What is the single-most important factor that drives success? Is it time-management? Passion? Focus? Networking? Setting good goals? This is a question that plagued entrepreneur and business owner Grant Cardone for decades, and the answer that he’s finally come up with is the 10X Rule: learning to set goals 10 times beyond what you think you can do, and putting forth 10 times the effort you think you’ll need. It’s the factor that invariably separates the successful from the unsuccessful.

The 10X Rule is about setting your sights 10 times beyond the ceiling of what you consider the possible level of success and then putting in 10 times more effort than you think you’ll need to get there.

This is not a mindset for the faint of heart, but it is for those who aspire to move beyond where they are and wonder what will take them there. The 10X Rule involves doing far more than what people usually do. If you settle for achieving what everyone else does, then you will achieve the ordinary but never the extraordinary—and you might even find yourself struggling to maintain an ordinary existence. This 10X mindset involves you doing whatever else does—times 10. It’s a mindset that seeks to win and do what it takes to push to new, undreamt-of levels of excellence—even when others would consider it unrealistic or unreasonable or tell you you’re obsessed. 

They mean these statements as words of caution, but you should take it as a compliment and keep going, whether you’re pursuing new levels of economic success, spiritual insight, or some other goal. The desire is not to rule or control people, but to become so competent in what you’re doing that people look to you as an example. You want to become the standard against which people measure themselves in your field or industry.

Whether the dream is to write a bestselling book, make a film that alters a culture’s trajectory, become a successful trial lawyer, be the first family member to finish college, or simply lose a few pounds, what these dreamers all have in common is being “not there yet.” There’s a space between you and that desired position.

The sky is the limit, but most people limit themselves. If you start to limit your potential success, you limit what you are willing to do to achieve it. It sounds like a lot of work (and it is), but paradoxically, it will make your life easier and more enjoyable, and you’ll be surprised by how much time you do have.

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People have all kinds of definitions for success. Some definitions focus on money, others on career, others on family life, others on some combination of those things, and still others on none of those things. Rather than adding another definition, it is sufficient to say that, however one might define success, success matters; it is your moral obligation and responsibility to pursue it; and there’s no finish line or end point to success.

Success is important because without it, things stagnate and die. It’s a pattern we see in organisms, species, movements, companies, civilizations. It’s about expanding the borders of one’s existence.

There’s a sense of urgency that gets lost when times are stable. “Life (or success) is a journey, not a destination,” some say with an air of sagacity. It sounds good until there’s another economic crash and people are struggling to find work and pay for food and rent. Suddenly, all the cute pietisms aren’t as inspiring or helpful. Success matters,  and it is best to begin pursuing it now, rather than reactively and desperately when everyone else is frantic and desperate as well.

Wins rolling into more wins brings a sense of satisfaction and confidence. It sharpens wit and imagination, increases security, and positions you to make a lasting contribution to society. Success is your best shot at your ideas and memory surviving you.

People at lectures are quick to point out that success is not everything. Of course it’s not. But what’s the mindset behind those statements? Is the objection coming from someone who chased success doggedly, found it, but then also found something better along the way? Or does the question come from people who have yet to achieve their dreams, and feel less guilty or embarrassed about not attempting it by making jabs at those who have?

When you give up on success for long enough, you’ll eventually give up on life more generally.

Take responsibility for everything in your world. Whiners and victims will stop themselves from creating success and will fail to attract it. They hang back and blame circumstances or impediments. They refuse to own their worlds and assume responsibility for what they contain. What is sad is that these people are just as capable as those who achieve success, but they find a reason to not press forward.

When you start to see pursuit of success as not just optional, but a moral obligation and responsibility, you’ll see how the shift in your mentality will trickle down into every sphere of life: family, finances, friends, and so on.

When you own everything in your world, and truly believe it’s your duty, you’ll start to feel less and less like a passive recipient of whatever life throws at you. Instead of life happening to you, you are happening to life. Success won’t magically and joyfully run up to you in a glorious Hallmark-esque moment. It’s something you learn to chase and wrestle down. The process itself will lead you to new heights and take you on new hunts.  

The process stops as soon as you start whining or playing the victim. Life starts happening to you again, rather than the other way around. “Life” in this context never brings much good to a victim. It’s overwhelmingly negative. You’ll never meet a victim with a positive, proactive mindset. Victims tend to bemoan their losses, their setbacks, the obstacles that always seem to know exactly where the victim is about to move.

Try to convince a victim that he is not a victim, that he can still press forward, and you’ll see just how attached he is to his obstacles. He will try very hard to convince you that he is right in how he sees the situation. A victim will never find success as long as he tries to be right. Whenever you find yourself slipping into this behavior, stop. You’re taking on the identity of a victim. The person who does this long enough creates self-fulfilling prophecies and fuels a vicious cycle of failure. He will stop seeing solutions and stop seeking success.

Success is far more likely for those who drop the victim mentality (even when it feels perfectly justifiable to claim victimhood), for those who take responsibility for their worlds and consider success not just optional, but obligatory.

