Why is it that some people achieve more than the average lot? Why are some people more successful than others?
- Is it because they are smarter?
- Are they just too lucky?
I don’t believe either of the above are reasons to be more successful.
“Luck favors those who help themselves”
People don’t get successful just because of luck, they keep applying a few core success principles in their lives consistently that lead them towards success. It is important to develop a mindset for success.
Just as an example, in the construction business, when any tall building has to be constructed, the most amount of steel and cement are required to build the basements since those are the base of the building. The base of the building has to be strong in order to take the load of upper floors.
Similarly, if you want to be successful, it is important to have your basics right. If you are following the basic principles correctly, you are definitely going to become successful. For someone, it might take a bit longer than others, but success can not elude you for long. These secrets of success are like important pillars that can help you create a wonderful foundation on your journey towards becoming successful.
Betterauds Team has interviewed over 1000 Successful people from different fields, We interviewed Successful Women, Entrepreneurs, Authors, Musicians, Influencers, Life Coaches and more, and asked them about the strategies that helped them become successful in their journey. Then we compiled those strategies and took out the 7 most common strategies that were being used by them.
Here are 7 ‘Secrets to Success’ that can change your life:
‘Success Secret’ #1: Get a Burning Desire
Successful people have a deep burning desire to achieve success. They want it badly. A young man asked Socrates the secret to Success. Socrates told the guy to meet him near the beach next morning at 4 A.M. The young man thought to himself, – “I am asking him the secret to success and Socrates is calling me near a beach!! Man, I do not want to learn swimming, I want to know the secret of success.” Nevertheless, next morning 4 A.M he reached near the beach. Socrates asked the man to walk with him towards the beach. When the water got up to their necks, Socrates dunked the young guy into water. The guy tried and struggled to get his neck out of water but could not. Socrates held the young guy’s head into water for around a minute and after that he released his grip and allowed the young man to come out of water. The young boy immediately took a deep breath of air. Socrates asked him – “What did you want the most when you were under water?” I am sure he must have wanted to say ”the most I wanted to do was – Kick you” but he replied that he wanted ‘air’ the most when he was under water. Socrates said – That’s the secret to success, If you want success as badly as you wanted to breathe when you were underwater, then you would succeed.
Do you want it badly enough? Do you have the burning desire?
Having a burning desire is one of the first steps that you can take in order to achieve your dreams. Since taking the first steps is one of the hardest.
Success Secret #2: Find out what you are passionate about
Most of the people who go to work every day to earn a living, they spend at least 8 to 9 hours each day at their workplace. They do this for at least 5 days every week. Most of the people sleep for around 8 hours per day. So, out of 24 hours in a day, most of the people spend one third amount at their work/jobs.
Imagine going to a place for 8 to 9 hours every day for 5 days a week and not enjoying what you do there.
Would such a person feel satisfied in his life?
Would such a person feel positive to go to work every day?
It is extremely important to do what we love. Therefore, it becomes extremely important to understand what is it that you are passionate about.
When you work on your passion, work doesn’t feel like work at all.
I would share from my personal experience here. While working in FedEx in sales for 2.5 years, I realized I am interested in the tech niche and wanted to start something of my own in that niche. So I co-founded a tech company where in we worked with more than a thousand customers for their online marketing. We did this for about 8 years. During this time, My co-founder & I realized that we wanted to make a difference in lives of millions of people. So, we decided to start betterauds and share stories of successful people.
So, there must be something that you would feel passionate about. Do you feel passionate about music or sports? is it tech gadgets? is it fitness? Whatever is your calling, go for it.
Success Secret #3: Create and Write down your Goals
You can make a very important contribution towards achieving success by doing a goal setting exercise. It is said that smart people write smart goals. Setting goals makes it easier for you to plan your tasks at hand and prioritize. This helps you in becoming focused on your goals.
When you have written down your goals and you start working on them, you tend to start feeling positive as you progress ahead. It is very important to stay positive on the journey towards success because there might be times when you might feel down.
Let me tell you a rewarding technique of setting your goals, just draft a table in your planner/organizer as shown below:
| Goal/Task | Reasons for working towards this goal | Priority | Target Date | Status |
Let me just briefly go through the relevance of each column in organizer:
- First of All, mention the goals that you want to work towards.
- Now, mention the reason you want to work towards this Goal, (You must be wondering that why do you need to mention the reason/necessity for its completion. This would always remind you of the results that you would reap once the goals have been accomplished within deadline).
- This should keep you motivated enough to continue working towards it since it is very natural to get discouraged/demotivated while working towards long term goals if you can not see the rewards you are going to get through them.
- Assign a priority on a scale of 1-5 for every task where 1 stands for critical tasks and 5 for tasks that can wait. Arranging the goals in decreasing order of priorities would help in tracking them
- Also, do set the target date for each task since this would give you a deadline to work towards, thus also giving you a chance to get better with your time management skills. Keep reasonable time estimates for every goal so that you are not discouraged in case any failure to achieve them due to lack of time.
- Do mention the status for every goal as Pending/In Progress/Completed. Also, you can start shading goals in red if the target date is approaching and status is still pending. The pending task in red would always catch your eye first when you open your organizer the next time.
- You can also start shading your completed task in green since this would motivate you to continue working.
