What are the secrets to success in life? To answer that question we have to define success in the first place. And here is the best definition that I have ever heard:
“A success is a progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” -Earl Nightingale
Now, I don’t know about you, but I had problems with the progressive part of the definition. I was always impatient. I wanted the success to be overnight.
But let me tell you something. Overnight success doesn’t exist!
Even a person who seems to succeed very fast hides months and months, maybe even years of hard work in the shadows. All we can see is the success part; thus, we take the liberty to say “ah, easy for him, he made it overnight.”
No, he didn’t.
The number one enemy to the “progressive realization of a worthy ideal” in modern time is a habit of instant-gratification. We are too much used to a “microwave results.” We expect things to be fast, and if they are not, we quit.
Success is a lifelong process. It never ends.
I know it sounds like a cliche, but it is a marathon and not a sprint. It is composed of a multitude of habits which are performed from a day in-to a day out. Also includes a lot of practice and beating on your craft, patience, strong will, determination, passion, sacrifice and a lot more.
I have learned all of this in a hard way, so you don’t have to. Even though I think the hard way is sometimes the best way to learn.
Anyway, for all of you out there searching for secrets to life, I present you the list of ten habits of super successful people which are going to pave your way to glory no matter what you are pursuing.
Secret 1 – Always Have Goals in Life
From our definition at the top of the post, we can see that the “worthy ideal” is just another word for a goal.
Therefore, a person who has a goal, and who is progressively realizing that goal is immediately a successful person. That person knows exactly where he is and knows exactly where he is going.
The goals are the key to success, remember that.
However, not so many people can say that they have concrete and worthwhile goals in life. At least I don’t meet too much nowadays.
Many of my friends, family, and acquaintances are entierly goalless. And those who have some sort of a goal are afraid to aim higher.
Sometimes it seems that whole society has made a mass decision to be goalless, and thus, unsuccessful. But if you go and ask anyone would you like to be successful? People will quickly say yes!
What an irony, ha?
In my experience so far -I went from an utterly goalless person to become a goal freak- the goals are the only thing what makes the difference between you and someone who seems to be successful in life.
From now on, know that difference in the level of education, intellect, or background difference, can’t stand between you and success. It is the lack of goals that can.
Someone who has a meaningful goal in life, and keeps working on that goal every single day, is going to become much more than he or she is right now.
Pursuing a goal is a journey which brings many talents and gifts as well as failure and pain. But hey! How can we appreciate beautiful things if we don’t see the dark side of them? Or how can we grow if we are not tested to our limits?
Something beautiful happens when you open your first door to success in life.
At first, you are afraid because you are going somewhere where you have never been before. However, after some time you discover that behind those doors stands many more entries just like that one, full of excitement and rewards.
People who are running after goals learned how to be bulletproof on things which are pulling down the rest. They don’t have time for petty and narrow-minded things which are causing many people many miseries.
They are just too busy with having fun while progressively realizing their worthy ideal.
In my opinion, having goals is maybe the only secret you need to achieve success. Everything else falls in place when you are too busy with your goal.
Related:
- Top 10 Personal Development Goals – Skyrocket Your Life
- 5 Amazing Tips To Help You Turn Your Goals Into a Reality
- 5 Benefits of Goals – Do You Have Important Goals In Life?
- Set Goals and Achieve Them – 5 Golden Rules
- Personal Goals Setting Online Course – My Best Choice
- 5 Reasons Why It Is Important to Write Down Your Goals
Secret 2 – You Have to Be Persistent
Now once again, from our definition at the top of the post, we can see that the “progressive realization” is actually another word for persistence.
If your goals are something you know how to do, then persistence comes by itself. It just falls in line naturally.
If, however, you decide on a goal which you have never done before in your entire life, the persistence must be called to help to get where you want to go.
I have met so many people in this industry so far who are putting the exclamation on the fact that you should not aim high in life. Because if you fail, you will get disappointed and sad.
What a load of…
Always aim high!
Always try to do something which you have never done before. And if you decide to take that road, you will have to keep persisting in the face of the failure as long as it takes to turn the failure in the victory.
Someone once said that success represents going from failure to failure without losing the enthusiasm.
That is so true, and it is the only known way for developing persistence.
Know that those who never give up have always make it. 999/1000 reach the top.
I will give you one great example of shooters for the stars and how persistence was their only ally in the success.
