How to Be Successful – Defining Success In Life

How do you define success in life? Most people consider success as having a great career, wealth, and respect from peers. But don’t overlook goals that will support a happier life. Prioritizing relationships, physical health, safety, contributing to others, and creative expression have been shown to improve feelings of happiness.

However, don’t confuse the feeling of happiness with success. You could be quite happy eating Cheetos in your parents’ basement while you watch TV. That doesn’t make you a success. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Happiness is not a goal…it’s a by-product of a life well-lived.”

Success in life means attaining your vision of a good life. It means achieving specific goals that result in the future you have planned for yourself. Success in life is defined by the individual. Your vision of success looks different than someone else’s.

If you are looking for the key to success in business vs the key to success in a relationship, your strategies and efforts are going to be quite different.

It’s also important to take care that you don’t let someone else dictate what a successful life for you looks like. You only have so much time in life, so make sure you create a holistic picture for yourself.

The hilariously talented Ken Jeong was raised to pursue medicine, and even though he was a successful physician, it wasn’t what he really wanted. Later, he found his way into acting and comedy, and to the delight of audiences everywhere, he is now living out his vision of success.

As Thomas Merton put it, “People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.” Don’t put your ladder against the wrong wall! If you are meant to be a yoga teacher, you won’t feel successful as a “successful” investment banker.

People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.”

Thomas Merton

10 Keys To Success

So now that you know what success is, how do you get there? Believe it or not, although success may look different for everyone, there is a common list of strategies or keys to achieving that success. And here’s the good news: once you learn how to succeed, you can apply these tools to succeed in multiple areas of your life.

These keys or tools listed below will help you unlock success in your life. They are strategies used by successful athletes, businessmen, and artists. Make sure you have a clear vision of a successful life in front of you as you work through them.

The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.”

Brian Tracy

1st Key: Make A Plan

The very first key to success is to make a plan. This means having a clear picture of what a successful life looks like to you and putting together a well-defined set of goals to get you to that life.

Planning well starts with figuring out what you want and writing it down in detail. It’s important to have clarity on your definition of success. This is the foundation for your plan.

To succeed means to accomplish a goal. By this definition, if you don’t set goals, you’ll never succeed.

2nd Key: Prepare For The Unexpected

Many of the best-laid plans have been derailed by a single misstep. Preparing for the unexpected can make the difference between your plans ending in failure or succeeding despite a bump in the road.

So how do you prepare for the unexpected? Start by making a list of things that could go wrong in your plan. Then create workarounds and backups for each potential problem. Even when I’m driving a route I know well, I usually keep my GPS up and running to help me navigate traffic jams, construction, or missed turns.

3th Key: Prioritize Your Goals

As you create your systems and put your good habits into practice, you’ll probably find there isn’t enough time in each day to work towards every goal. Manage your time wisely, so that the right activities take priority.

If you’re unsure how to prioritize goals, it may help to apply some techniques like a numerical ranking system or the Eisenhower Matrix. Prioritizing your goals also means not letting things that never even made your list get ahead of pursuing what did. In other words, don’t let talking to a telemarketer derail your plans to work on your website.  

4rd Key: Develop Good Habits 

You can have big dreams, great goals, and still fail. The third key of success requires you to turn your goals into actions. Repeated actions in the right direction become helpful habits. And once you form the right habits, you create momentum.

By creating systems for your life as you form good habits that can help you stay on track. You can build systems by grouping good habits together. Having a system in place can keep you from having to make decisions on the fly or having to keep track of doing all your goal-oriented tasks one by one.

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

James Clear

Instead, you follow an intentional daily pattern that moves you toward your goals with less stress. This has the added benefits of reducing stress and freeing your attention to focus on the things that truly require more brainpower.

5th Key: Learn from Your Mistakes

They say, “the road to success is paved with failure.” What they don’t say is that each piece of failure on that road probably looks different than the other. Success most likely came by way of trying (and failing) many different ways. Yes, you can fail your way to success, but almost never by making the same mistake over and over.

Failure is a part of the process of becoming successful if you make it a teacher. Learning and growing after failure makes it useful.

For example, consider a runner. Every race a runner loses, they may still be improving. They will likely see progress if they build up strength and try new running techniques. They may move up from 5th place to 3rd place to 2nd. Even though they aren’t first, each race is a part of the process of success, moving them closer to getting first place.

I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.

Michael Jordan
 

6th Key: Try Different Strategies

success in life - if at first you don't succeed, try another way
The road to success is not straight. There are stops and starts, turns, and detours. Anyone who says they’ve got the exact path to success for you is probably lying. As the (creepy) saying goes, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” Heck, there’s more than one way to get the meaning of that saying across. Let’s make up a newer, more pet-friendly one: “There’s more than one way to peel a banana.”

Any way you put it, there’s more than one way to do – just about everything. So, if at first, you don’t succeed, try another way.  Try a new strategy. Come at your goal from a new angle, at a different time, with a different person. There could, in fact be many effective strategies. You just need to find the right one. The only way to find it is to keep changing and keep trying until you find one that works.

7th Key: Take Smart Risks

As you try out different strategies, you may find that you’re trying something entirely new. It might feel scary. Admittedly, taking risks is intimidating, but taking smart risks can have big payoffs. Taking a smart or calculated risk means researching potential outcomes and determining your chances of success and if the payoff is worth risking the harm that could be done.

Getting good at risk-taking is a life skill that takes time to develop. You may have a few painful failures as you figure out how to take calculated risks in life. It’s best to start out by taking small risks. As you get better at it, you’ll probably become more comfortable. But don’t let your comfort be the only deciding factor. Often, taking a risk is the only way to achieve success.

8th Key: Learn from the Experts

Truthfully, there is no one path to success. Nevertheless, a lot can be learned from studying other successful people.  Even better is to be mentored or to study directly under someone. Recorded history doesn’t always catch all the details and nuances.

Start by researching and studying successful people who did something in the same realm of what you are striving to achieve.

Want to innnovate?
Study innovators.

Want to be a great painter?
Study Van Gogh, Monet, and Picasso.

Want to own a restaurant?
Learn from a restaurateur.

Whatever you are after, seek out the experts, ask questions, and take notes.

9th Key: Master How to Say No

Our culture undervalues the importance of saying no. It can be uncomfortable. If you listen to interviews with successful people, you’ll probably hear them talk about turning down great opportunities they knew weren’t right for them.

Learning how to say no is an essential key to success in life. Successful people say no all the time. Saying no means knowing yourself, your boundaries, and being able to determine what is worth your time and energy. Saying no to the wrong thing leaves space to say yes to the right thing. It leaves room for the right opportunity.

Have trouble saying no? Check out this video for some awesome tips!