The 5 Keys to Success
Determination, Skill, Passion, Discipline And Luck
W hether we like admit it or not at some point we’ve all read an article or two about the mythical “keys” to success.
I’ve noticed recently though that writers and advice-givers of all kinds have been making the mistake of gravely over-reducing their recipes for success.
Reductionism is natural, it’s a tendency ingrained deeply in our psychology. 10 commandments feel better than 12, and the rule of 3 feels better than the rule of, say, 8. The problem, however, is oversimplification — a seemingly benign but actually pernicious effect of hyper-reductionsim.
I’ve read through as many of the best “how to be successful” articles and bits of advice I could find and noticed they, all of them, bare some striking resemblances. The most important of which being that there are 5, not 1, keys to success. They are: Determination, Skill, Passion, Discipline And Luck.
Determination is necessary but, like each of the 5 keys, not sufficient for success. I should clarify that when I say “success” what I’m referring to are the highest possible levels of success. Not middle-management or being a star on the high-school basketball team. Think more like CEO, NBA (and or MVP), Pulitzer Prize, Oscar, Grammy, Nobel, Heavyweight Champion, etc. The specific degree of success matters because determination alone is, perhaps, enough to be m oderately successful. But, unfortunately, it is not enough for true greatness. Nevertheless, I digress.
So, what is determination? Determination is both a firmness of purpose and a willingness to work unceasingly towards that purpose in spite of any obstacles, difficulties or failures along the way.
Accomplishing great things is difficult and, in the end, it’s always more difficult to achieve great things than you guessed it would be at the beginning. You knew it would be hard, but not this hard.
Ambitious goals require a high tolerance for pain, monotony, and boredom as well as a large amount of patience and discipline.
It takes a long time to achieve anything great. And to keep your sites set on something, anything, for a long time, the time it takes to do something great, you need determination. Anyone can be focused for a week or a month. And some can even be focused for a year, but that’s not true determination. True determination lasts multiple years, decades and lifetimes. That’s what it takes to be the best at something. That’s what it takes to achieve greatness. The “overnight success” is a myth, the “born natural” is a myth, and the “prodigy” is a myth.
Mozart is the exemplar of what people (wrongly) call a prodigy. People seem to think that he just sat down at the piano one day and hatched Symphony №41 on his first try. Well, I’m here to tell you that he didn’t. Not even close. A thorough examination of Mozart’s history — along with the history of every other so-called “prodigy” — clearly reveals them to be incredibly hard working people who, yes, had some natural talent but nowhere near the amount that people like to claim or believe.
Declaring someone a prodigy or a natural is the lazy man’s way of rationalizing his own shortcomings.
Skill. Skill goes hand in hand with determination. You can not become really skilled at anything difficult without putting in a lot of time and effort.
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell describes an apparent phenomena which he calls the “10,000 hour rule.” The rule appears to hold true across a variety of fields ranging from music, to writing, to acting, to sports, and the like. As the name suggests, the 10,000 hour rule states that it takes 10,000 hours to master something — to, in other words, become the master of some particular skill.
10,000 hours! No wonder most people settle for mediocrity, that’s quite a lot of blood, sweat and tears. How can anyone keep their eye on the prize (i.e. be determined) for that long? The answer, is passion.
Passion. No one — not even the determined — can grin and bare it for 10,000 hours without passion. To practice something, unabated, day in and day out for the years or decades necessary to reach 10,000 hours is impossible unless you’re passionate about the thing you’re practicing. The old cliche that if you love what you do, you never have to work is true. Well, sort of.
Discipline. Even when you’re passionate about what you’re doing, there are still going to be times when you simply don’t feel like practicing/training/writing/playing/etc. You won’t always be in the mood. But you can not let that stop you. You must not wait for the lightning of inspiration to strike for, if you do, you’ll waste your life staring up at the sky.
Pick something you love to do, set your sites on it, then create a practice schedule for yourself and stick to it no matter whether you feel like it or not.
Remember, today’s struggle is tomorrow’s strength.
