How to Be Successful
Planning for Success
1
Imagine yourself being successful.
Einstein said that the imagination is more important than knowledge.
The more vividly and accurately you imagine your success, the easier it
will be for the rest of your self to follow through. The same way
engineers first imagine a bridge and then build it, you can be the
engineer of your success by dedicating a few minutes every day for the
mental movies of your success.
2
Find the purpose or goal of your life.
Identify the things you love to do, the things that give you
satisfaction. Once you identify what you love to do, use this
information to find the purpose of your life or the objective of your
life.
- Finding what you love to do will give you motivation along the way.
Imagine being forced to do a triathlon when your true passion is chess.
Pretty difficult, huh? Now imagine the opportunity to participate in a
chess tournament. It's much, much easier to persistently chip away at
your goal if your goal is something you enjoy doing.
3
Define the meaning of success as you see it. You cannot have success if you do not know what it means for you. Everyone views success differently. Set clear goals and be realistic.
- How will you know when you've achieved your goals? Your standards
should be quantifiable, or else you could spend your entire life chasing
after a vague goal.
- For example, let's say you want to be good at your job. You get a promotion, you get a raise,
but you still haven't reached your goal because you could always do
better, right? You could always get promoted even further, or make even
more money. Whatever you have will never be enough.
- Instead, create benchmarks: "My goal is to increase my productivity
by 30% and only be late for work five times per year, at the most."
These are quantifiable goals that when achieved, give you a sense of
satisfaction and completion, making you feel successful and confident.
4
Set a timeline for when you want to achieve your objective.
If you don't know when you will achieve your objective by, then it's
hard to know whether or not you have failed. Give yourself a timeline
that is difficult but doable. Winning a Tour de France from scratch in
two years is not reasonable, but booking a comedy gig in front of at
least 20 paying customers probably is.
5
Identify the things/skills/material needed to achieve your objectives.
If you want to be a famous speaker, for example, you need a broad
vocabulary, subject knowledge, speech writing, voice clarity, and
presentation skills. This is identifying short term objectives to
achieve long term goals.
6
Identify the skills you need to sharpen and the skills you can outsource.
Outsourcing is all about time-management. You may think of yourself as a
superman or superwoman, but there are limits to your powers.
Outsourcing certain less essential tasks gives you more time to focus on
the things that are absolutely essential to your craft.
- Use the last example as a template; in order to become a great
speaker, you need to improve voice and presentation skills as these are
the basic skills needed for a speaker. But if you are lacking speech
writing or subject knowledge skills, you can try to outsource them to an
expert. This is called working smart. Many of the great leaders don't
write their own speech; they focus on delivering it right.
Execution
1
Execute your small objectives, focusing on your main objective.
Don't find reasons to procrastinate. Jump head-first into the challenge
and start chipping away. You never know what problems will present
themselves before you actually step into the arena.
- Break your goal into small steps. Does the goal of starting a
technology company seem impossibly unattainable? Break it down into
smaller goals. Focus on streamlining your idea; then focus on getting
funding; then move onto building a prototype, etc. If you have the
vision to attack your goal piece by piece, it's easier and less daunting
to execute.
2
Stay away from distractions as much as possible.
Distractions are either the spice of life or the forbidden fruit,
depending on your perspective. But let's be clear: it's almost
impossible to be 100% focused on you task 100% of the time. Distractions
are okay in low doses. But when your goals start taking a backseat to
petty distractions, it's time to banish them.
3
Surround yourself with other people who are successful.
When you're surrounded with people who are highly-driven, it's
encouraging. You can bounce ideas off of people, and they can even
connect you with other people. Surrounding yourself with driven,
successful people is a way to create a culture of success.
- Study successful people. Look around — who has the success that you
envision for yourself? What are they doing? How do they approach life? Ask them for advice. Model some of your approaches around theirs, if possible. Knowledge is as free as it is powerful.
4
Find a mentor. A
mentor is someone, usually with a bit more experience than you, who
knows the trade, offers advice, and helps you in your pursuit. Behind
many successful people are mentors. Mentors get satisfaction out of
knowing that their guidance has literally bred success.
- A mentor will help you:
- Network. Networking is making connections with people who
have connections. Contrary to popular belief, networking is mutually
beneficial. You offer expertise, opinion, or opportunity to someone in
exchange for something back.
- Troubleshoot. Troubleshooting is learning about how to make
ideas or applications even better. Your mentor can help you figure out
what you need to change in order to make your idea(s) even better.
- Strategize. A mentor will probably have more vision than you
because s/he's been in the game longer, with more successes and
failures. You can draw on their legacy of experience to strategize about
their future.
5
Gather as much information as you can.
Listen. Study. Understand. Learn. Repeat. Humans are amazing creatures
because we can look at the world, make intellectual connections, and use
those connections to make our lives better (or potentially worse). This
is what information allows us to do. Never turn your "learning switch"
off. You never know when your flash of insight will come!
6
Take calculated risks.
