Is it true that anyone can be successful in life? If you have a dream and are willing to pursue it, can you too, achieve the success you desire? We often heard people talked about the keys to success or the requirements to succeed in life, but is it real that if we adopt, learn, or stick to these rules, success can be ours?
In this article, I’m going to share with you the 10 ultimate keys to success in life.
Here’s the answer to the questions above. I believe we all possessed some form of abilities and powers to achieve greatness in life.
Yes, we can be successful, achieve our goals, and live the life that we desire, BUT only if we are willing to strategically work for it.
And by strategically working for it, I mean you NEED to possess these 10 keys below…
1. Find Your Direction
First, you must know what you want out of your life. This is common sense. We can’t achieve success if we don’t know what it is that we’re striving for, right?
Do you still remember the story of the 3 bricklayers? Here’s an excerpt from HuffPost:
“A traveler came upon three men working. He asked the first man what he was doing, and the man said he was laying bricks. He asked the second man the same question and he said he was putting up a wall. When he got to the third man and asked him what he was doing he said he was building a cathedral. They were all doing the same thing. The first man had a job. The second man had a career. The third man had a calling.”
Some people call it a ‘calling’, some refer to it as a ‘vision’, and I call it your definition of success.
In short, it is the ultimate result you want to achieve in life. This is important because what you want to achieve in your life will determine how you’re going to live your life.
For example, if you want to build a successful business that earns millions of dollars in profit, you must start acting, living, and making decisions like an entrepreneur.
You can’t achieve the success you want if you don’t know what ‘success’ looks like.
Therefore, the first key to success is to define it.
Find out where you are heading in life. Discover the things that you want out of your life. What are the goals that you want to achieve in the next 5 or 10 years? What is your ultimate destination? What do you want in life?
When you know your destination, you can then create plans to get there.
Many people are blurred with what they want, and they have no idea what direction to take in life. And this is the primary reason they fail to live the successful life they desire.
If you want to learn about the importance of having a clear vision or why it is important to set goals, read these articles below:
- Why Having a Sense of Purpose is Important to Succeed in Life
- Why Goal Setting Is Important? Read Before Too Late
2. Desire, Determination, and Commitment
Next, you need to have the desire, determination, and commitment to achieve what you want.
Again, these are the 3 characteristics most people lack. They lack the desire to succeed.
Most people will tell you that they want to achieve greatness in life, and that’s all they do. They just think about it and talk about it. They don’t really do anything about it.
You have to understand that you attract what you are, not what you think you are. So, if you lack the desire, you will never do what is necessary to produce the successful results you want.
It is easy to say that you are committed to losing weight and you want to wake up at 6 AM in the morning to exercise. But when your alarm goes off, you can just switch it off and continue to sleep.
That’s exactly what is happening to most people. They just think about their goals and dream about their dreams.
But when it comes to doing real work, they choose to procrastinate. This is why in order to achieve great success in life, you need to have the desire, the determination, and the commitment to act.
Don’t just dream about your dreams, build a strong desire so that you will act. Put in 100% commitment and be willing to do whatever it takes. Plus, get the determination to work through the hardships.
I have to remind you that the journey to success isn’t an easy one. It is going to be tough and bumpy. You will have to face a lot of setbacks, tough times, challenges, and failures.
And this is why this second key to success is so important. When you have the desire, commitment, and determination, you will do whatever it takes.
Remember, successful people faced tough times too. But they don’t allow their lack of motivation to stop them from taking action. They do it even when they don’t feel like it.
And you have to learn to be the same.
Here are some guides to help you discover your desire, build your determination, and develop your commitment to success…
- 5 Powerful Methods How to Boost Your Desire for Success
- How to Develop Self-Determination and Succeed in Life
- 7 Easy Ways How to Increase Your Commitment to Success
3. The Ability to Make Plans and Schedule Your Priorities
There is no point in just dreaming or thinking about success, you must develop the ability to make plans and schedule your priorities.
One reason successful people are able to produce extraordinary results in life is that they always work on the priorities that get them the results.
Instead of working on everything that comes to them, they plan and schedule to do what is important. They intentionally plan and make things happen rather than waiting for things to come to them.
We all have 24 hours a day and it is impossible to handle everything by ourselves. We need to focus on what is important and not just anything that comes to us.
For instance, as a blogger, there are many things I can do to improve my blog. I can work on my blog’s logo, I can hire people to redesign the theme, I can write and submit guest articles, I can leave comments on other people’s blogs, I can read books about blogging, etc.
The point is that not all tasks are created equal. Some tasks will give me a greater impact on my blog while some will be less.
And I need to focus on doing the right work to get the right results that I want.
I want to introduce you to this amazing book that I think everyone should read. The book is called The One Thing, written by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.
Always remember this: If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.
