How to achieve success in life: from principles to actions

Each of us periodically asks the question: what is success? Some may feel it on an intuitive level, and can imagine in their heads what a truly successful life looks like for them. However, the signs of success are different for each of us : for some it is expensive premium cars, and for others it is a feeling of importance among loved ones. It all depends on the goals, worldview and personal qualities of a particular person. However, there are several main components that make up real success. Let's figure out what is included in this concept.

What is real success?

In the most general sense, success is the ability to realize your goals and find ways to achieve them. It seems that this definition is very simple, but it is in it that the entire subjectivity of the concept of “success” is manifested. Just as each of the people living on earth has different fingerprints, the true goals and intentions of each of us are also different. And when we find the path to achieving our goals, as well as the strength and determination to overcome this path, that is when we truly get closer to success.

More specifically, the list of attributes of success is wide and multifaceted: fame, respect, significance in society, fame in certain circles, financial independence, climbing the career ladder, love from loved ones. But again, for some, climbing the career ladder may not mean success, but quite the opposite - if a person, for example, dreams of developing his own business.

One of the best answers to the question “what is success” was given by the American writer Bessie Anderson Stanley, author of the poem “What is Success?”:

Its definition contains the most harmonious and complete set of elements, which for most people add up to a single component called “success”. However, there will be those who will add something of their own to this definition. This reveals the amazing subjectivity of the concept of success.

A very interesting definition of the term success was formulated by Brian Tracy, a Canadian psychologist, successful entrepreneur and writer:

Principle No. 4. It is impossible to progress constantly.

This principle does not contradict the previous one, but rather complements it. You should not feel despondent if, after two or three weeks of constant growth in indicators, you suddenly find yourself in a state of local stagnation. This is fine.

Any athlete does not train around the clock. For professionals, the rest phase is just as important as the training phase. Even the most advanced computer or smartphone needs time to recharge, just like a person needs sleep at night. Your organization or team needs down periods too. The word “recession” should not cause fear or anxiety - everything develops according to a sinusoid. Even if you have an “off-season” and the period of stagnation lasts for a whole month, this is an excellent opportunity to “get your tails in” and polish your internal business processes.

What distinguishes successful people from unsuccessful ones?

Successful people are not at all the darlings of fate, and excesses and luxury do not flow into their hands. To achieve the intended heights, you need to put in a lot of physical, mental and psychological effort. An integral aspect of true success is constant self-development. a series of tasks for yourself , boldly look your goals in the eye and invest in yourself on the way to achieving them as much as you would like to get in the end.

Most successful people cannot boast of aristocratic roots or higher education. Moreover, many of them lived in poverty for half their lives! It’s just that these people have a clear idea of ​​success. They understand what they really need. For many, it’s easier to leave everything as it is and continue wandering along foggy paths that lead nowhere. What distinguishes successful people?

First of all, successful people have a positive attitude towards life, even towards failures. Where others give up, successful people always try again and again . No one will make our life bright except ourselves. To devote yourself wholeheartedly to any undertaking and to float on a wave of positivity with the flow of life is what is really important in this world.

In addition, every successful person always has clear goals - for the day, for the week, for the year. He devotes his life to the endless search for opportunities to achieve these goals. A very effective tool in achieving goals is keeping a “Success Diary”.

Successful people know how to believe in miracles. This is a prerequisite when you set yourself a truly grandiose goal - one that no one has achieved before. This is how the first car was invented, the first television was invented, and thousands of other important discoveries were made. Belief in miracles, perseverance, and constant development.

General Eisenhower's principle

The method was developed by the American president and is designed to divide tasks into several types:

• important and unimportant;
• immediate and non-urgent.

A table appears, the suppression of blocks of which characterizes the priority of actions.

It makes no sense to build such a matrix for each situation, but it is still worth learning the principle of dividing things by priority.

What does success look like?

It is not uncommon for bright magazine images that embody complete financial security and self-sufficiency . Many people idolize such people, because someone who was able to break into the public eye, climb to the top of the career ladder and start earning a huge amount of money is an idol, a role model, a classic portrait of a successful person.