In 1903, two bicycle mechanics from Ohio turned their goal into a reality. Many people told them they are crazy together with their idea to fly through the air.
It was impossible, they said.
However, the Wright brothers were not listening. They were to busy working on their dream persistently day after day.
I can imagine that they encountered so many failures and disappointments. I can see them failing time after time trying to get the thing to fly through the air like a bird in the sky. I imagine their faces while putting up with ridicule and laughter of others.
Many regular people would give up but not the Wright brothers!
They had faith in their invention. And that is a just another word for persistence. If they didn’t have faith, how would they persist?
With persistent effort came success! In 1903 they performed a first successful flight and landing of their craft and changed the world forever.
All successful people in this world share this one common trait.
Persistence can, and will substitute any other lack of character or knowledge in a man. However, nothing can replace persistence.
Related:
Secret 3 – Gratitude Attunes You With Success
Have you ever said thank you to no one for no reason?
You see, everything you have in your life came from somewhere and someone. It didn’t just magically appear on your doorstep.
Now, when you say thank you for something you already have, and mean it, you are creating a power within you to receive more of the same.
I always thank for my health, for my happiness, and for my material wealth. And if I feel or have lacked in one of those three areas of my life, I will say thank you anyway for the little I have.
By being grateful, you can attune your mind to turn that lack into riches.
How does it happen, ha?
You see, the majority of us will see the lack in a specific area. Then, we will think about and feel bad as well. All of this is probably done on an unconscious level.
The result of thinking and feeling that way will create a current by which we can attract only more of the same.
However, if you can feel ok about the fact that you maybe lack some money right now, and you can say thank you for the little money you have, you are going to create a positive thought about something which is negative.
And if you continue expressing the gratitude, ultimately, you will start having more money. That is the law.
It is simple. Real success cannot exist where worry, doubt, fear, hatred, anger, greed, or jealousy live.
You can eliminate those enemies by being grateful for whatever you have. And therefore, you will attune your mind for more.
How do you do it then?
Well, close your eyes, relax, and start seeing everything you have while quietly in your saying thank you. Repeat it more often, and you will be amazed by the change in your life.
Secret 4 – Keep Your focus on What is Important
People who succeed high in life are sometimes known as cold-blooded or ruthless. They are not like that on purpose. They are just highly focused.
To be able to realize a worthy ideal progressively you will have to use all your mind power to focus and concentrate on nothing except your goal.
We all played with a magnifying glass during the summer months.
You know when you take a magnifying glass and take it on the sun and put it between the sun and paper, you can start a fire.
The magnifying glass is taking the rays of the sun and concentrating them in one single beam which gives them much more potency and power.
What a spectacle, ha?
You see, your thoughts can be compared with sunrays and your mind to a magnifying glass.
When you don’t control your thoughts, they shoot in every direction, making the success in anything, almost impossible.
However, when you use your mind to focus your thoughts on a single goal, the results will be as fast as fire. In other words, success is inevitable.
The majority in our modern world lacks focus and concentration on essential things in life.
If you lack this ability, the best way to develop this power is to have something on what you can concentrate. Like a goal, for example.
We are gifted with mental faculties such as memory, reason, imagination, intuition, perception, and will.
In this case, you will have to train and use your willpower to hold your goal in your mind. You will have to spend your time concentrating on your target until it becomes a small obsession.
Then, when it becomes an obsession, you will know you have concentrated all your thought power on a single spot. In other words, you have developed a sharp focus on your goal.
Related:
- 15 Smart Tips to Stay Focused on Your Mission
- Improve Focus and Concentration – Enter the Flow State of Mind
Secret 5 – Create a “Winners Attitude”
Here is a definition of attitude. An attitude is a multitude of mental habits and beliefs based on your thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Your subconscious mind files your every trial and failure in life and creates attitudes.
If you ever burn your hand on fire, the subconscious mind files the memory of pain and unpleasant experience. Therefore, every time you come close to fire you will be warned not to touch it.
Now, sometime you may have experienced failure in something which could bring you a much better life than right now. Your subconscious mind filed that as well.
If you try to do it again, no matter how hard you want it, you won’t be able to achieve success until you change your attitude.
For example, a person may dream of financial success. However, because of negative experiences with the subject of money caused by living in poverty, if that person ever tries to become rich, he or she will fail ten times out of ten tries.
