The mantras and sayings, vocal qualities, posture, ways of waking, creating, questioning, organizing, networking are learned through repetition.

7. Michael J. Fox’s Reason
Success is not about material possessions, but about knowing who you are and having confidence that you can face your fears. It’s about stepping up to the plate courageously with love and integrity. Michael J. Fox’s real-life story teaches us that all the trappings of success mean nothing without honesty and love. When he was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s disease at the age of 30, he realized that he needed to become a new symbol. He became the role model of the long-haul. There are no shortcuts to real success in a marathon. Every step is a struggle. Every success is earned, and every failure is a lesson for doing better next time.

In conclusion, shortcuts to success may exist, but they have substantial costs that must not be ignored. Shortcuts may take you to a benchmark that appears to mark success, but it diminishes the feeling of accomplishment. Shortcuts to success reduce your strength to create more success, and you may never learn how to re-create it. When success happens by fluke or shortcut, you never learn how to repeat it. Success that comes from hard work and ingenuity earns a sense of pride, stories, and strategies to share. Shortcut to success may provide you with a glimpse of success, but it misses everything you could have learned. Successful people develop habits that work for them through repetition. The most genuine success in life is about knowing who you are and having the confidence to step up and face your fears with love and integrity. Remember, there are no shortcuts to real success in a marathon. Each step is a struggle. Each success is earned, and each failure is a lesson for doing better next time.