Success Secret #4: Work Hard because “There is no shortcut to success”
“In Life, there is no free lunch”
It means you don’t get something for free. If you want to be successful, you would need to put in the efforts. You need to put in the hard work required to get things done. Just look at all the facilities you are currently receiving – Electricity, Roads, Cars, Buses, Smart Phones, Internet. All these are making your life so much easier. It is there because someone worked hard to invent these. Someone had the burning desire to bring these new inventions to the world.
Once you have written down your goals or once you have identified what you are passionate about, then it becomes easy to work hard in that direction. Choosing the direction is very important before you start working hard.
If you work hard in a direction that is opposite of what you want to achieve, then you would not get success.
Some people say: Don’t work hard, Work Smart.
When you have selected a direction, that is being smart to choose what you want to achieve. And once the direction is set, you can work hard in that direction. That actually is working smart.
It is also important to learn about smart strategies while working hard, that can help you in your journey. For example it is important to avoid wasting time while working on your goals, and be aware about the bad effects of poor time management.
There is no shortcut to success. You don’t get successful by taking shortcuts.
Most underachievers start procrastinating even at the thought of working hard. They start getting stressed. They look for shortcuts. Success is something that requires a specific type of mindset. A mindset wherein a person is willing to work hard, sacrifice small things in order to achieve big success. Here are 7 ways to develop Millionaire Mindset.
Anyone who has a mindset of taking shortcuts, such a person can not sustain success.
I have seen certain people closely who want to get rich quick, they keep looking for shortcuts. I have seen them trying and switching from one shortcut to another, it never works in the long run. Even when they earn some quick money through those shortcuts, they spend it too quickly, instead of investing the money so that it can grow.
My Personal Experience – How I worked hard to improve my fitness level?
The experience is about my journey towards fitness. In the last few years, I had gradually put on weight and became overweight. It felt bad to be overweight. I realized I did not want to be that way and I wanted to be fitter. Therefore, I started doing research online, looked at health documentaries on netflix, spoke to people who were fit and asked them about their journey. Over the last few years, I have tried various strategies to lose weight and become fit. These strategies include doing things like
- Having Coffee without sugar every day (Coffee with sugar tastes much better, but coffee without sugar is healthier)
- Staying on a less sugar diet
- Becoming vegan for several months
- Staying almost on a wheat free diet for more than a month
- Working out in the Gym by taking training from a Personal trainer to receive guidance on how to do the exercises in the correct way with correct posture. In addition, he also guided me about the right nutrition and daily protein intake.
Did I lose weight? Yes, I did
Did I take any shortcuts to do that? Nope
Did I work hard to work on my fitness goals? You bet
Did I reach closer to my goals? Yes I did
Believe me, If you are passionate about your Goal, If you want it badly enough, then, You would enjoy your hard work because you know it would bring you closer to your Goals.
Success Secret #5: Give your best at the task at hand
There are just two methods of doing any work in hand:
- Doing it halfheartedly
- Doing it passionately with all your heart
Which method do you think would achieve better results?
Passion can really help you a lot in achieving your dreams. Make sure that you put in best efforts for the task at hand. Working on something with full passion will give you contentment of working and trying really hard for it from your end. Also, giving your best would encourage you to do the task at hand better and would fill you with a sense of confidence.
“Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.” Oprah Winfrey
It is better to give your best when you do something, because if it doesn’t give proper results, you might have to do the effort again. Not only would it take more energy the second time to do it, but it would take extra time too. You can use the power of morning affirmations to help you in reaffirming everyday that you can give your best at the task at hand. In fact, you might wanna check out 11 ways to start your day with a Positive Attitude.
Success Secret #6: Focus
Focus is a necessary ingredient for achieving success.
As Carl Lewis, Track and Field Star Athlete has quoted “My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you’ll win….Channel your energy. Focus.”
So, focus and work towards the ‘task in hand’ without getting scared about the results since the best that you can do at that moment of time is to give your 100% towards the task in hand. Meditating for a few minutes every day really helps improve your ability to focus over time. If you want to learn more about What is meditation and what are its benefits.
Sometime back, I read this interesting international bestseller book – “The One Thing” by Gary Keller. The book talks about focusing all your energy on the one most important thing. Once you start doing that, you get amazing success in that area. It’s a must read. I have purchased this book and am only recommending it to you since it has personally helped me. I would only recommend something to you that would add value in your life.
By the way, if you like reading and if do not have kindle yet, I would recommend getting a kindle for yourself. It is amazing and you do not have to carry any physical books with you around. The cost of kindle books is far lower than that of physical books.
Success Secret #7: Persistence
Keep trying to achieve your goals in spite of failures since this another try might be the last blow and you may succeed.
Failures are part of Success. As you keep on trying and when you encounter failures, then look at it with a perspective that you are just moving closer to your Goals. Also, you would get to know what not to be repeat the next time when you try another time.
I do understand that sometimes, you might get into certain situations in life wherein you might feel anxious and you might feel down. It is at these times that you got to persist and keep your eyes on your goals. To be Successful, it is important to overcome your fears.
“They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats” B.C. Forbes
Success is possible for anyone who is willing to achieve it. A lot of people want to be successful, there is a huge difference between wanting-to and willing-to.
Are you willing to work towards your success? Do you think you have it in you to be what you want to be?
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