How to Succeed

Опубликовал Admin
2-04-2021, 07:10
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Succeeding in life is certainly possible, but it isn't something that just falls into your lap. You will need to put in effort and hard work, but defining what "success" means to you and determining the goals and tasks that will get you there can bring you the reward of feeling successful in your life and work.

Building the Foundations for Success

  1. Figure out your priorities. Being successful means not just having some vague aspirations that you'd like to accomplish. Sort out your priorities and decide what is most important to you. Knowing what your priorities are will help you set out goals to achieve the things that will make you feel happy and successful. Research has shown that you’re more likely to work toward something if it’s very meaningful to you.
    • To figure out what goals will be most meaningful to you, try reflecting on your values in life. Think about what's important to you, what makes you feel excited, and what you want to be remembered for. Then, you can set goals that will help your life align with these values.
    • You need to decide which are the most important things you want to accomplish: are you looking to have a family by a certain time? Do you want to be a published author? Do you want to be a leading expert in a medical field?
    • Make a list of the most important things you want to accomplish, with the most important at the top. As you make plans with the aim of accomplishing these goals, you'll keep revisiting this list, making revisions as things change and crossing things off as you accomplish goals.
    • Remember, just because these are your priorities now doesn't mean they won't change. That's okay. Life often takes you down roads you don't expect, but if you at least have an idea what you're trying to work towards, you'll be better able to accomplish what you want and to change that desire if you need to.
  2. Find your "element." This is the thing that drives you, that you love to do. You may employ this element in your work, or you may enjoy it as a hobby. The important thing is that it is meaningful to how you define “success.”
    • This can be anything: writing, drawing, dancing, computer science, cooking, archaeology. The point is that cultivating this "element" in yourself will lead to you feeling more fulfilled and happier.
    • Remember, you may use this skill in an unexpected way, as long as you remain open to the possibility of using it. For example: you might train to be a classical dancer, but instead of performing on stage, you use that skill to teach low-income kids how to dance. You're using that "element" but in a way you might never have imagined. That's success.
    • Practice that skill. Even if you are good at writing, you're never going to be great unless you read and write constantly. If you don't write for work, carve out some time before or after (before tends to be better, because you aren't as exhausted) to write. The same goes for any other skill.
  3. Imagine your “best possible self.” This exercise can help you decide how to define success in your own life and will help you when you formulate goals to get you there. Identifying your “best possible self” is a two-step process: first you visualize yourself in the future, and then you consider what characteristics will help you get to that visualized self.
    • To begin, imagine a time in your future when you are your best, most successful version of yourself. This can look like anything. Focus on what is most important and meaningful to you, rather than defining success by someone else’s standards.
    • Imagine the details of your best future self. Think and define yourself positively. What does your life look like? How do you feel and behave? For example, if your best possible self is a musician, imagine what your life is like. Are you a mega star? A successful indie artist? Are you always on the road or do you play mostly in your community?
    • Write down the details of your visualization. Imagine the characteristics that you used to attain your “best possible self.” For example, if you are a successful musician, you are very skilled at your instrument. You probably also know how to network with people, promote yourself, persist despite challenges, and express yourself creatively. Write down as many skills, traits, and characteristics as you can think of.
    • Now, consider which of these things you already have. Be honest and compassionate with yourself. What do you already know? Then, consider which characteristics you can learn or develop. What can you learn, and how?
    • Identify ways to build the characteristics you need. For example, if you’re shy, you might consider social skills or assertiveness training to help you become comfortable promoting yourself to others. If you want to be a musician but aren’t skilled at an instrument, you might take lessons.
  4. Ask for help. No matter how self-made someone seems, they have always had lots of different kinds of help: for example, perhaps their teachers gave them access to knowledge, their relatives helped cultivate their interests, and their family helped them go to college.
    • Reach out to people, especially people who can help further your goals. This doesn't necessarily have to be self-serving. For example: if you're looking to become an archeologist, you could help out for free at your local museum, which can give you good references and help them.
    • Be certain that you, too, help others when the opportunity arises. The more you cultivate an atmosphere of giving, the more help will come your way.