On the other hand, a person with a “winners attitude” concerning the money will think of success, feel the success in their heart, and most importantly he or she will express those thoughts and feeling through their action in the form of successful results in their financial life.
Why?
That person has no unpleasant experiences regarding money filed in their subconscious mind. Only good ones. Therefore, when he or she tries to have more, naturally he or she will have it.
That is why we say “The money sticks to him, or her.”
It is nothing but an attitude.
Where you think and feel that you can do a thing (have a confident attitude), you will succeed if you try. And another way around as well.
Luckily, the attitude can be fixed and changed.
The most simple and straightforward way that I have ever learned is to create a positive feeling before doing the thing. In other words, generate confidence by changing your way of thinking and feeling before acting.
It can be done in many ways.
The best way I have experienced is by visualizing success even though it doesn’t exist in my life at the present moment. However, by repetition of the positive feelings about my goal, I have changed and reinforced many of my wrong attitudes so far.
The changed of attitude brought me a much more prosperous life, and it can bring you as well if you are willing to fix it.
Secret 6 – Keep Your Imagination Alive
Imagination is a workshop of the mind. And it is in your mind where the success is created. You will have to dream it first and then wake up and work for it.
All successful people have highly evolved imagination.
Now, the truth is we all have it, but they never forgot how to make use of it day in and day out.
There are many reasons why we don’t use this precious mental faculty constructively and as often as we should. One of the main reasons is life itself. The system in which we live in.
You see, until the age of seven, all of us have highly evolved imagination.
Just take a look at your kids or any child for that matter. They don’t know different, and they are a pure genius. No worries, just free mind.
But then, the school comes in.
Obligations and chores which are forced on us begin to clutter up the free use of imagination. Eventually, everyone starts to daydream while sitting there in the classroom forced to do something which we don’t want to do.
Later on in life, the free use of imagination becomes so occupied with life problems and worries that it becomes impossible to work the way it is intended to work.
We never realize that those problems and worries are nothing but a creation of uncontrolled imagination.
To have and enjoy success, you will have to unlock this secret mental faculty once again. You will have to learn how to control it.
So far I have learned that working on a goal which is beyond your abilities is the best possible way to revive and take control over your imagination. Going into unknown sparks up the wheels of your mind and fires up the imagination.
The more you do this, the more you will become better at it.
You will find yourself eventually in that rare category of people who know how to control their mind for their benefit and benefit of people around them.
Your imagination is everything. It builds, or it destroys.
Related:
- How to Use Visualization to Achieve All Your Life Goals
- Use Your Imagination Again – 5 Steps to Change Your Life
Secret 7 – Always Seek For Knowledge
They say “knowledge is power.” And I can’t disagree.
I have learned that knowledge is useful. And it becomes a power only when it is used for growth and advancement in real life.
Like you, I have spent years and years in school. However, later on in life, I have realized that over 90% of that knowledge was a plain waste of time. Completely useless information!
Because of that, I have developed a small repulsiveness towards the terms school, study, and knowledge.
One decision changed my mind, not entirely, but it did. I still think that school has a few significant flaws, but it is none of my business.
When I made a deliberate decision to read something which was not forced to me, my whole world has changed at that moment. I fell in love with the knowledge again.
Moreover, I assimilated that knowledge because I need it. I applied it and used it to reshape a part of my life.
In the end, I realized how great power it has when it is used for growth and advancement.
Whatever you do in life, washing dishes or performing life or death surgeries, remember that a constant search for knowledge is a sure way to success.
Don’t make a mistake like mine and misjudge the power of books. They really have high potential but only if you resonate and need the knowledge that someone has spilled between the covers.
There is a story about Henry Ford in the book “Think and Grow Rich.” The name Ford needs no introduction whatsoever.
We all know who was this man, right?
Some newspaper at that time wrote a piece about Mr. Ford. They called him an ignorant man. Mr. Ford went mad, and he brought them to court to clear his name.
The defending attorney tried every dirty trick to prove their statement. During the whole trial, he was bombarding Mr. Ford with general knowledge questions, trying to make him look stupid.
After a series of useless question, Ford replied to the attorney and court with “Why do I have to clutter up my mind with a bunch of useless and general knowledge when my mind has to be occupied only with what is related to my business?”
This answer was not coming from an ignorant man.
Mr. Ford kept his mind free from general knowledge. However, he gathered and surrounded himself with specialized knowledge about cars production which made him one of the most successful people ever lived.
