Success is a journey.
Make your life a grand adventure!
~ Brian Tracy
Success is a continuous journey.
~ Richard St John @ TED Talks
The secret of your success
is determined by your daily agenda.
~ John C. Maxwell
What Makes Life Different?
Goal Setting!
Do you know what makes life different? The
answer is goal setting.
I remember a famous Harvard business school story. They
evaluated a group of students in college, and then re-evaluated them 10 years
later. The study found out that the students who had been the most successful
in life weren’t the ones who had achieved the highest grades. They were the
ones who had specific goals, 10 years ago.
You can see that the big difference between successful people
and unsuccessful people. Successful people have their goals in mind. They know
where they want to go and finally they get there. So you need to start with a
target, a destination, a goal.
You may ask me: “How to achieve goals? It is easier said than
done.” You are right. Many people fail not because they don’t have goals, they
fail because they haven’t achieved their goals, giving up during the journey.
There is a long road from goal to success.
Don’t worry. I will be here to help you achieve your goals
more easily. Not only to set your goals properly, but also to achieve them
finally. You will achieve goal setting success in the end.
Trust you! ;-)
Success Is A Journey
Have you ever heard that "Success is a journey, not a
destination"?
It is very important to have a law of life to base your life
on. A law of life that means a lot to me is; Success is a journey, not a
destination. It means that what matters is not necessarily where you are at the
end, but what you accomplish while you are trying along the way. It means that
no matter what, as long as you try, you can never fail. It means that no matter
what, as long as you try, you can never fail. It means you can learn from your
mistakes and continue on the next journey a little wiser.
One person I believe that shares my law of life is Mark
McGwire. He didn't get caught up in the home-run chase in the 1998 season, but
instead played every game in the best way he could. And, most of the time, he
helped his team. He didn't just go out there and hit home runs because he
wanted to be ahead in the end, but because he wanted to make it a good season
for his teammates and him.
I also think the 1999-2000 St. Louis Rams as a whole are
utilizing my law of life. They play every game with their full potential
instead of letting a few winning games go to their heads. They stay focused on
playing in the Super Bowl. They know that even if they don't go journey. Even
though they lost some games, they didn't give up.
It doesn't matter if you do not have the ability to be on top
in the end, to win the championship; all that matters is that you worked hard
the whole time. There are a few people in the world who already understand what
it means. They understand that success is a journey, not a destination. But
wouldn't it be a much better world if everyone did, if everyone would realize
that someone will win and someone will lose, but what's important is that both
sides need to try their best? After all, it's not who wins or loses, but how
well you play the game, and I hope I have applied this in my own life.
Success Personality
Is there a "success personality" - some winning
combination of traits that leads almost inevitably to achievement? If so,
exactly what is that secret success formula and can anyone cultivate it?
We recently focused in depth on success, probing the
attitudes and traits of 1500 prominent people selected at random from Who's Who
in America.
The main criterion for inclusion in Who's Who is not wealth or social position,
but current achievement in a given field. Our research pinpoints a number of
traits that recur regularly among top achievers. Here are five of the most
important:
Common Sense
This is this most prevalent quality possessed by our
respondents. Seventy-nine percent award themselves a top score in this
category. And 61 percent say that common sense was very important in
contributing to their success.
To most, common sense means the ability to render sound,
practical judgments on everyday affairs. To do this, one has to sweep aside
extraneous ideas and get right to the core of what matters.
A Texas
oil and gas magnate puts it this way: "The key ability for success is
simplifying. In conducting meetings and dealing with industry regulators,
reducing a complex problem to the simplest terms is highly important."
Is common sense a trait a person is born with, or can you do
something to increase it? The oil man's answer is that common sense can
definitely be developed. He attributes his to learning how to debate in school.
Another way to increase your store of common sense is to observe it in others,
learning from their and your own-mistake.
Knowing One's Field
After common sense, specialized knowledge in one's field is
the second most common trait possessed by the respondents, with three-fourths
giving themselves an A in this category.
Geologist Philip Oxley, former president of Tenneco Oil
Exploration and Production Co. and now chairman of Tenneco Europe, attributes
his success to having worked in the oil fields, by "sitting on wells and
bird-dogging seismic crews," he learned the tricks of the trade firsthand.
"People, who are going to be good managers need to have a practical
understanding of the crafts in their business," he says. Today his
expertise earns him a six-figure salary.