Setting Goals

  1. Set clear goals. To succeed you can't just sit back and wait for life to hand you the tools you need to do so. You have to make clear, attainable plans for what you need to do to achieve success.
    • Research shows that setting goals for yourself can make you feel more confident and optimistic, even when you haven’t achieved them yet.
    • If you have big-picture goals, try breaking them into smaller chunks that are easier to accomplish. That can help you stay motivated, and you'll build confidence as you see yourself making progress.
  2. List your priorities. Once you've decided what your priorities are going to be, you're going to need to come up with long term and short term plans for achieving them, so they become more than a nice dream. Try to focus on only one or two at a time. Trying to work on all areas at once can leave you feeling overwhelmed.
    • Try splitting your priorities into tiers. For example, you may have first, second, and third tier priorities. First-tier priorities need to be done as soon as possible. They’re the ones that are most meaningful or important to you. Second and third tiers are still important, but they may be less crucial than first-tier priorities, or they may be more specific.
    • For example, your first-tier priority might be “be happier with work,” while a second-tier priority may be “exercise more.” A third-tier priority might be “keep my house cleaner.”
  3. Narrow these priorities into goals. A goal is specific, measurable, attainable, and trackable. It is usually concrete, while a priority is more abstract. Start by deciding something that’s concrete enough to pursue.
    • For example, if you've decided that your priority is to express yourself more creatively, you might decide that you want to act.
    • This is still fairly big, so it’s a good idea to narrow it down further. For example, do you want to act in community theatre? Pursue a career in stage or screen acting?
  4. Define your objectives. Objectives are specific actions that you take to help you achieve your goal. They’re like the rungs of a ladder that get you to the top. Make these as concrete possible.
    • For example, “become an Egyptologist” could be a goal. Objectives would be the components of the plan to get you to that goal.
    • Thus, if you were looking to study Egyptology, you would need to go to college and study ancient Egypt. You'd need to learn to read hieroglyphs (and Greek and Latin to see what those folks were saying about the Egyptians; depending on your period). You would need to specify your interest (say Middle Kingdom burial practices) and go to graduate school.
  5. Set your timeline. Some goals can be achieved fairly quickly. Others will take more time. Still others will have to be achieved based on others’ deadlines. Do some research to determine what a reasonable, attainable timeline would be.
    • For example, if you want to become an actor, some of your objectives, such as “act in community theatre plays” and “study screenwriting,” could be accomplished fairly quickly. On the other hand, “obtain a role in a major movie” could take a very long time.
    • As another example, if you want to become an Egyptologist, you will also need to consider external timelines such as admissions deadlines and college curricula.
    • You must also remember that some of your objectives must be accomplished before others. For example, in the Egyptologist example, you must study Egyptian history and language before you can apply to graduate school. You must go to graduate school before you can become a working Egyptologist. Make sure you understand the process of accomplishing your goals so that you are not disappointed.
  6. Frame your goals in terms of your performance. Remember that you can only control your actions, not their outcomes or others’ actions. Frame your goals in terms of what you can accomplish through your own work.
    • For example, “Become a movie star” is a goal that relies on the outcome of others’ actions. You can’t control others, and thus, this goal is not the best way to phrase this. However, “audition for major movies” is a goal that you can control.
  7. Remain flexible. Learn to adapt to the things that life throws at you. Remember, your plans can change, but you should always be working forward. Studies show that people who are able to adapt and remain flexible are more likely to succeed in their goals.
    • Don't become too rigid in how you achieve your goals. It may be that the initial objectives you set don't work out or cannot be accomplished. Learning to look for alternative ways of achieving the same goal will increase your likelihood of success.