Last but not least, you need luck. It doesn’t matter which super-successful person you talk to, they will all agree, that you must have some degree of luck to reach the greatest heights of success.
The weak use their (real or perceived) lack of luck as a crutch and complain that so-and-so only got to where s/he is because they “are lucky.” This is often times why semi-successful people become bitter and declare themselves “self-made men.” But notice I said semi-successful, because these self-proclaimed self-made men are never among the most successful in their field. The most successful are always smart enough to credit at least some of what they have accomplished to luck.
Luck can come in many forms: genetic, social, timing, taste, all of these things are arbitrary, and anything that’s both arbitrary and beneficial is, by definition, lucky.
Even the capacity for hard work may, to some degree, have a lucky biological or genetic element. But I refuse to believe that hard work, or the capacity for it, is entirely inherent (also, I see no evidence for it).
You must work hard to be great, harder probably than you ever imaged. But you must also not be so naive as to call yourself self-made.
If you’re lucky, be thankful. Then, get to work.
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3 Keys to Success in Life (That Will Change You in 2021)
Consultant, Coach and Business Owner based in Norway. Read full profile
Do you want to program your mind and hack your body to stay in a positive state, a state of action taking throughout the day? I suggest you read on.
We will look at 3 keys to success that successful people are doing that you can model to program your mind to be in the state of succeeding from the moment upon waking, and make decisions throughout the day that will lead you towards your desires.
Table of Contents
The Biggest Obstacle to Success: Going on Autopilot
One of the biggest pitfalls in the modern society is to fall into the trap of going on autopilot, to be walking dead and do what everyone else are doing. Most of us are too busy reacting and responding to the environment and what’s happening around us.
While we should act and take charge of our own world and our own reality. We forget to stay focused and we forget about our goals.
Learn to be conscious. Being more conscious in your day-to-day decisions will lead you to take the appropriate actions to reach your goals.
Have a purpose with life, act according to your values, and don’t let people tell you what to do or how things should be.
When you start to make more conscious decisions, you will start to think about if this is going to take you closer to your goals or drift you further away.
Why are you doing what you’re doing right now? Why are you reading this? Nothing else to do? Or are you reading this site so you might pick up a thing or two to consciously incorporate in your life to improve yourself that will move you in the direction you want?
What are your goals? Be healthy? Lose weight? Be fit? Get the dream job? Have the dream house? Live the dream life? Make a certain amount of money? Start a family?
If you truly want to pursue these goals and actually see them come true, you need to start taking actions consciously.
3 Keys to Success in Life (That You Can Start Doing Now)
There are 3 things we have to consciously start doing:
Now I’ll show you how you can achieve each of them in details.
1. Write down Your Goals
The first thing you do in the morning will determine what your day is going to be like. Program your mind to be in a powerful state from the moment upon waking, and you are guaranteed to have a productive and great day.
How you can do this is by writing your goals down, every morning. Then, once you’ve done that, circle the most important goal, the goal that in the long-term will have the most impact on your life.
Now ask yourself this question: “What actions can I make today that will change everything and take me closer to this goal?”
Write down all the actions you can think of, circle the two most important ones and start doing them. Don’t stop until it’s done.
This is an extremely powerful method of getting in the right state first thing in the morning. Instead of wandering around half-dead and spending 30 minutes to wake up, you are hacking your mind to be productive.
Another powerful reason for writing down your goals is that by reading them it makes us feel good, write them as if they’re already accomplished. You’re already there.
Re-reading and re-writing them every morning will ensure you to be in a resourceful state where you act based on your goals. You will make conscious decisions throughout the day that will support your goals and take you closer to them.
Goals that are not written down are merely wishes. Learn how to set great goals here: How to Set SMART Goal to Make Lasting Changes in Life
The power of writing goals as if you’re already there takes us to point number 2.
2. Create a Powerful Belief System
Ask any successful person what their number one rule for succeeding is. They all have this in common:
They believe in themselves and what they’re doing, and they are not afraid to say it.
If you don’t believe in yourself, why would anyone else?
