Every situation has a silver lining – discover a mindset that heals and enlightens.
September 3, 2021 · 7 min read
Success is the sum of small efforts - repeated day in and day out. - Robert Collier
Ah, it’s a success!
Success is a magical word to solve every problem. We have this belief that success will bring us peace, happiness and accomplishments that we want to achieve.
Success, in other words, is a sweet victory that we’ve been chasing for. Ultimately, this is where the American dream came from – start from the bottom of a barrel and end at the top of the barrel and then enjoy it’s contents.
Success, however, is now thought more of as an individual accomplishment. Everyone differs and has different needs from their life.
What is success?
Success is the ultimate wish and desire that an individual is pursuing at the present and in the long-term. Success is a very individual concept that doesn’t have precise definition for every person.
Every person has a different definition of success. Some people might think of success something like being a good parent in relationships. The other might think that achieving gold medal in Olympics is success. The further one might think that success is having a profitable business and so on.
Success is defined by our current goals and desires. However, it’s important to note, that success should be viewed in a broader picture. It’s often viewed that only achieved goal is a success. Nevertheless, starting and enjoying the process is even greater success that lasts way longer than the actual accomplishment of out desire.
Success is the ultimate goal that we are thriving for most of our lives. But how does it come that a lot of people are still unsuccessful?
Under what circumstances does success happen?
Diamonds are made under the pressure.
As it’s not necessarily true for success, but a lot of people are successful only if they are dissatisfied with their current situation. As a result, the passion for success becomes even greater.
To simply put, without a defined goal and without being persevere and passionate about it, you’ll probably never see the light of a success.
Therefore, the circumstances when success is most likely to happen, are:
- Being under pressure
- Having a poor childhood
- Having a break-up of a relationship
- Deficiency of money
- A will to give everything best to yourself and your family
- Being not satisfied with current job/ career achievements, etc.
- Having a very competitive personality, and others.
How does success impact your life?
Being successful means having higher standards of living.
Therefore, depending on whether your living standards are low or high, your success can be very insignificant or significant.
Successes usually mean evolving to a higher quality of life, whether it would be from financial, relationships, well-being, acquired skills perspectives.
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Of course, it depends on what you define your success. However, let’s have an agreement that we’re looking at a bigger picture of life, which means successes are improved relationships, businesses, improved health and others.
In that case, success has a significant impact on your life. It enhances your self-respect, confidence, boosts charisma, you have better relationships with your friends, family, strangers and many other perks come along with this.
How does success look like?
Success looks to everyone differently and individually. However, usually that leads to a better quality of life in one or another way. Let’s take some cases as an example.
Bradley Cooper is an American actor and filmmaker. His fame exploded after “Hungover” movie. Prior to that, he attended Germantown Academy. He insisted, that he wasn’t smart, nor he was special and had anything going on. At the same time he was working for Philadelphia news. In his Bachelor’s studies, he used to work as a doorman at Morgans Hotel. He started slowly succeeding through making relationships with influential people which mentored him.
Megan Fox Is an American actress and model. She got ridiculously famous after “Transformers” movie playing as Mikaela Banes. In fact, she used to work at a smoothie shop as a cashier in Florida prior her actress career. Sometimes she’d have to dress up in a banana costume and attract customers on a highway.
Elon Musk is an innovative entrepreneur and founder of big tech companies such as Tesla, SpaceX and others. His story started when he programmed a game called “Blastar” and sold it for $500. He was only 12 years old back then. Later, he dropped out of a Ph.D. program in material sciences in Stanford University in California. He saw an opportunity in booming Internet and was the founder of hist first successful software company Zip2. From there he started snowballing.
Waren Buffet is one of the wealthiest people in the world. He’s famous for his investing and business knowledge. In his early childhood years, he started selling chewing gums, Coca-Cola bottles and magazines from house to house. He always had an entrepreneurial mind and accumulated all the knowledge over the years to become one of the most successful investors in the world.
These are only the pictures of very famous and successful people. You should always be you and don’t forget your identity. Follow your dreams, passions and prove to yourself that you can be successful.
How to achieve success
1. Self-responsibility
A psychotherapist Dr. Robert Resnick practices one trick:
E + R = O
(Event + Response = Outcome)
This equation says, that every outcome you experience in life occurs due to an event and how you respond to it.
Therefore, to actually get an outcome which you want, you have to do the right event and respond to it correctly.
Undoubtedly, you can always blame the event, for example, weather, economy, politicians, etc., but nobody would ever succeed if they practiced this negative habit.
That’s why there’s a second option, which is to respond correctly. You can change the way you communicate, your mindset, working patterns and other things.
Whatever you do, everything must be aligned to the success that you want to achieve. It means, that the events and responses have to add up nicely and compliment each other.
2. Define what is your success
Success, like previously mentioned, is very individual definition. Whatever your success is, whether it is small or big, define and visualize it.
A lot of people define their success very abstractly. You have to identify yourself better. Instead of wanting to be a popular singer, you should be more precise, such as, “I want to be a famous R&B singer in my country in 5 years”.
Eighty percent of success is showing up. - Woody Allen
If you don’t define your success very well, you’ll be lost and will have a very hard time to stay on track. Instead, be mindful of what you want to achieve.
3. Set a precise plan
“Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all”, was remarked by Thomas Carlyle.
Therefore, the next big step after defining your success is to set up a very clear and concise plan.
Ideally, every action has to have a time duration in which it will be completed. Planning must always involve time management. Writing your tasks will never be effective if you don’t stick to the time schedule.