One of the most important keys to success is to work on one thing at a time. This is why it is important to learn how to make plans and schedule your priorities.
Instead of being reactive and responding to everything that comes at you, learn to be proactive and make things happen.
Imagine going through a weekend where you have no plan. Guess what will happen?
You will wake up late. And after you got up, you reach your phone and get check updates on Facebook and Instagram. After an hour is gone, you finally decided to take a bath and have breakfast. And because you have no plan, you waste another hour mindlessly surfing YouTube, playing games, and doing unproductive things.
This is what will happen when you don’t have a plan.
So, don’t live a reactive life. Start planning, work on your priority, and read this article below to learn how to plan your life:
- How to Plan Your Life and Never Be Stuck Again
- 10 Simple Steps How to Plan Your Year in Advance
- 10 Tips How to Plan Your Day and Live a More Successful Life
4. Dare to Take Risks and Make a Change
If you study the life of successful people like Richard Branson, Elon Musk, the late Steve Jobs, Gandhi, etc., you will notice that all of them possessed this similar key to success: they dare to take risks and make a change.
First, if you are not willing to make a change, you will forever stay where you are. If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you will get back the same old results.
Success in life is about making positive changes. It is not about shrinking and running away from change, but instead, you have to embrace it.
Most people are afraid to change because they don’t dare to take the risks. They are afraid of the uncertainties and the unknown.
After PayPal was sold to eBay, Elon Musk made $165 million from the deal. And Musk can retire happily, but he didn’t. He chose to invest the money into two new businesses and started Tesla and SpaceX.
Both Tesla and SpaceX are unconventional businesses because one focuses on space travel while the other focuses on electric vehicles. Elon Musk took a leap of faith.
Do you think there are risks involved when Musk made those decisions to start Tesla and SpaceX? Yes, he took a huge risk.
The same happened to Bill Gates when he had to take a risk to drop out of college to build Microsoft. Gates chose to let go of everything as a student to pursue his vision that personal computers would be a useful and common tool in every office and home.
Here’s a good article from Addicted2Success about successful people who take risks in business. Read it.
What about you? Are you willing to take risks and make a change?
5. Bounce Back from Failures
Here’s another key to success that you need to acquire – the ability to bounce back from failures.
A lot of people misunderstand and think that failure is the opposite of success, which is not. Failure is on the same side as success. The more you fail, the more you experience you gain. The more experience you have, the better you will be. And the better you are, the more successful you become.
Do you get it? You can’t achieve success without going through mistakes and failures. They are inevitable.
It is not a matter of how to not fail or how to not make mistakes, but rather, it is about how much you can soak from your mistakes and failures.
Most people are afraid to make mistakes or experience failure. Think about it, most people love the idea of working for themselves and being their own bosses. They can then have time freedom and probably financial security.
But when you ask them when they are going to quit their job to start their own business, most don’t dare to commit.
After a couple of months, you will still see them working in the same company and in the same position.
Why is this so? Well, the reason is because of the fear of failure.
As long as you are worried about failure, you will never venture out of your comfort zone.
Thus, don’t be afraid of failure or making mistakes. Instead, be afraid of being where you are a year from now. You don’t want to be where you are right now a year from this point.
I bet you want your life to improve, right? You want things to become better, isn’t it? This is why you’re reading this article.
So, the key is to learn to embrace failures and bounce back from them.
Mediocre people are afraid of failure, but successful people are inspired by failure. Remember this saying from Robert Kiyosaki:
“Failure inspires winners. Failure defeats losers.”
Hence, don’t be afraid of making mistakes and failing. Here are some useful guides to help you overcome failures and bounce back higher:
- 3 Fundamental Principles How to Turn Failure Into Success
- 10 Great Ways How to Overcome Your Fear of Failure
- Why Failure is Good and Necessary to be Successful in Life
6. Be Passionate With What You Do
How many times have you heard that if you want to be successful, you must follow your passion?
Well, I have to admit that passion is important, but don’t get it wrong by thinking that passion is all you need. You need more than just the passion to achieve great success in life.
Another common misconception that most people have is that they need to pursue their passion in order to perform better.
In my opinion, this is only half true. Your passion can change. You may love to dance or sing now, but a few years down the road, your passion may change and by that time, maybe you don’t like to dance anymore.
Plus, I believe that we all can develop a passion for what we do. In his best-selling book, The Magic of Thinking Big, David Schwartz wrote in his book that passion can be developed if we are willing to dig deeper into the subject matter.
For instance, how much do you think you know about badminton? Chances are, if you’re not a badminton fan, you will never know about much the sport. You don’t know who is the top-ranking player in the world, you don’t know the rules of the game, and you probably don’t even know how badminton works.
But if you asked a badminton fan like me, I can answer all the questions pretty easily. And I’m quite good at the game too.