But often, even these idols come to emotional emptiness. Financial success is only one side of the coin. The second is occupied by much more significant things than the rustle of banknotes: happiness in your personal life, professional development. And it is important to maintain a balance on both sides. Only with their complete harmonization is real success possible. Relatively speaking: what is the use of achieving the desired position if it becomes an obstacle to full communication with loved ones?

Under the influence of personal characteristics, each person has an individual and unique perception of the world. A key role in this is played by both the character as a whole and its individual components - ambition, emotionality, temperament. Therefore, everyone will have their own answer to the question “what is success”.

Start small

You must clearly define the end goal. The path to achieving it may not be easy and may take an indefinite period of time, so it is important to accurately and carefully paint a picture of what will happen as a result.

At the same time, do not become a slave to your goal. Of course, monotonous progress towards the end point is commendable, but it is also important to be able to adjust your activities in case of sudden changes in life circumstances, without remaining hostage to your tasks or completely abandon the idea if it has become irrelevant. Next, I will give strategies that will tell you how and what you need to do to be successful and become independent.

Foundation for Success

Improving personal characteristics is a mandatory step on the path to success. Whatever different goals we set for ourselves, the basis for achieving them is working on ourselves, constant development.

Self-development is learning new skills and gaining new knowledge. To begin with, you can learn universal, but very valuable and useful skills in everyday life: learn a foreign language, cook an exotic dish, sign up for a massage course, or take up painting. The main thing is that these steps bring you closer to your main goal.

Even if you are well-read, smart and can skillfully support any conversation with an interesting conversation, self-development will never hurt. This is the eternal mechanism of life that develops us, and believe me, it will certainly lead you to the desired heights . Think for yourself: after reading about new technical developments, will you become a more specialized master if your activity is directly related to the innovations of technical progress?

Remember: the key to success in any activity is workaholism with maximum dedication to the task. And such thoughts as “this is difficult”, “I’m lazy”, “I won’t get paid for this” and the like - need to be thrown out of your head. They only reduce motivation and determination.

Principle No. 6. Use priorities.

When we are dealing with many small subtasks, we must realize that it will not be possible to complete them all at the same time. This is partly why we divided a large whole into its component parts, so that we could then carry out tasks sequentially.

The most important thing to understand is that tasks have a certain priority, in other words, some tasks are more important than others. This importance can be indicated by you intuitively, and this will already allow you to achieve a certain order in your affairs. But it is much better if the importance of tasks correlates with their value . It is best to determine value by the contribution (or weight) of a given task to the overall result. Back in the last century, sociologist and economist Vilfredo Pareto said that 20% of effort produces 80% of the result - he was right! In our opinion, in many cases this ratio is even 90/10.

Therefore, if you don’t have time to do everything, do the most important thing. There are people (sometimes called perfectionists) who strive to do everything and do it “perfectly.” In real business, there are no such successful entrepreneurs. The success of an entrepreneur lies precisely in highlighting the main thing and concentrating only on this , even to the detriment of the rest. Understand that all resources are ALWAYS limited. And even if you have millions of dollars and thousands of employees, you have resources that are scarce or non-renewable, such as your time. Therefore, do only important tasks, and for this you need to prioritize.

The second thesis in defense of doing only what is important is an endless series of A\B tests. In life, when starting a new project, you never know for sure what will work and what won’t. What will be in demand by the user, buyer, consumer, and what will not. Therefore, do only the main thing, realize your zest, but do it better than anyone else. If you are wrong about the main thing, then there is no point in continuing to spend resources on polishing less significant parameters of the product. If the ship does not have a hull, then it is useless to waste time choosing a pattern for the sails - it will not float.

Pareto rule in planning

There are many ways to set priorities - in some places ranking on a scale from 1 to 10 is suitable, in others there are three categories in the style of A, B and C. But even if you just do “important/not important”, you will already be half a length ahead of your rivals .