When people ask you about your goals in life, don’t be afraid to say it out loud. If you have high goals, they might laugh and look at you funny. But if you’re insecure about your goals, you will make insecure decisions that will lead you nowhere.
Go against the grain, stand out. After all, how many people in the world today are actually living the dream? Now, how many of these people will respond something in the likes of “I don’t know” if you ask what their goals are?
Be determined and believe in yourself. People will respect you for having the guts for going after what you truly desire.
I once heard a story about a guy that worked in a video store. Every day he would bring two magazines to work, one was an entrepreneur magazine and the other was a magazine loaded with expensive and fast-riding cars. His boss would ask him why he was bringing these magazines to work every day and his answer was: “I’m picking out the car I’m going to buy.”
The response from the boss was like most average minds saying he was killing himself thinking like that, he would never ever get that car and would just end up disappointed when it never happened.
Turned out, the guy later quit the job at the video store and followed his dream. Some years later he return to the video store to return a video, and he did so in the car he picked out from the magazine.
The same people were working in the store as the day he used to work there. Now can you imagine the looks on their faces when he turned up in the car they said he never ever would get?
Priceless. And it all started by creating a powerful belief system.
The first step to living and achieving your dream is to believe it and imagine it. When you believe in your mind that you’ve already achieved your goals, you will develop a sense of certainty. That certainty will lead to action steps, when you know what the outcome is going to be it’s much easier to pick out the actions that are necessary to get there.
You are certain you will live in the body you want.
You are certain you will live in the dream house with the dream family.
You are certain you will have the job you want, and earn the money you believe you’re worth.
By constantly repeating in your mind the images of yourself succeeding, you create neural pathways in the brain. Your mind can’t tell the difference between what you vividly imagine and the reality.
Go out and day dream. Go out and believe, imagine already living your dreams and goals. With enough repetition, you become certain that this is the only outcome and you work backwards to find ways for making it happen.
The next step in personal success that will lead to life success and happiness is to..
3. Invest in Yourself
A wise man was once asked what the best possible investment someone could make. His answer was short, sweet and simple: “Invest In Yourself.”
The man’s name is Warren Buffett. He is known as the world’s greatest investor. According to Forbes, he has a net worth of $53.5 Billion.
Hiring a personal coach, getting a membership at a gym, buying healthy foods, books and education are not expenses. They are investments: investments in yourself.
Some things you can do today to invest in yourself are:
- Go to the gym and train. Physical training releases endorphins and makes you feel great. It increases productivity and energy levels. By investing time in the gym, you’ll be better able to handle daily tasks and what life throws at you. Forty-five to fifty minutes is all you need, it’s actually the best time to shoot for in a workout.
- Eat good food. When you go to the grocery store after work, ask yourself: “What foods will nourish my mind and body to feel and perform better?” You are setting yourself up for greatness and consciously making yourself aware of what foods will empower you, therefore make better decisions.
- Start reading books. Everyone buys books, but very few actually reads them cover to cover.
- Stop reading books and start studying them. Few read the books they buy, but even fewer remembers what they read. Stop reading books and start studying books.
- Study at least one hour a day.“One hour per day of study will put you at the top of your field within three years. Within five years you’ll be a national authority. In seven years, you can be one of the best people in the world at what you do.” – Brian Tracy
- Take notes. Never leave home without a pen and a piece of paper. The best ideas often comes in the least appropriate times, write them down. Don’t trust your mind to remember them—it won’t. Writing it down right away will also allow your mind to store and come up with more ideas. Nowadays, you can use plenty of notes-taking apps like Evernote.
- Learn a new skill. Learn something new every day, a new skill or a new word. One new skill every day equals 365 new skills a year. Now imagine where you could be a year from now if you start doing it today?
- Do something for yourself. Yes, hard work is a major factor for succeeding, but at least once per month do something fun, something outrageous and spontaneous that makes you feel alive. Have fun and enjoy yourself.
The Crucial Rule to Follow
The last piece of advice and rule to follow: Keep on, keeping on.
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