Working Towards Success

  1. Keep learning. You should never stop learning. Being a lifelong learner can help keep you from getting diseases like Alzheimer's, but it's also a good way to keep yourself invested and interested in life around you. Continuing to learn ensures that you do not allow yourself to stagnate or become too comfortable with the status quo.
    • Learning can be anything from reading a bunch of history books about your specific area, so you can talk knowledgeably about different historical sites in your area, to learning to quilt.
    • Don't get complacent in your learning. Challenging yourself keeps your mind sharp. So, if you're interested in history, branch out and look into mathematics, or learning a language.
    • Learning challenging tasks within social settings can help your mind stay sharper. Consider trying some classes or taking a college course in a subject that interests you.
  2. Put in hard work. Succeeding is impossible without hard work. You have to practice the skills that you already have to hone them. So much of the work you'll do won't be seen by other people, which is why it's important that you're serving your priorities. Otherwise you will get drained by the constant demand for your energy on things you don't enjoy.
    • Stay focused on your priorities. Even if you're working a job that isn't necessarily in line with your priorities, look for ways to change that. Try to bring a spark of creativity or good humor into things like food service, customer service jobs, or a dull office job. For example, if you're an artist, try enhancing that work presentation with some of your artwork, just enough to make it a little more interesting and enjoyable.
    • While a lot of success seems to come from luck, most of the people who got that luck got it because they had worked hard to be in that right place at that right time. You don't tend to see all the background work that people did to get somewhere (unless they have connections, but most people don't).
  3. Turn challenges into learning experiences. One key difference between people who are successful and people who aren't is how they respond to the roadblocks, the things that don't work out. No matter how hard you work and no matter how talented you are, you will experience obstacles and setbacks. The difference is in whether you see obstacles as failures or as learning experiences.
    • Instead of looking at the obstacles as a reflection on you, ask yourself what you learned from it. What would you do differently next time? If you had had all the resources in the world in your grasp, how would you have approached the problem? How have other people approached or dealt with problems like this one?
    • Remind yourself that you're better equipped the next time you are confronted with something like this. Dwelling on it and beating yourself up over it will make it harder to face the next problem, because you'll already be in the mindset that you will “fail.”
    • Studies show that people who succeed generally don’t have any more or fewer obstacles than people who do not succeed. How people choose to interpret and respond to these obstacles determines success more than anything else.
  4. Take risks. You cannot succeed without taking some risks. If you stay in your comfort zone, you can't really grow, change, or succeed. You’ll actually work harder if you’re in a slightly unfamiliar or uncomfortable situation.
    • For example: if talking to people makes you anxious, try for at least one conversation a week with someone you don't know. This can be as simple as asking for the time and discussing the lateness of the bus. It can be asking a shop person for help finding something. The more you do it, the easier it will get. And talking to people is a hugely important part of being able to succeed (since you will need to ask for people and network with people).
    • Push yourself to do things you might not otherwise do, but don't feel like you have to accomplish everything at once. Even small changes can make a big difference in the long-term. For instance, if you want to be healthier, you might take a free yoga class. If you want to be a world-renowned chef one day, you might start by signing up for a single cooking class.
    • The more you get out there, the easier it will be to deal with life when it throws you for a loop, because you'll have experience problem-solving when you're outside your comfort zone.
  5. Visualize positively. It's truly amazing how much power your brain has to make you successful or unsuccessful simply based on how you think about things. If you focus on the negative, your life is going to feel like a failure no matter how much you accomplish and you'll find obstacles more difficult.
    • Go back to your priorities and visualize yourself achieving success in all of them. Imagine yourself with a happy family, or imagine yourself the star of your local theater troupe, or giving esteemed lectures on Egyptology.
    • The more specific and detailed these visualizations are, the more successful they are in building up positive reinforcement. Imagine the sounds of people shifting interestedly in their seat, imagine them leaning forward, feel the heat from the stage lights, hear the sounds of your potential children laughing.