Principles for achieving success

We have figured out what success is. Now let's study several universal principles of success, which together make up a single formula and help you achieve results regardless of what goals and objectives you set for yourself:

• Take it and do it! No undertaking will bring results without action. The more you think about the idea, the more fears you have. So, any goal will remain just a dream if you are always afraid of difficulties. Only by throwing away fear can you conquer the tip of the iceberg!
• Always say yes". Every sentence presented by fate has meaning. Before refusing anything, you need to think and analyze the reason for refusal and the consequences three times. Often, it is precisely because of a thoughtless “no” that we miss promising chances.
• Challenge yourself! A person who does not strive to learn new things slides down the personal ladder. The meaning of our life lies in constant development, self-improvement and the realization of our goals. Remember: we only live once. It's stupid to miss opportunities while lying on the couch.
• Set goals! If you don’t have your own goals, you’ll have to work on someone else’s. This is the process of life and it cannot be stopped. No one promises an easy path to the intended heights, but aspiration and positive thinking will help you “soar above the world.” Read an interesting article on the topic “How to set goals and achieve results” here.
• Stand firm on your feet. To act under the influence of someone else's opinion means to lose yourself. Consider the information around you, but make your own decisions clearly and confidently. This will add credibility to you both in the eyes of others and in your own.
• Be conscientious. Decency and honesty are what success is! These wonderful human qualities guarantee the desired prosperity in life. Working for money is bad policy. If finances are on the pedestal of goals, then you shouldn’t count on real success. The more you devote yourself to what you love, to people, the higher the price for your efforts will be.
• Live life to the fullest. Only we ourselves can fill our lives with bright colors, interesting events and pleasant moments. But all this requires special courage. Preferring not to go beyond the comfort zone of guaranteed safety, the joy of victory will never visit your heart.

Principle No. 3. Monitor your progress.

The form of control is not particularly important. You can use simple or complex tools, you can use different reporting forms and programs - this, of course, will give you different degrees of detail and convenience. It’s great if you have visual widgets with statistics or graphs that are constantly updated. But even if you just use a notepad and pen and regularly cross out what you have achieved, you will make progress. It's amazing - but everything you control inevitably gets better.

The expert advises using a selection of his favorite tools collected on the free website of the same name www.goalton.com, but it is much more important that you have at least some tools for regular monitoring.

Main components

So, based on what we have discussed today, we can identify 10 main components of the concept of success:

• the ability to clearly formulate your goals;
• the ability to find ways to achieve goals;
• the ability to constantly work towards achieving goals;
• feeling of happiness from one’s own activities;
• love and respect of loved ones;
• a strong family;
• material well-being;
• continuous improvement;
• health care;
• the ability to endure failures;

Becoming successful and achieving your goals

To climb to the top of Olympus and know how to achieve results and everything you want in life, you need to gradually move forward, adhering to the following useful rules:

• Each task should be divided into simpler subtasks with specific time frames. Everyone knows this strategy, but only a few use it in practice.
• Any worthwhile idea should be written down. You shouldn’t carry everything in your head, it’s better to focus on a specific task.
• Set aside a strictly designated time and place for meetings and conversations, as there are people who will take up all your space and disrupt your schedule.
• Take breaks - it's better if they are short but frequent.
• Don't put off unpleasant tasks for too long.

These are simple steps that will take you a long way forward.

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Individual performance curve

How to learn to achieve your professional success? It's simple, every person has hours of peak activity and relaxation. Having properly studied your body and the biorhythms in it, you can do much more. These processes are displayed very well on the labor productivity curve. It is divided into three types:

• the average person;
• owls;
• larks.

Decide what type you are and you will succeed.

The curve of an ordinary person

This indicator is suitable for the majority of people. Their concentration of attention reaches a peak in the first quarter of the day (7.30 - 11.30), then decreases and increases again at the end of the day (18.00 - 21.00). In the evening hours, the charge of vivacity that was in the morning is not observed. Therefore, everything important should be planned for the morning.