Related:
- The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman V. Peale
- Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill
- You Were Born Rich, by Bob Proctor
Secret 8 – Become Fast at Decision Making
In the same book, the author writes a whole chapter about the importance of decision in life.
He said that the difference between those who made it and those who are stuck with problems and worries is in mental capacity to make a quick and prompt decision.
Moreover, he says that those who are highly successful in life are prone to reach a decision very fast. And they change it, if at all, very slowly.
On the other hand, those who are unsuccessful are very slow at reaching a decision. And those people are changing them rapidly and frequently.
I can give you one piece of advice regarding decision making that I received a long time ago.
Make an advanced decision!
When you make a decision of a massive impact on your life, pretty soon you will experience countless opportunities to change that decision. The pressure that comes with it is not for everyone. However, never back down and stand by it for million benefits that will come afterward.
Why do I say advanced decision?
You see, when you make a significant change, you are altering everything in your life, and that one decision is affecting many aspects of your life.
For example, an overweight person decides to eat healthy, exercise, and as a result of the decision, to lose weight. Now, that decision is an advanced decision because it changes everything.
If a person is persistent with the decision, he or she will encounter situations where he or she will be tempted by the old lifestyle. However, the advanced decision will enable them to say no or yes quickly when the opportunity presents itself.
A person who learns how to make this kind of decision will ultimately become a fast decision maker.
And quick and prompt yes or no is one of the keys to success in life.
Related:
Secret 9 – Work on Success From the Morning
Here is a test for you.
Decide right now to wake up a half hour earlier than usual and devote that half hour to work on your primary goal in life.
This change brought me a completely different life than I use to live. At first, I used that time to meditate to get my thought together as soon as I wake up.
When I have realized the benefits of this small decision, I went for more. A half hour became a whole hour earlier, then an hour and a half, and then two hours earlier than before.
Dreams are just dreams if you don’t wake up and go work for them, said late and great Mohammad Ali, one of my favorite persons who has ever lived.
However, Ali was not the only one who was thinking like this.
Ali learned from the other people who were more successful that if he wants something, he must sacrifice something he loves.
And I think sleep is the best sacrifice you can make!
The rewards will be yours to discover.
Related:
- 5 Key Steps to a Morning Routine – Why You Should Have One
- Top 5 Morning Rituals Of Successful People – Start Now
- From a Night Owl to a Morning Person – Is it Possible?
Secret 10 – Form a Mastermind Group
Two brains are smarter than one. Three heads are better than two. Four minds…
Well, you get my point, right?
The last key to success is a golden one because it is more than necessary if you want to get what you want from life.
Many people make this mistake and think they can do everything by themselves. I was the one who has the same mindset as well.
No one ever succeeded in life doing things alone.
Now, this does not mean that you have to find someone who has to do the same thing as you do. The principle of the mastermind group is to get in an alliance with one or more persons with who you can share the work to expand.
The second brain will help you to share the burden and to realize the pressure of doing things alone. Your mind will then become lighter, and the new ideas will come quicker.
Businesses are partnering up in companies so they can grow. People are getting married for the same reason, and love of course.
Any kind of success in life will become faster, and it will grow more significant if there are two or more brains joined to walk the same path.
Related:
All the Success in Life in Just Six Minutes a Day!
Now, my last tip to you can summarize all these ten secrets to success in life in one concept.
When I started to build a better life, I went for it alone. However, very quickly I have realized that I need some help along the way if I want to make it happen.
The help came to me in the form of a personal development program, Six Minutes to Success.
This program is designed with an intention to help you, and anyone for this matter, to set and achieve all your goals.
It contains the knowledge and experience from some of the most successful minds living today.
Moreover, as you know the knowledge alone is not sufficient enough to succeed. The application is what counts the most.
This program has everything!
If you really want to achieve success in your own life then learn more about Six Minutes to Success.
If you ever need a hand or have any questions, feel free to leave them below, and I will be more than happy to help you out.
All the best,
Ivan
yourpersonaldevelopment.org
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Hi!
These are some really awesome tips to follow for greater success. I will implement them into my life to maximize my success . I love how you broke your tips down into sections so that people can focus on one at a time. That’s what meeting goals is all about. Breaking them down into small bites to we don’t become overwhelmed and so that we can increase efficiency.
Thanks for sharing!
B