Step out of your comfort zone. Successful people think big and act big.
Don't wait for opportunities to fall in your lap. Sniff them out.
Successful people make big investments
(in their careers, in their businesses, in their education) and all
investments involve risk. Study your risks, make sure the odds are in
your favor, and take a leap. Be bold. Three calculated risks to consider:
- Partner with a competitor. Whether you're a long distance runner or
rolling out back-end solutions to technology giants, partnering with the
competition may help you pool your resources, motivate you to work
harder, and build new relationships.
- Lead, don't follow. Leading the way can be dangerous. You're taking
on the headwinds literally, perhaps, or you're banking on an idea — like
Facebook or Google — that someone has already tried before. Summon up
the courage to do something different, if not entirely different.
- Hit singles and doubles, not home runs. Of course, hitting a home
run isn't a bad thing at all! It's just that you can't rely on them to
win the game every single time. Try letting singles and doubles add up
to the same value as home runs.
7
Solve problems.
People who are successful encourage progress by solving problems and
answering questions. No matter where you are or what you're doing, look
around and try and think of ways you can contribute. What are people
struggling with or complaining about? How can you make life easier for
them in an effective way? Can you re-design or re-organize some aspect
of the situation so that things run more smoothly? Can you create a
product or provide a service that fills a critical gap?
- Which problems are you motivated to solve?
- Social problems. Facebook reinvented the way we interact with one another. Can you think of a similar social problem that needs reinventing?
- Technology problems. Companies like Dell design smaller and
more powerful computer processors that help our user experience line up
with our expectations. Can you assist people do with technology what
they already want to do?
- Strategic problems. Consultants like IBM help other companies
and individuals become more productive, profitable, and prudent. Can
you help someone else solve a strategic problem?
- Interpersonal problems. Psychologists and marriage counselors
help other people navigate the complex web of personal relationships
that make up our lives. Can you help people better get along with one
another?
Redoing
1
Be persistent.
You're going to fail — that much is a given. What will define you is
how you pick yourself up after you've fallen. Don't give up. If your
first attempt didn't work, don't quit. Always keep in mind the following
sentence: "If you don't give up, you cannot fail."
- Don't let failure define you. When asked about his 10,000 failed
attempts to develop a storage battery, the prolific American inventor
Thomas Edison responded: "I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways
that won't work."[1]
- Don't make excuses. Don't rationalize your failure by placing the
blame on someone or something else. Accept when something is your fault.
This will help you identify what you need to change in order to get
better. An excuse after failure is a refusal to make the situation
better.
2
Accept that life is unfair.
It's a fact. You can moan about it and wish that it were different, or
you can go out there and do something about it. So stop wasting time
about the unfairness of it all and think how to use the situation for
your benefit. Newton could have complained about the Apple falling down
the tree could hit his head. Instead, he identified the law of gravity
and is now known as the father of physics.
3
Remember that success does not guarantee happiness.
Success is equated with the achievement of a goal, but don't assume it
will always bring happiness. Many people make the mistake that if they
accomplish this or that, they'll be happier. Fulfillment and satisfaction have a lot more to do with how you approach life than with what you do in life. Keep that in perspective.
- Don't burn bridges along the way. A lot of life is about personal
relationships, so don't forsake them. If you've invented a cheap,
efficient way to make nuclear fission, but everyone dislikes you, you
have no spouse, and no friends, will it be worth it?
- Value experiences over objects. Humans can be extraordinarily
obsessed with money. It's strange, too, because scientists think that
experiences, along with their memory, make us happier than objects we
can buy with money.[2] Focus on making great memories with great people along the way, and you should be happy.
4
Remove fear and doubt from your way of thinking.
Focus on staying positive in every situation. You will be surprised how
your effective you can be when your thoughts are guiding your actions,
not the other way around. If and when you fail, don't be fearful about
starting over; be happy that you've been given a chance to be even more
successful.
5
Be persistent.
Don't give up. If your first attempt didn't work, don't quit. Always
keep in mind the following sentence: "If you don't give up, you cannot
fail". You must remember that success will never come automatically.
What separates the great from the rest, is not just their dreams they
have but also in how they deal with the inevitable difficulties in life.
You must never give up if you desire for success. If you give up too
soon, you will never find the success that you have been hankering for.
So from the very start, make sure to commit yourself to never giving up
no matter what. When you reach a point where you feel like you want to
give up or you are about to give up, think about how your huge
break-through is just around the corner. All the successful people you
know were once failures, but they did not give up and they know exactly
that if they continued, they will achieve success, and they did. So
press on!
- Not everyone will be happy for you and your success. Some people are
insecure and jealous. Be prepared for them, and look past them until
you find the people who are happy for you and who support you in all
that you do.
- Success does not come through willpower alone, it takes consistency
and determination. Doing something once won't make a huge difference;
it's when you do that one thing many times over before you can achieve
success.
- Always be humble. Too much pride will always be your downfall.
- There is not any shortcut for success, it's just the result of preparation, hard working and learning from failure!
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