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How To Succeed In Life: 6 Integral Tips for Success to Everyone

The Oxford Engish Dictionary defines success as ‘the accomplishment of an aim or purpose’, which begs the question, what is the aim? Is success a specific something that can be attained, or is it more of a subjective thing, different from person to person?

Below are 6 key point that successful people have consistently put into practice, meaning that you too can know how to be successful in life.

6 Integral Tips on How to Be Successful in Life

Define your own Success for a better view of what you aim

To be successful, you need to well define success and commit to your definition!

how to be successful in life

Once you find your own ideal of success, you can begin the job of pursuing it.

Consider these people, who most people would achieve success in life. Winston Churchill, the great British leader, apparently believed that success was about never giving up in the face of failure, whilst US president Thomas Edison thought success was more about perspiration than inspiration.

In contrast, the spiritual guru Deepak Chopra maintains that success is about personal growth and spiritual fulfillment. Perhaps the most convincing, and most inclusive, definition of success comes from the author Stephen Covey, the author who surely knows a lot about ‘effective people’. He says that success is individual and that everyone can find their own experience of success.

Like in any journey, if you know what you are aiming for, you are more likely to be able to find it. If we accept this, it comes down to HOW to be successful in life, rather than what defines success.

Success is one of those slippery, fluid terms. What does it mean? In the sitcom ‘Parks and Recreation’, one of the characters cites their definition as owning a Rolexus: a Lexus made with Rolexes. So, is success defined by your net worth? Or is it defined by the things that you possess? Is it defined by that intangible quality: happiness? Or is it something else?

Check out this video on how to program your mind to success:

Schedule success because failing to prepare is to preparing to fail

how to be successful in life

Anthony Robbins, the success and motivational guru who has coached millions of people and fundamentally changed the lives of countless, gives himself hours to prepare before every meeting and interview, and psyches himself up with incantations (sayings that change our psychological and physiological state) beforehand.

He also says that the most important thing to achieve success in life is to take action. To do this, you need a schedule, a plan a timetable of what you will do and when you will do it. Scheduling also ensures that you are being realistic with your goals and targets, and forces you to reflect on how you will achieve them.

It also makes your goal more tangible. If you schedule something, it becomes real, and you are not merely going to put it off until tomorrow. So, if we schedule, success becomes a must, and, as Robbins says “If you can't you must, and if you must you can”.

Scheduling can involve keeping a diary or a journal. It doesn’t really matter HOW you do it, just that you do.

Believe in the possibilities of your own Success - If you don’t nobody else will.

You need to give up on self-limiting thoughts, and KNOW that success is possible for you if you honestly want it. If you didn’t believe that success was possible, you may not be able to commit to the hard work and toil that will allow you to make it happen.

how to be successful in life

However, if you have visualized success so that it seems to be within your grasp, so close that you could reach out and grab it, you will do anything to achieve it. This is they key benefit of visualization.

if you couldn’t visualize your goal and imagine it happening then you would be more likely to give up. View your dream as a reality and not just a fairytale.

Famous sportsmen and athletes often visualize what they want to happen in a game, for example, visualize themselves scoring a goal.

Let's take one of the highest paid athletes in the olymopic business as an example: Cristiano Ronaldo. He KNOWS that he will be a success in any given game, and also has an unbelievable sense of self-belief to the brink of arrogance.

That confidence and belief in his self is a priceless motivation. 

Act towards your goal because nobody else will do it for you

Being successful, whatever that means to you, whatever new meaning you found, it universally means means hard work!

Nobody ever became successful by accident, and success never knocked on anybody’s door when they were eating pizza and watching Netflix. Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female Prime Minister, famously ran the country on only four hours of sleep per night.

Leonardo Da Vinci likewise said that success doesn’t come to you, you have to go to it. Likewise, do not underestimate the power of hard work, and of going above and beyond in your role.

All of the time you will be learning and you will increase your reputation in the process, and this will ensure that if any opportunities present themselves that you will be around to take advantage of them.

Get a mentor or a role model

To have success in life you need to learn the skills. To learn, you need a teacher or a role model.

In order to be successful in a given field, you should seek out the best and then learn from them, copy their strategies and make them your own.

how to succeed in life

You also need to spend time with like-minded people. People who have different values and want different things are not useful companions, conducive for building success.

A role model can provide inspiration and motivation, they can give you advice, and they can allow you to believe that someone just like you can be a success.

Realize that success doesn't have to mean ‘being rich’

Alain de Botton the British Philosopher, believes that we need to develop a gentler philosophy of success.

Check out his video, A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success: 

Now, we are so obsessed with monetary success, and from this flows snobbery. People show their obsession with status in their first meeting, with the dreaded question ‘what do you do?’

De Botton believes that this leads to conspicuous consumption, due to the fact that people think that they will feel more valued if they have more possessions.

So, rather than thinking a man who drives past in a Ferrari is greedy and vulgar, think they are vulnerable and in need of love and sympathy!

Also, nowadays the obsession with meritocracy makes us feel that the successful people (defined mostly as those who are rich) deserve their rewards. However, on the flipside, the failures are seen as deserving of their failure.

Perhaps we need to rethink this, with a broader definition of success and less of an obsession with material possessions.

In conclusion

I will end this article with a quote for Anthony Robbins:

“Success is doing what you want, when you want, where you want, with whom you want, as much as you want.”

Perhaps that is the most important lesson. After you have learned this then you will truly know how to be successful in life.

What do you think?

Written by Terrence Kennedy

Terrence Kennedy is the man’s man on a journey to self-discovery. A traveler, extreme sports aficionado, an observant wanderer, a DIY-Know-How, an ultimate outsider and a documentarist of culture, sex, dating, relationship, fashion, style and gentleman's etiquette. He has learned a lot through his escapades, and is happy to pass that knowledge on to you.