On-the-job experience convinced people the importance of
specialized knowledge. He says that "understanding why my equipment
performs the way it does" is part of his success formula. A noteworthy
point: he obtained his specialized knowledge through self-education and not
through formal schooling.
Self-reliance
Top achievers rely primarily on their own resources and
abilities. Seventy-seven percent give themselves an A rating for this trait.
Self-reliance is not how you feel or how good you are; rather, it's whether you
have the gumption to take definitive action to get things moving in your life.
In includes plain old willpower and the ability to get goals.
Two-thirds of the respondents say they've had clear goals for
their lives and careers. And half of those we interviewed give themselves an A
in willpower. Among other capabilities, willpower encompasses the ability to be
a self-starter and to persevere after a project has begun.
General Intelligence
This is essential for outstanding achievement because it
involves your natural ability to comprehend difficult concepts quickly and to
analyze them clearly and incisively. At least that's the way our respondents
see it-43 percent said it was a very important ingredient of their success, and
another 52 present said it was fairly important.
Ability to Get Things Done
Nearly three-fourths of our high achievers rank themselves
"very efficient" in accomplish tasks, and they agree that at least
three important qualities have helped them to do so: organizational ability,
good work habits and diligence.
A physics professor summarizes his success formula this way:
"Sheer hard, tenacious work, with the ability to pace oneself." He
admits working up to 100 hours a week.
Besides the five success personality listed here, there are
other success personality too, and, of course, luck. But common sense, knowing
your field, self-reliance, intelligence and the ability to get things done
stand out. If you cultivate these traits, chances are you'll succeed. And you
might even find yourself listed in Who's Who someday.
Success is a lousy teacher.
It seduces smart people
into thinking they can't lose.
~ Bill Gates
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Success Can Be Hazardous
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Success has far more potential to harm us than we
acknowledge.
I’ve heard many people say, “Success breeds success.” It’s entirely true that when you’ve achieved
success, you know – to a large extent – what you need to do in order to achieve
similar success in the future. You
understand what techniques you should use, what connections you should build,
and what obstacles you need to overcome if you were to embark on a comparable
endeavour. That’s why success leads to
further success.
The first question you need to ask yourself, then, isn’t “How
can I be successful?” Rather, it’s “Am I
being successful at the right things?”
After all, it’s possible for you to achieve a lot of success, as defined
by society, without necessarily being a true success. This can happen by accumulating achievements
that aren’t in line with your four tools.
When you’ve attained superficial success, there’s a lot of
pressure on you to continue succeeding.
This is a phenomenon I’m familiar with.
Like you read about in the introduction, I performed well academically
throughout my schooling years.
Consequently, I felt the need to keep up my grades. I began to fear the possibility of not
getting an A for a class. In order to
ensure that I kept getting A’s, I only took classes that I’d already
demonstrated an aptitude for. I shied
away from classes or activities where my aptitude hadn’t yet been tested. This meant that I never tried my hand at
things like dance, theatre, or literature.
This resulted in more A’s but less education, more awards but
less fulfillment, more accomplishments but less growth – and this was driven
entirely by fear. Superficial success is
one of the biggest potential hindrances to getting a real education, which is
why it’s so dangerous. Education isn’t
primarily about getting good grades, getting into a good college, or getting a
good job. If that were the case,
education would serve far too trivial a purpose.
In Life Is What You Make It, Peter Buffett (son of renowned
investor Warren Buffett) writes, “Life is what we make it, and if we want our
lives to be as rich and round and gratifying as possible, we should try to
learn about everything – not just what we need to know to make our living, but
all the innumerable subjects at the periphery of our specialties.” It’s essential that you embrace this approach
toward education if you want to be a happy student. No number of A’s will bring you academic
fulfillment.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s of paramount importance that you
have a spirit of excellence in all that you do, and there’s also enormous value
in focusing on learning things that will be of practical benefit in your future
career. But the attitude we’re called to
have toward education is one of intellectual curiosity, not merely intellectual
greed or pragmatism. Education isn’t
just about remembering or using information, even though that’s a necessary
aim. At its core, education is about
cultivating an insatiable love for learning.
Taking classes and learning things you’re not particularly
good at, or don’t yet know if you’re good at, means that you run the risk of
failing. Your parents and teachers might
be disappointed if you don’t perform up to their expectations, and you might
feel disappointed in your own performance.
These are possible consequences of choosing the path of a real
education, consequences that you might understandably be fearful of.
It won’t be easy, but it will be deeply rewarding.
(** This
is an extract from The Happy Student, Page 132)
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