Make sure that you note every activity that has to be done with the time duration it needs.
For example, if you’d do a cooking recipe, you’d normally write steps for it. In this case, you’d write not only the steps, but also the duration. For an instance, chopping onion finely would take 35 seconds.
Therefore, do the same with your plan accordingly.
4. Work smart
Always ask yourself if there is a shorter and a more effective way to achieve your success. Instead of digging a pool with a shovel, you could use an excavator to save time.
Because if you won’t work smart, someone else will figure out a way to work smarter and will likely beat you in a competition.
Working smart increases your productivity, motivation, energy, self-esteem.
That’s why it’s very important to keep-up-to date in technology section. This is what makes cars, planes, gadgets, devices to be continuously improved.
Figure out what your strengths are. Use their leverage to gain an advantage.
Work in small time segments. Research has shown that 90 minutes is the most optimal duration that our brains can focus. Take breaks after working a sufficient time to refresh your energy and focus levels.
Use productivity tools. Look for apps to download in your phone related to productivity. They can block your distractions and organize your tasks better.
5. Practice soft skills
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston Churchill
Soft skills describe how you work. Soft skills are something that can be learnt gradually: listening skills, interpersonal skills, time managements, empathy and others.
These skills are highly required by hiring managers, because people that possess soft skills are more likely to be successful in their job and their tasks.
You’ve probably encountered soft skills already even if you weren’t aware of them. If you are working in sales, you have to interact with people, solve their problems and help them. These are soft skills that you unconsciously develop.
Instead, make a list of soft skills that you lack and then work on them.
6. Persevere
Without perseverance, you will get nowhere in life. At best, you’ll live a mediocre life and compromise yourself.
Perseverance distinguishes successful people and unsuccessful people. Persevere individuals always come and get things done.
No matter if their first business fails or they have a break-up in a relationship, they seek for better results than before. They have no excuses not to get work done.
A lot of talent is wasted when it’s not used together with perseverance. That’s why mediocre people that are not exceptional create a very beautiful family, create their business and live their dream life.
Not only do they work smart, but they also work hard. They find their structured way to accomplish their goals.
7. Don’t rely on motivation
Motivation can sometimes be unmotivational.
When you constantly are looking for motivation, you exhaust the effect of motivation. It doesn’t excite you anymore. You rely too much on motivation.
The key thing is to always remember why you started. You have to always keep in mind what’s the reason behind the success journey.
A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. - David Brinkley
I bet that a lot of people would rather not look back and look only forward on what’s achievable and how to improve their quality of life.
However, things can always turn out differently. For example, a lot of guys start going to the gym by having an idea that they are doing it to impress girls. After a few months or years, it turns out, that now they’re doing it for themselves, to look nice and healthy.
Therefore, your motivation has to be meaningful in order to motivate you.
8. Be curious and competitive
Never stop asking questions.
Like Greek philosopher Socrates said: “Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers”.
People become not old because of their age, but because they stop being curious about the world. At the same time they give up their success (if they didn’t build one before) and start flowing by the river.
Individuals that don’t ask questions might look ignorant and not interested into the topic. If that relates your success, you must ask questions now.
If you really can’t think of anything, start scrolling through google search related to your success topic. You will be surprised how much you don’t know yet.
Also, by competing you’ll be under more pressure to perform better and achieve better results. As this might not be the healthiest option to do all the time (due to excessive stress), but at that present moment you might take things more serious into your hands and start acting like never before.
Regardless, being curious makes your mind active instead of passive. It generates more ideas, opens up new possibilities and you get more excited.
Also, don’t accept everything at ground surface level. Always dig deeper about the question and don’t rely on just people’s opinions. Look for facts instead.
9. Don’t compare yourself to others (especially to celebrities)
Comparing yourself with other people can be harmful.
This is especially true on social media. People become anxious and too self-aware about their looks and their financial situation.
People on social media travel, live the best life (on the surface) and a lot of people are envy of their lifestyle.
That’s incredibly ridiculous to compare yourself to because they’re most likely living the same lifestyle as you do, except they have more time than you.
Comparing yourself to celebrities like Beyonce, Bill Gates, Arnold Schwarzenegger is also very unfruitful. This is because they’ve experienced something that only a few people on Earth will ever experience in the next century.
Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall. - Oliver Goldsmith
They’ve found their success, but your success is very individual. With fame and a lot of wealth also come a lot of responsibility. Celebrities have a lot of burden on their shoulders too.
Instead, focus on yourself. Compare yourself to the yesterday of yourself. See if you’ve become any better person than before. That’s the only comparison that’s valid and reasonable.
10. Don’t get burned out
It’s not that hard to be very passionate about your goals at first.
After a while, you start slacking and lose focus on your tasks. Eventually, you might notice that you have stopped everything to achieve your goal.
It happens because you don’t spend time with your friends, family, you don’t do what’s fun for you, you keep listening about your goal podcasts and so on.
Your mind is not capable of so much information and constant thoughts about your success.
Instead, take breaks. Do everything that you love. It’s better to stay consistent, than do 10 days of work in 4 days and then have a break of 2 months.
Final Words
Success is an individual intangible trait. We all have to find our success.
To be successful, you have to distinguish from other people. It can be done in several ways, such as acquiring soft skills, having a strong plan, being curious and others.
Remember that your success cannot be comparable to others. All that matters is that it satisfies you and your initial goals.
Don’t lose hope and fight for your success.