The Nonlinear Mindset to Success with Elizabeth McCourt

Accel5^® contributor, Elizabeth McCourt shares inspiration for finding a nonlinear path to success and gives tips for using one’s unique strengths and weaknesses to do so.

It is easy to get wrapped up in the idea of becoming successful and wanting to follow in others’ footsteps to do so. Elizabeth McCourt explains that each one of us has our own path to success, and it is often a winding road. Keep reading to hear Elizabeth’s advice for finding victories in our own lives and how we can do so using the strengths and weaknesses we already possess.

When we forget about everyone else and think about how everything that we’ve done leads us to here, we can truly go forward with our own uniquely crafted version of success. Success is a unique and, more often than not, a nonlinear path that we all navigate in our own way. By all accounts, it will be anything but perfect, but it will be exactly as it should be, uniquely yours, flaws and all. If you can take the time to figure it out, wind around on the journey, accepting the imperfections, not only will you find more joy, but you’ll find freedom. We spend a lot of time trying to be good enough, what we should be, maybe comparing ourselves with others, but when we get more creative, more open to possibility, we thrive. I want to invite the possibilities of exploration and creativity into what might be a seemingly uncreative quest to be totally and nonlinearly ourselves.

When we forget about everyone else and think about how everything that we’ve done leads us to here, we can truly go forward with our own uniquely crafted version of success.

Allowing ourselves the opportunity to iterate and embrace all our strengths and quirks helps us with the individuality we seek. We don’t want to be just like everyone else in as much as we don’t want to be excluded. Can we leverage our best and counterbalance the worst to find what is possible? How might we navigate the ultimate question of what legacy we leave in the world? This search is both a learning journey and a challenge. I imagine that you might be reading this not because you have it all figured out, more that you want to challenge yourself a bit more and stretch yourself into possibility, fail fast and learn, finding something new that blows your mind.

Allowing ourselves the opportunity to iterate and embrace all our strengths and quirks helps us with the individuality we seek.

When I think about the work I do now as a global leadership coach, I wonder sometimes if it is too good to be true or was this what I’d be after all along? If I’ve learned anything, it’s that our plans oftentimes aren’t clear and don’t cooperate with our timelines. Paths merge and diverge through deliberation, opportunity, and serendipity. Finding our individual success is about culling things that work, understanding what doesn’t, stretching and risking for opportunity and failing too. We don’t necessarily need to be singularly focused on one thing, we can be expansive and polymathic.  I’m convinced that we get to choose to live in the entirety of our experiences and we get to choose how we live into our own chosen success. By combining all the nuances of our strengths, including those quirky bits, we expand and while leaning into discomfort we can be utterly and nonlinearly our unique selves.

Want to learn more? Check out Elizabeth’s recent webinar to learn how you can broaden your thinking, embrace your unique experiences and leverage your expertise to make yourself more valuable.