What Is Success?
Success
is about getting all that you wanted to have. It's finding that you
have achieved your goals or fulfilled your plans and it's waking up
in the morning feeling victorious rather than feeling defeated.
Success
will make you wake proudly in the streets with your head up high while
being happy and satisfied.
How to Be Successful
in Life.
Contrary
to common beliefs, there are no successful or unsuccessful
people but instead there are people who have the potential to succeed
and who do things that helps them realize this potential, and people
with the same potential who don’t do those things.
The
only thing you need to do to succeed is to do exactly what successful
people do and this is the main aim of this guide. When you go through
all of the pages you will acquire the mentality of a successful person
and this alone will help you reach success.
What Makes Me Unsuccessful?
If you really want to be
successful then you should have a solid understanding of certain concepts
that can limit your potential and that can make you unsuccessful. Successful
people avoid these harmful concepts and so should you:
- False Beliefs:
False beliefs are incorrect ideas you hold about something or about
yourself. An example of a false belief could be “I can never find
a job in such a country”. False beliefs act as limiters to your true potential and
so to your success. Getting rid of false beliefs and knowing more about
them is the most important task that you should do if you are serious
about success. False beliefs can not only limit your success potential
but they can even ruin your life. Some people stay broken for years
after a breakup just because they have some false beliefs about love
that they acquired from the media. In my book How to get over anyone in few days i explained how getting rid of false
beliefs such as "the one" and "the soul mate" can
help you recover in few days. This happens because the mind refuses
to recover if it believed that it will never find a replacement for
the person you broke up with. (Check out this
article for more information
on false beliefs, how they were acquired and how to get rid of them).
- External Locus
of Control: This is the way of thinking that makes a person assume
that everything that happens to him is the result of external factors.
For example: saying that an exam was too hard when you don't do well
or claiming that high unemployment rate is the reason you can't find
a job are examples of external locus of control. The flip side to that
way of thinking is Internal Locus of Control which is thinking that
you are in charge and in control of everything that happens to you.
None of the successful people have an external locus of control so if
you are serious about success you should learn how to change your way
of thinking from having an external locus of control to having an internal
locus of control. (read how you can do it in
this article).
- Lack of Persistence:
What is good about having many qualities and skills if you lost hope
in succeeding after failing once or twice? The only people who succeed
in life are the persistent, those who continue working right to the
end until they get what they want even if everything was against them
and even if they failed many times. If you want to be successful then
read the guide
to persistence to learn
how to stand up again even if you failed hundreds of times.
- Lack of Flexibility:
Flexibility is the ability to adapt to external conditions. It's the
ability to try something else or another method when your current method
fails. The more flexible you are, the more you will become adaptable
and the higher chances of success you'll have. Read this guideto
learn how to be flexible and how to shape yourself and change your methods
and methods when they don't work.
- Lack of Planning:
If you don’t have goals or plans then you are going to be a part of
other people's plans. If you don’t plan to be the team leader at your
work then someone else in your team will do and if you don't plan to
get that high paying job then someone else who planned and worked for
it will take it from you. If you don’t plan you will get swept away
by the people who do. They will fill the positions, make the money and
get the fame while you'll just be a spectator. planning is an essential
item in the success toolkit. Read this
guide to learn everything
about planning and goal setting.
- Lack of Self-confidence:
If you don't have a high self-confidence then most probably you will
be too shy of presenting your ideas and you may
give up your dreams as soon as someone tells you that they are not possible.
You may fear taking any risks and so ignore many opportunities that
could have made you successful. If you want to increase your chances
of being a successful person, then you must build your self-confidence.
You can build it from scratch using the ultimate
guide for building self-confidence.
- Thinking that
you lack resources: In my book How
i did it i explained
how i managed to make a website that generates thousands of dollars/month
in less than 2 years with an initial investment that is less than 50
dollars!! Don't fool yourself by thinking that you lack resources because
if you are serious about success you will do it without having any resources.
This website is one of the examples of successful business that required
no resources at the start up.
- Success related
Fears: I am not talking about normal fears, but the types of fears
that can affect your ability to succeed are fear of failure and fear
of success. While they both seem to be complete opposites still they
can have the same effect on you which is preventing you from trying
and so leading you to failure. If you want to deal with fear of success
then check out this
article while if you
want to deal with fear of failure then check out this one
What is the meaning
of success in our life?
Everyone’s
looking for a magic bullet to propel them to success. But success is
no easy road. It’s not even a straight line. Success is a tricky matter.
Hard to pin down. Not that easy to define.
Have
you even thought about what success means for you?
Success can mean a lot of different
things depending on who you ask.
So why not ask for the keys
to success from someone who’s REALLY successful?
Someone like Steve Jobs, CEO
of Apple. One of the biggest success stories of the last decade.
