7 Essential Factors of Success in Life

If you think that success is about luck, you’re right, I do believe you need to have a little luck to be successful. And if you think success is about having the right talent, you’re right too. I believe success is made up of several factors, not just one. And if you want to achieve outstanding results, you need to work on those success factors that you can control.

And in this article, I’m going to share with you the 7 factors of success that you have total control over.

We’re not going to talk about luck or talent, because we can’t control luck or change our talent. Instead, we’re going to be talking about those factors that you can influence and control to make yourself more successful in life.

And here are the 7 factors of success you can work on…

1. Education and knowledge

If you think that you’re too old to get a degree or a PhD., think again, that’s just an excuse. If you want to, you can go back to school and get the degree you longed for. But sadly, most people make excuses by saying they’re too old, it’s too late, they don’t have the time, they are going to fail, etc.

Education is important because it equips with you the ability to read and understand things so that you can implement them in your life to achieve greater results.

But don’t mistake education and knowledge. Education is what you learn from schools, knowledge is what you get when you improve yourself through continuous learning.

Formal education will make you a living, self-education will make you a fortune.

Jim Rohn

Yes, don’t just pursue formal education, what is more important is self-education. If you want to grow and live a successful life, you can’t stop yourself from learning and improving.

You have to commit to self-education. Read personal development books, attend seminars and workshops to learn about a certain skill, and keep growing yourself. The moment you stop learning, you stop growing.

The point is that you have total control over this. You can choose to watch an hour of Netflix or you can choose to read an hour of a good business book. Your choice.

Hence, stop saying that you lack the education or knowledge. You know you have control over what you put into your mind.

If you don’t have a college degree, does that mean you’re destined to fail, or you can’t achieve great things in life? No. You can commit to self-education and keep improving yourself to become someone better.

So, from now on, commit to self-learning. Read books, learn from others, and be hungry for knowledge. If you have no idea what books to read, check out my recommendation…

• 20 Best Success Books Everyone Should Read

2. Network and contacts

The second factor of success that we all know is important is your network and contacts. Your network determines your net worth.

Again, Jim Rohn once said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

Do you have control over who to spend time with? Well, yes! You can choose who you want to make friends with.

If you choose to make friends with people who smoke, eventually, you will become a smoker. And if you choose to make friends with people who drink, eventually, you will be affected and become a drinker too.

The point is that you can choose who you want to spend the most time with. And try your best to network and make friends with people with these success traits.

I know, there are circumstances where you have no choice, like if your colleague is someone who always complains but you have no choice but to work with him, then try to spend less time as possible.

Whenever possible, try to get away from your negative people and spend time with positive people.

Or come to worse, you can make the decision, tell your boss to either change your partner, or you will need to leave the job for your own good.

You see, everything you do, including the people you choose to spend time with, is the result of your own responsibility.

Therefore, don’t say that you don’t have the network or lack the contacts. Never let this excuse stop you from achieving the success you want.

From now on, make conscious decisions and spend time with people who are positive, encouraging, and people who can lift you higher.

Read: How to Surround Yourself with Positive People

3. Mindset and the way you think

You have total control over your mindset and the way you think. I know, this is easier said than done. It is not easy to change the way you think, especially if you have been thinking negatively for a long time.

But still, you can choose to consciously decide what to think about right now. The way you think greatly impacts your level of success.

For instance, when a problem occurs, you can choose to focus on the problem, or you can choose to think about the solution. Whatever you choose to think about will determine your action, and hence your results in life.

So, how do you change your mindset and the way you think? Well, you read and associate with the people who you want to become.

Reading expands your mindset and when you associate yourself with people who are more successful than you, you will want to become like them to “fit in”.

I remembered reading Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins. He shared how making friends with those who are more successful helped expanded his mindset…

I’ll never forget the first time I met architect and hotel magnate Chris Hemmeter. Becky and I had the privilege of being among the first people to be invited to visit Chris’s new home, along with his family, in Hawaii—a $70 million residence that is beyond verbal description. The front door alone cost $1 million to create.

While your rules may say, “That’s an incredible waste of money,” it was also an unbelievably expanding experience of what is possible in terms of business or economic growth.

Suddenly, my $4 million Castle was put in perspective. It barely covered the cost of his front door and marble stairway! Certainly, there was room in my life for thinking bigger, pushing limits, imagining the unimaginable.

This is how you get to expand your mindset and thinking. When you discover how much more you can accomplish, you will never settle for the ordinary.

The way you think is one of the most important factors of success. And the good news is that you can control and choose what to think about most of the time.

It is a choice to think and believe that you can succeed in life. And it is also a choice to think and believe that you are destined to be ordinary and live life as a failure. Remember, whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.

• How Do Successful People Think: 10 Extraordinary Mindsets To Adopt

4. Skills and expertise

Yes, you need to have the skills to be successful. There is no way you can achieve extraordinary results without having the skills.

But then again, skills are learnable. Take Michael Jordan as an example, do you think he was born with talent in basketball? I don’t know, but what I do know is that Jordan was once rejected by his high school basketball team due to his lack of skills.

However, Jordan did not give up. He chose to work his way up and train every day to harness his skills and eventually, he made it and became one of the most decorated basketball players of all time.

Champions are not born, they were made. You may have talent in what you do, but if you don’t make good use of your talent, it will be wasted.

And if you don’t have talent, it is okay too, because skills are learnable and you can train to become great at what you do.