There are four degrees of action: inaction, retreat, normal action, and maximum action. Any activity people are engaged in falls into one of these categories. Each requires a lot of energy and effort—even if there’s not much to show for it in three of the four categories. The problems come when we apply the wrong degree of action to a particular circumstance. Someone who is morbidly obese, for example, is likely doing nothing in some areas of his life (exercising and dieting) and applying maximum action to other areas (binging Netflix and greasy foods).

But let’s briefly look at each degree of action in turn.

First Degree of Action: Inaction

Believe it or not, it takes a lot of effort to do nothing. To stay inactive as the alarm clock goes off and not get up in the morning takes work. Coming up with creative excuses to make to a spouse, to friends, and to your employer for being underpaid or underperforming, for your current circumstances in life, is taxing. Most of the time, people who tend toward inaction also have something in their life that they love to do and do compulsively—whether it’s watching movies, reading books, playing video games, or online gambling. There is always some area of massive action—even if it’s nothing that will move someone toward achieving their dreams.

Second Degree of Action: Retreat

Those who retreat do things, but do them backwards. They take the circuitous route to completing tasks when the straight path will do. People usually retreat after having a bad experience. They don’t approach next steps directly because they want to avoid the negative experiences that they have been bracing for. They tend to fear success. They devote considerable effort to creating explanations to justify why they are stuck. Even though habitual retreaters think they are avoiding further rejection, their fear is rooted less in the rejection itself and more in the conclusions they’ve drawn about what rejection or failure mean. “I’m stupid” or “I’m incompetent” or “I ruin everything.” For those of us who were constantly lectured and directed by “careful” or “don’t touch” or “stop it,” it is often difficult to “get going.” They are still making a decision when they retreat. Like inaction, retreating takes a lot of effort.

Third Degree of Action: Average Action

Average action is middle-class thinking. This is actually more dangerous than retreating and inaction because it is more socially acceptable. Take a moment to ask yourself whether you have more energy and potential than you typically expend. It is soul-destroying to sit on potential that you have in you.

Fourth Degree of Action: Maximum Action

This is the most natural state for a human to be in, as absurd and counterintuitive as it may sound. But the universe backs massive action. Instead of spinning your wheels in the same old problems, massive action will give you new problems and challenges. You’re provoking opportunities.

Most of us are tempted to look for shortcuts on the path to success. When people ask questions like, “Exactly how much time do I need to put toward my goal in order to succeed?” they are looking for shortcuts. Bare-minimum thinking doesn’t serve. Doing it for the compliments doesn’t either. That’s the ordinary mindset, the middle-class mindset that leads to average.

Find the areas that you want to grow in. Chances are you’ve been retreating, doing nothing, or giving average action to those areas. Devote massive action to them. In the areas you’re devoting massive amounts of action to that aren’t serving you, it’s time to start doing nothing and retreating to the actions that contribute to success.

Most people who start small end small, too. They’re too afraid to let themselves think big and as a result, they don’t act on anything big.

People don’t drop goals because they're too big, but because they’re not big enough. We all know internally when our goals are too small. When they’re firmly in the bubble of what’s already comfortable, we get bored and dissatisfied. We have to shoot for something beyond the horizon. If we set our sights on something that’s already accessible and predictable, it won’t fan the inner flame. A grown man can’t lower the hoop to eye-level and still feel proud for dunking.

Of course, when you decide on a goal, you need to know the answer to the question “what for?” Whatever your answer, that is the reason that helps you push past obstacles and challenges without giving up at the first roadblocks.

You will also do yourself a favor if you remove the word “realistic” from your vocabulary as you set goals. “Realistic goals” is a horrible phrase but it is used by plenty of parents and counselors for kids. But “realistic” is another way of saying “average” because “realistic” is the measure of what everyone else is doing.

You have been conditioned to set restrictions on what you can achieve. It can lead you to set 1X goals or 2X goals rather than 10X goals. You have to be aware of this conditioning as you set your goals. The people with whom you surround yourself exert strong influences on your own ambitions. If someone asked your closest friends and colleagues what their goals are, their answers would reveal a lot about what your own goals are.

When we were kids, the monsters in the closets and under the bed were our biggest fears. Adults have their own monsters: rejection, failure, uncertainty, and success, to name just a few. Fear is a signal that you’re expanding the frontiers of what’s comfortable, that you’re pushing beyond your usual patterns.

Again, don’t look to the herd for guidance. Do what others are doing, but do more—do what they aren’t willing to do, too.

Fear’s main food source is time. Don’t give yourself too much time to brood or overthink things. Whenever you choose to retreat or do nothing, you are giving fear time to multiply. Act. That moment of fear is precisely the time to act. Move through it, not away from it.

The 10X Rule is not for the faint of heart. It may not be for everyone. But if you have set your sights on a 10X dream—a dream 10 times grander than what you’ve allowed yourself to believe you could achieve—and if you’re prepared to put in 10 times the effort that other people would put forth, then you will inevitably find yourself constantly pushing beyond what’s familiar and comfortable. It will come much sooner than later. Consider it the new normal.

As you make a habit of pushing through fears, and choosing to act in the face of them, you will look back on your journey and have a good laugh at the things you got hung up on in the past.