So, our difference is that I know a lot about badminton, but you don’t. And Schwartz mentioned that you can develop your passion by learning about the subject matter.
If you want to develop a passion for badminton, you just need to dig deeper and learn more about the sport. Find out who is the top player, play the game, invite your friends along to enjoy the sport, watch the latest competition, and learn more about the sport.
The deeper you dig into the subject, the more you will discover that you have a passion for the sport. That’s how you develop a passion for success.
This is how you can build up your passion for the things you want to excel and be successful at.
If you work in a hotel, find out everything about the hotel. Learn about the hotel industry. Know your competitors, understand your customers, and find out everything you can about managing a hotel.
The more you learn about the subject, the more passionate you will become. That’s how you can grow your passion in any career.
And when you are passionate about what you do, you will do it better than most people. That’s why passion is one of the keys to success you need to develop.
Here’s a good article you should read:
7. Discipline and Persistence
You can’t rely on motivation all the time, you need to develop habits, disciplines, and being persistence in what you do.
Successful people do the work regardless of whether they feel like it or not. They are disciplined to wake up early to work on their goals and dreams. Are you willing to do that?
Even Muhammad Ali hated to train, but he did it anyway because he wanted to be a champion. Here’s one of his famous quotes:
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’”
If you don’t have the discipline, you will never get anything done. Success requires self-discipline and persistence to work on a goal or project until you succeed.
You can’t jump ship and switch from one project to the next. A lot of people started an online business, but after a few weeks or months when they fail to produce any significant result, they quit and start another online business.
It will never work out for you if you lack the discipline and persistence to stick to your plan. You can’t just do it for a while and then give up. You have to stick to your goals and plans and make them work even when things become tough.
No matter what goals or successes you pursue in life, you need the discipline to take action and the persistence to sustain it over the long term.
Success is not going to happen overnight. It is not a sprint, but a marathon.
Imagine your goal is to lose weight. Can you hit the gym and workout for 20 hours straight and then stop exercising and hope that you will wake up losing 10 pounds the next day?
No. Things don’t work this way. You have to do it consistently. If you have the discipline to exercise in the gym every day for just 30 minutes or an hour and persist this routine for 3 months, I’m pretty sure you will lose the additional fat on your body and get back in shape.
This is why you need to have discipline and persistence to achieve what you want in life. They are the keys to success that you cannot miss out on.
Here are 2 articles to help you build your discipline and improve your persistence:
- 10 Great Tips How to Discipline Yourself to Achieve More
- How to Develop Persistence and Never Quit on Your Goals
8. Always Think Big and Positive
Yes, I know you have read about this over and over again, but the truth is that thinking big and positive is important if you want to achieve a big success in life. Allow me to explain.
First, your thinking shapes your life. When you think big, you’re inspired to take action. Think about it, if your goal is to earn an additional $100 this entire year, do you think it is going to excite you to jump out of your bed to work on it?
I don’t think so. But if your goal is so big that it impacts people around you, changes your life, and gives a positive change to everyone who you care about, do you think this is going to be more exciting than just earning an additional $100?
This is why people prefer to work in big companies like Google, Facebook, Tesla, etc. People admire and look up to people who have big visions and inspiring mindsets.
Next, thinking positive is key if you want to be successful. You simply can’t go around littering negativity and expect you’ll be successful.
I like how Grant Cardone puts it. This is what he said:
“You can’t get rich thinking poor.”
Similarly, you can’t become successful if you constantly feed your mind with negative thinking.
When you think positive, you are telling yourself that what you want is possible. Your goal is possible. Your dream is possible.
But when you think negative, you tend to focus on the problems, the challenges, the difficulties, and the obstacles. And when you constantly think about problems, guess what will happen? You will be defeated by your own mind before you even begin.
If you want to start an internet business and all you think about is a problem, you will never succeed at it. The negative thoughts will take away your drive and motivation to act.
Successful leaders are positive thinkers.
Think about it, Steve Jobs believed that Apple’s products were great, and that was what drove him into action. Elon Musk believed that electric vehicle is possible, and he started Tesla. Mark Zuckerberg believed that it is possible to connect people in a more seamless and convenient way, and he founded Facebook.
Successful people are optimistic. They believe that good things are going to happen, and they always think big and positive. This is what leads them to success.
Want to learn how to think big and positive? Read The Magic of Thinking Big. Or check out these articles:
- 7 Ways How to Think Big to Achieve Big Success in Life
- How To Stay Positive No Matter What Happens In Life
9. Build a Positive Surroundings and Environment
Here’s another key to success that most people neglect: Environment. The surroundings you’re in, your environment plays an important role.
Imagine your workplace is in a mess, do you think this is going to make you more productive? No, right?
Now, this is an obvious influence from our surroundings, what about the less obvious but powerful ones?