"Owls" activity

Do you go to bed late at night, and waking up early is a terrible torment? Perhaps you are a night owl. For such people, the productivity schedule is shifted a couple of hours ahead compared to those described above. How then to become successful in life, if you belong to this type, there is no secret, just put maximum emphasis on working during lunch and evening hours.

Features of "Larks"

By 9 pm you are already off your feet, but in the morning you were full of strength and vigor? – You are definitely a morning person. Your peak activity schedule is shifted back one hour. That is, in order to use your potential most efficiently and effectively, you need to:

• start activities early in the morning;
• spend time before colleagues arrive on an important part of the work, which is best done in complete silence;
• Carry out monotonous activities in the afternoon.

Monitor yourself and develop the most optimal work discipline schedule.

To-do list

Things don't always go according to plan - don't be disappointed, you should stay inspired all day. Lack of motivation is faced daily by specialists in all fields: leading top managers, professional athletes. Often, following a developed scheme turns out to be difficult and boring. But motivation is the main driver of progress. It is worth understanding how and what kind of people support the desire to move forward and achieve success in life. You need to set yourself up wisely, convincing yourself that the result will bring benefits. Ask yourself: why do I need this and what will I get?

Find the correct answers: If I do this, I will go on vacation with my family, buy a car, buy an apartment, or become slim.

Characteristics of initiative

Initiative can be directed towards oneself, society or the state. Self-directed initiative has the following personal qualities: self-knowledge, awareness, determination, independence, curiosity, desire for well-being and comfort.

Initiative that is aimed at society is called social initiative. Social initiative is a form of voluntary activity that is aimed at the benefit of society, the state and at transforming existing reality. This type of initiative is characterized by the following qualities: mutual assistance, collectivism, sociability, leadership and mobility.

Initiative directed towards the state is manifested in an active life position, responsibility, hard work, inclusion in mass culture and political practice.

Introverted type.

Such people are out of touch with reality. They draw their strength from solitude and reflection. They really don’t like noisy large companies, they quickly get tired of long-term communication, but one-on-one communication is acceptable for them, they are excellent partners. Introverts are quite reserved and always adhere to their own beliefs. However, they are too persistent and stubborn, it is very difficult to convince them; their own point of view is always the only true one for them. He lives not so much by perceptions and sensations as by ideas. External events as such influence the life of such a person relatively little; what he thinks about them is much more important. If a reasonable degree of introversion contributes to the development of independent judgment, then a strongly introverted person lives mostly in a world of unrealistic ideas. The favorite food for thinking of introverts is problems of religion, politics, and philosophy. Unsociable, keeps aloof, communicates when necessary, loves loneliness; self-absorbed, talks little about himself, does not reveal his experiences. Slow and indecisive in actions.

This type is characterized by relying on their life experience. This type is not affected by various situations. The degree of immersion in the inner world leads a person to a separation from reality. Characterized by an emphasized tendency to think and a weak readiness to act.

Is it possible to easily identify the type without a test? If you are interested, please contact a psychologist.

Modified: 04/30/2019, 19:39

Finding a calling

As mentioned above, a favorite activity or calling can maximize your abilities, help you achieve your goals and make your life happy. Find that area of ​​activity, that business niche that attracts you, and not your loved ones, acquaintances and friends. At the same time, you must truthfully tell yourself: “I want,” and not be guided by the prestige and profitability of the job. Your true purpose will not only bring you success, money, but will also make you the happiest person. Real dreams come true very easily, it seems as if the whole world is helping you achieve this.

Unusual personality

The ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes gained fame as the most extraordinary personality for many centuries. He helped people look at the world around them in a new way. The scientist lived in a wine barrel. He had practically no property: a staff, a bowl for water and a bag for food (bread). In his perception, happiness is independence from external manifestations of reality. The wealth of a sage is work, perseverance, movement. Freedom and the ability to feed yourself is true happiness. The goal of life according to Diogenes is strength of spirit and body. He considered those who lived idly and sought pleasure to be empty and worthless. They insulted the very essence of man.