Steve Jobs
the Short Biography
Born
to an Egyptian Arab father and an American mother in Green Bay, Wisconsin,
56 years ago, Steven Paul was adopted soon after his birth by Paul and
Clara Jobs. He grew up in northern California at a time when the state
was at the centre of two separate universes: technological innovation
and the psychedelic music scene that was taking over from the British
pop boom of the 60s.
After
school Jobs went north to Reed College in Portland.
In 1976, when Jobs was 21,
he and his friend Wozniak started their own business, the Apple Computer
Company, which at the time was based in Jobs' family garage.
By
the age of 25 Jobs was worth $165m.
Apple was the first landmark
in Jobs' career but by 1985 he was on his way out after John Sculley,
who had joined the company from Pepsi-Cola, decided it was time to drop
the pilot. Four years later Jobs returned with another computer company,
NextStep, which never achieved the success of Apple but reminded people
that he was far from a finished.
What
was later hailed as Jobs' second coming started with his involvement
in Pixar.
Pixar
made Jobs a billionaire. But more significantly his triumph there also
reminded people of his ability to divine the technological future. Apple,
which was by then starting to taste stale, if not exactly rotting, asked
him to return. He came back in 1997 and within a year the ailing company
was once more posting handsome profits.
Even
though he made a fortune from Apple, he nearly blew it all on his follow-up
ventures, Next and Pixar, and he very came close to giving up his business
career entirely before Pixar ultimately emerged as a success.
Succeed In Life
Steve
Jobs is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our generation.
His success story is legendary. Put up for adoption at an early age,
dropped out of college after 6 months, slept on friends floors, returned
coke bottles for 5 cent deposits to buy food, then went on to start
Apple Computers and Pixar Animation Studios. Steve Jobs' impact on your
life cannot be overestimated. His innovations have likely touched nearly
every aspect - computers, movies, music and mobile.
Let’s look at these success
strategies a little deeper…
Keys To Success
- Do
what you love to do.
Find your true
passion. Do what you love to do a make a difference! The only way to do great work is to
love what you do.
Jobs once
said, "People with passion can change the world for the better."
Asked about the advice he would offer would-be entrepreneurs, he said,
"I'd get a job as a busboy or something until I figured out
what I was really passionate about." That's how much it meant
to him. Passion is everything.
- Be different. Think different. "Better
be a pirate than to join the navy."
- Do your best. Do
your best at every job. No sleep! Success generates more success. So be hungry
for it. Hire good people with passion for excellence.
- Make SWOT analysis. As soon as you join/start
a company, make a list of strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your
company on a piece of paper. Don't hesitate in throwing bad apples out
of the company.
- Be
entrepreneurial. Look
for the next big thing. Find a set of ideas that need to be quickly
and decisively acted
upon and jump through
that window. Sometimes the first step is the hardest one. Just take it! Have the
courage to follow your heart and intuition.
- Start small,
think big. Don't
worry about too many things at once.
Take a handful of simple things to begin with, and then progress to
more complex ones. Think about not just tomorrow, but the future. "I
want to put a ding in the universe,” reveal Steve Jobs his dream.
- Strive to become
a market
leader.
Own and control the primary technology in everything you do. If there's
a better technology available, use it no matter if anyone else is not
using it. Be the first, and make it an industry standard.
- Focus
on the outcome.
People judge you by your performance, so focus
on the outcome. Be
a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where
excellence is expected. Advertise. If they don't know it, they won't
buy your product. Pay attention to design. "We made the buttons on the
screen look so good you'll want to lick them." "Design is
not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
- Ask for feedback.
Ask for feedback from people with diverse backgrounds. Each one will tell you one useful
thing. If you're at the top of the chain, sometimes people won't give
you honest feedback because they're afraid. In this case,
disguise yourself, or get feedback from other sources. Focus on those
who will use your product – listen
to your customers first.
- Innovate. Innovation distinguishes a leader from a follower.
Delegate, let other top
executives do 50% of
your routine work to be able to spend 50% your time on the new stuff. Say
no to 1,000 things to make sure you don't get on the wrong track or
try to do too much. Concentrate on really important creations and radical innovation.
Hire people who want to make the best things in the world. You need
a very product-oriented culture,
even in a technology company. Lots of companies have tons
of great engineers and smart people. But ultimately, there needs to
be some gravitational force that pulls it all together.
- Learn
from failures.
Sometimes when
you innovate, you make mistakes.
It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other
innovations.
- Learn
continually.
There's always "one more thing" to learn! Cross-pollinate ideas with others both within and outside
your company. Learn
from customers, competitors and partners.
If you partner with someone whom you don't like, learn to like them
– praise them and benefit from them. Learn to criticize your enemies
openly, but honestly.
“Your time is limited. Don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s
thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drowned your own
inner voice. And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart
and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”
Steve Jobs.