According to a study conducted by Cornell University, when moviegoers were served popcorn in big buckets, they ate 34% more than those given the same popcorn but in a smaller-sized container.
In other words, we are often influenced by our surroundings and environment, but we’re not aware of it.
Just like the way you eat, the way you talk, the way you think, etc., are all influenced by your surroundings and the people you mixed with.
And what does this have to do with success? Everything.
Successful people choose to spend time and associate with other positive and successful people.
The environment you’re in, regardless of whether it is your home, your community, your workplace, or your company, will influence the way you think and act.
If you are coming from a doctor’s family, where most of your relatives or even your parents are doctors, highly likely, you will be also influenced and encouraged to become a doctor too.
Therefore, if you want to cultivate your greatness, you must understand yourself and know what environment can support you to achieve the success you desire.
Read the 2 articles below to understand better how your environment can influence your success and how you can set up your surrounding to win in life:
- How Your Environment Affect You and Your Success in Life
- 10 Tips How to Change Your Environment for Greater Motivation
10. Raise Your Standards
Finally, the last key to success that you’re going to need is your persistence in creating a high standard and maintaining it.
Tony Robbins once said:
“If you don’t set baseline standards for what you’ll accept in your life, you’ll find it easy to slip into behaviors and attitudes and a quality of life that’s far below what you deserve.”
I bet you have told yourself or set goals such as…
- I want to lose weight and get back in shape.
- I want to earn more money and start my own business.
- I want to travel first-class and explore the world.
- I want to engage in a more passionate relationship.
We all have a list of things and goals that we want to achieve in life, but until we raise our standards, we will remain where we are.
Just take a look at the way you dress. You have a set of rules or standards for the way you should dress and look, don’t you think?
For some people, they care about their appearance and they don’t go to work without a suit. On the other hand, there are people who don’t really care about the way they look. They are alright to go out with just shorts and slippers.
Think about a professional athlete. He has a strict standard for his physical appearance. He needs to be fit all the time. He will not overeat and stuff himself with junk food. And he has to train every day.
The same applies to every other area of your life. Look at your finances. Are you okay with late bill payments? Is it alright to miss a payment here or there? How do you deal with money? Do you save it first or do you spend it first?
Your standards say a lot about you and your life. This is why if you want to be successful, you must raise your standards and maintain them.
Here’s a good article you should about raising your standards and living the successful life you want:
- How to Get What You Want by Raising Your Standards
- 5 Ways You Can Raise Your Standards That Will Upgrade Your Life
Conclusion
Now you know what are the keys to success in life, so, what do you need to do next?
Learn these 10 keys, develop them, and apply them to your life. You don’t want to just read this article and do nothing. You want to get something out of it.
Here are the suggestions for what you can do:
1. Find your direction
Know what you want out of your life. Define your success and learn how to set empowering goals that drive you. Check out my course at Goal Setting Formula.
2. Desire, determination, and commitment
Desire, determination, and commitment are the 3 important traits of a successful person. Learn how to develop the traits of successful people. Read this: Top 10 Defining Traits that Successful People Have in Common.
3. Master the skills to make plans and schedule your priorities
Yes, learn to create plans and schedule your priorities. And every day, work on the most important tasks that give you the most results you desire. Read this book: The One Thing.
4. Dare to take risks and make a change
You can’t be successful if you don’t dare to take risks or make a change. You must muster up your courage and just do it. Learn from other successful people. Read their autobiographies. Here are 2 of my favorites: Losing My Virginity written by Richard Branson, and Delivering Happiness written by Tony Hsieh.
5. Bounce back from failures
You must learn to bounce back from failure. Mistakes and failures are inevitable. Hence, learn how to turn your failures into lessons, lessons to experience, and experience into successes. Read this article from HuffPost to learn how.
6. Develop passion for what you do
Develop your passion at work and for the success you want. When you are passionate about what you do, you will do it better than most people. That’s how you produce success. Read this inspiring book that I highly recommend: The Magic of Thinking Big.
7. Build discipline and persistence
Always procrastinate and put things off? Do you give up and quit on goals or projects you have started? Learn to build self-discipline and get rid of procrastination. Use this method to fix procrastination.
8. Always think big and positive
Your thinking affects the way you make decisions and act. Therefore, when you think big and positive, you will attract big and great results to your life. Want to learn how? Read my article here about how to think big.
9. Build a supportive environment and surroundings
Your surroundings and environment play a vital role in your success. If you don’t believe it, try to read a book in a noisy place like a wet market. Can you do it? You know the answer. Learn how to manage your environment and set up your surroundings for success. Check out this amazing article from James Clear.
10. Raise your standard
The only way you can become who you want to be is to raise your standards. Success is not so much about getting the results, it is about becoming the person worthy of success. Here’s an in-depth article about raising your standards you should read.
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