Do you think I’m a good writer? If you do, well thank you, but I don’t think I am. English isn’t my main language and I don’t speak English at home. Even today, I still find my writing isn’t as good as I want it to be.

But I continue to write and publish blog posts. Compare with my first post on this blog, I’m doing much better right now.

Thus, skills are learnable. You can become great at what you do. But you must be willing to put in the hard work to hone your skills.

So, what skill do you need to achieve the success you desire? Learn it, practice it, and train every day until you become the person worthy of success.

• 7 Most Valuable Skills for Success You Need to Master

5. Habits and routines

Habit is a huge success factor that we don’t talk about until recently. Great books about habits like Atomic Habits and others are selling like hotcakes.

Just like changing your mindset, you can change your habits too. If you want to become more productive, just get rid of those habits that are stopping you, and then develop productive habits that will get you what you want.

Of course, it is not easy, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

One thing is for sure, your habits dictate your success in life. What you do daily is more important than what you do occasionally.

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily agenda.

John C. Maxwell

So, how do you change your habits? Read Atomic Habits. It is a great book that I highly recommend for anyone who wants to change their lives to read.

Basically, it all starts with changing what you do every day. You see, what you do every day determines what you will get in the future.

You can’t lose weight by hitting the gym just once. You need to do it consistently.

The same goes for building a successful blog. I can’t just publish one article and wait for people to come to my blog. No, I need to be consistent and do it every day. And I have to market and promote my blog too.

That’s how success is created – in your daily routine. This is why developing productive habits are important. If you master your habits, you will grow leaps and bounds in life. Not sure what habits to build? Check out my list below:

• 31 Daily Good Habits: The List that Improves the Quality of Your Life

6. Desire and commitment

Well, how serious are you about achieving the success you want? For most people, they are okay if they don’t hit their targets or miss their goals, but for some people, they are 100% committed and they will do whatever it takes to achieve the results they want.

Your level of desire and commitment is another success factor that you have total control over.

Think about why you are where you are in life right now. It is because of your level of acceptance.

You are where you are right now because you can accept where you are now. If you are not living your dream life, it is because your desire for it isn’t strong enough.

For example, if you can accept making $5,000 a month, you will never want to venture out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself to earn $10,000 a month. Your level of desire and acceptance is a reflection of your results.

Most of us want to become a millionaire. But if we are making $60,000 a year, we’re okay. We can accept that. And that’s why most of us are NOT millionaires. Do you see it now?

In an interview, Warren Buffett suggested to a group of MBA students that if they want to succeed in their investment career, they need to read and acquire more knowledge. But he added on to say, “not many of you will do it.”

Here’s an excerpt from CNBC:

Read 500 pages like this every day,” the Berkshire Hathaway CEO told a group of MBA students at Columbia Business School in 2000. “That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not very many of you will do it.

You see, we all know what we need to do to achieve the success we want, but most of us are not willing to do it. Why? The reason is simple – desire and commitment.

Are you 100% committed to the success you want? And are you willing to do whatever it takes?

Remember, you control your desire and your level of commitment. When you want to succeed as badly as you want to breathe, you will be successful.

Here are 2 guides to help you increase your desire and commitment for success…

• 5 Powerful Methods How to Boost Your Desire for Success
• 7 Easy Ways How to Increase Your Commitment to Success

7. Determination and persistence

Just yesterday, I received an email from Jeff Goins, the Wall Street Journal best-selling author of Real Artists Don’t Starve, and also a successful blogger. I’m on his email list, and he shared the lessons he has learned over 10 years of blogging.

The one lesson he mentioned that hit me the most is this – don’t quit. This was what Jeff Goins wrote in his email:

Don’t quit. This is, perhaps, the most obvious but least-practiced piece of advice on writing and blogging there is. Before Goinswriter.com, I had nine other blogs—all of which I quit at some point, usually within a matter of months after starting. What made this blog different was the simple but intentional choice to not quit. A decade later, that decision has served me well. There have been ups and downs, setbacks and breakthroughs, but the commitment to continue, to outlast almost everyone else, has been a good one.

Obviously, one of the critical success factors is to NOT quit. You need to have the determination and the persistence to press forward until you make it.

When things aren’t going your way or when you are not getting the results as expected, you will feel dejected, lose your motivation, and most likely, you’re going to quit.

And I’m to tell you that if you quit, you’re not going to make it.

A quitter never wins, and a winner never quits. You must develop the determination to press forward and keep moving on.

Giving up is a choice, so with your decision to continue.

Therefore, your choice of NOT giving up is a decision you can make and control.

Jeff Goins said he gave up on 9 other blogs. But when he decided to make the intentional choice of not quitting, he grew his blog, GoinsWriter.com to stardom, became a best-selling author with several great books, and achieved amazing success through his writing and blogging career.

That’s the power of determination and not giving up. Are you going to quit?

Read: 7 Steps How To Not Give Up On Your Dreams

Conclusion

Success is not determined by just one thing. There are many factors of success that determine your results. The good news is that most of the success factors are controllable.

In other words, you can influence those factors and live an intentional life. You are the one who can determine your success and take charge of your life.

• You can choose to quit or to press on.
• You can decide if to make it a habit to read every day or to watch Netflix every day.
• You can train and upgrade your skills, or you can choose to play games and upgrade the skills of your characters in the game.

Success is a choice. You are the one who is making the choices.