Attitudes towards ancient scientists were different before and now in the modern period. For many, his life choice is an eccentricity. For others, it’s a life position. But everyone agrees on one thing: not everyone is able to give up comfort in order to prove their convictions.

Excitable type.

These people are unsociable, their actions and reactions are slow, but they can be quick-tempered and irritable. They often provoke conflicts and can be rude and rude. Positive traits include neatness, love for small children, as well as reliability and conscientiousness. This type is characterized by insufficient controllability, weakened control over drives and impulses, and increased impulsiveness. This type is characterized by instinctiveness, anger, intolerance, and a tendency to conflict. There is low contact in communication, heaviness of actions, and slowness of mental processes. Work and study are not attractive to him and he is indifferent to the future. Lives entirely in the present. Increased impulsiveness is difficult to suppress and can be dangerous to others. Can be domineering, choosing the weakest for communication.

A feature of an excitable personality is pronounced impulsiveness of behavior. The manner of communication and behavior largely depends not on a rational understanding of one’s actions, but on an impulse, drive, instinct or uncontrollable urge. In the area of ​​social interaction, representatives of this type are characterized by extremely low tolerance.

Demonstrative type.

People of this type strive to show themselves in society, they love to be the center of attention, communication comes easily to them. They tend to start intrigues. These people are attracted by their originality, activity, artistry, and they are also able to interest anyone in anything. However, according to Leonhard's theory, people dislike this type because of excessive self-confidence, egocentrism, and laziness. They provoke conflicts. Characterized by demonstrative behavior, liveliness, mobility, ease of establishing contacts, and artistry. Inclined to fantasizing, posing and pretense. He has an increased ability to repress, he can completely forget what he does not want to know about, which unchains him in lies. Usually he lies with an innocent face, because what he is talking about, at the moment, is true for him; Apparently, he is not internally aware of his lie, or he is aware of it without remorse. Lies and pretense are aimed at embellishing oneself. He is driven by a thirst for constant attention (even negative) to his person. This type demonstrates high adaptability to people, emotional lability in the absence of truly deep feelings, and a tendency to intrigue (with an outwardly soft manner of communication).

The main feature of a demonstrative personality is the need to make an impression, attract attention, and be in the center of events. This manifests itself in vain, often deliberate, behavior, in particular, in such traits as self-praise, perception and presentation of oneself as the central character of any situation

Much of what such a person says about himself often turns out to be a figment of his imagination or a significantly embellished account of events.

Don't forget to thank yourself

Every time you achieve the planned result, be sure to treat yourself to something pleasant. Give yourself a prize for a job well done.

A new beautiful blouse or smartphone from the latest Apple collection. Or something extreme? For example, a parachute jump from a height of 5000 meters! (Breathtaking!)

Just please let the reward be commensurate with the success achieved. For example, if, according to your plan, you have lost a couple of extra pounds of excess weight, you should not buy yourself a kilogram cake. Also, you shouldn’t buy yourself a big, expensive prize for a frankly small achievement.

Pedantic type.

According to Leonhard’s accentuation, this is a very neat person, which he demands from others. He does not pretend to be a leader and is rarely the initiator of conflicts. Such people are overly arrogant and demanding, however, they are very conscientious in business and reliable. It is characterized by rigidity, inertia of mental processes, and prolonged experience of traumatic events. Rarely enters into conflicts, but at the same time reacts strongly to any manifestations of disruption of order. Punctual, neat, scrupulous, clean, conscientious. Assiduous, focused on high quality work and extreme accuracy, prone to frequent self-examinations, doubts about the correctness of the work, and formalism.

External manifestations of this type are increased accuracy, desire for order, indecisiveness and caution. Before doing anything, such a person thinks long and carefully about everything.

Behind external pedantry is a reluctance to make quick changes and an inability to make them, and a lack of desire to accept responsibility. These people love their usual work and are conscientious in everyday life.