Being Successful

  1. Help others. Philanthropy and helping other people is incredibly important to continued success, because you're creating a chain of community and fostering a system of aid. This will help you, too, in the long run. Not only does philanthropy contribute greatly to your own life, by bolstering your health and your self-esteem, but it makes your community a healthier place as well.
    • Even if you are poor, you can help others. You could give $5 to a local project that you support. You can give your time and your skill for local enterprises and nonprofits that need help.
    • You can simply do helpful and nice things for the people in your own life. You can buy the coffee of the person behind you in line. You can offer to babysit your sister's kids for free. You could give your parents a hand cleaning the house each week. The effects of your generosity will ripple out into your community.
  2. Make connections. Building connections is incredibly important to succeed in life. This means not only networking with people who can help further your goals. It also means connecting with people like friends and family who help make our lives more bearable and ease potential loneliness.
    • Of course, you should try to network with people who can help you further your goals. There is nothing wrong with this. It can be something as simply as asking for advice from a person in your field that you admire, or it could be requesting a letter of recommendation, or even a job.
    • Networking means talking to people. So do things like go up to the lecturer after the lecture and tell them how much you enjoyed it and introduce yourself and your interests in a polite way.
    • Build community whenever you can. Participate in your own community. Go to events, help out with philanthropic projects, talk to the people around you and show them that they are important (this can mean something as simple as asking how someone is and really listening when they talk). Strong communities help individuals succeed, because they back them and they pick them up when they fall.
    • Don't burn bridges. Of course you should get rid of toxic people from your life, but dumping people instead of keeping them, even at arm's length, can have negative effects for you. People talk to one another and the world is much smaller than you realize. You can tell someone when they have hurt you in a manner that doesn't mean there is no possibility for future dialogue. This also means owning up to your own mistakes.
  3. Take care of yourself. You won't be able to succeed in life if you're so focused on your goals that you forget to have a life and to take care of yourself. Your health will suffer and your quality of life will suffer. People are often so focused on staying alive and "succeeding" that they forget to actually live. Success is when you feel happy, content, and enjoy life. It isn't about money or fame or attracting the "right" partner.
    • Exercise is a great way to help regulate your system and keep you healthy. It releases chemicals like endorphins that help your mental health and getting the blood pumping helps your heart and the rest of your body. Try for 30 minutes of exercise each day, like yoga, a brisk walk, going for a run, dancing.
    • Eat right. This doesn't mean you give up all your favorite foods. It simply means that you do your best to get lots of fruits and veggies, that you try for the good carbohydrates (like brown rice, quinoa, whole wheat, oats) and that you eat more proteins like salmon, nuts, and beans which help support the immune system and better regulate your blood sugar.
    • Get enough sleep. Sleep is something that is particularly problematic in the Western world. Sleep helps regulate stress levels, helps make health problems better, and allows us to be alert and energetic. Try to get at least 8 hours of sleep each night. Shut off all electronics 30 minutes before bedtime and try to go to sleep before midnight.
    • Drink lots of water. Your body is made up of a huge percentage of water. When you get dehydrated you don't function as well, you feel foggy and fatigued, and it can lead to serious health problems. Go for at least 8 glasses of water a day and try to avoid dehydrators like coffee.
  4. Avoid burnout. In the end, figuring out your priorities and making goals and setting up schedules and networking isn't going to make you succeed in your life unless you're happy. To do that you need to make sure that you aren't overcommitting.
    • Learn to say "no." Only you can set your own boundaries. Philanthropy is great and giving time is great, but only if you first make sure that you are giving time to yourself, as well. If you don't want to go to that party, if you need time to recuperate and can't help with that fundraiser, then say politely say "no."
    • Do something fun. Do something that pampers you. Take a long, hot bubble bath and read a book. Go to the beach for a weekend by yourself and revel in having no one's needs to care for but your own. You know what makes you happy. Remember to take time to have those moments for yourself.

Tips

  • Keep trying things, especially if you're not quite sure what your skills and priorities are. The more you try, the sooner you'll find the things that you love.
  • Luck is something that comes in handy, but it isn't everything. Often the people who seem luckiest are those who are putting themselves out into the world and making things happen.

Warnings

  • Avoid pessimism. Negative thinking will only tear you down and make it harder to succeed in life. When you find yourself thinking negatively, notice the negative thought and let it go.
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