Have you ever wondered what leads one person to achieve success in life over another? Maybe you’re looking for that one key in life to unlock a better future or maybe you want to help someone else succeed. Here at Finally Family Homes, it’s our mission to care for vulnerable youth, primarily kids who are aging out of the foster care system, by providing what they need to succeed independently.
As we explore these 10 keys to success in life, it’s important to have a clear definition of what success is. To succeed means to accomplish a goal. By this definition, if there are no goals, there can be no success. As well, having success “in life” can look very differently, depending on each person’s goals. It’s important that you choose goals that specifically move you towards the future you have in mind for yourself. If you really want to be a Nascar driver, you’d probably be disappointed in life as a “successful” investment banker.
Most people would define success in life as having some measure of happiness. Therefore, it’s also wise to include goals to cover areas of life that are often overlooked, but have been shown to make almost anyone happy life – such as relationships, physical health, safety, contributing to others, and creative expression.
1st Key to Success in Life: Planning for Success
The very first key is planning for success. This means having a clear picture of what a successful life looks like to you and putting together a well-defined plan to get you to that life. It starts with figuring out what you want and writing it down in detail. This is the foundation for your plan. From there, set up the goals, step by step, that will get you to this life.
2nd Key to Success in Life: Preparing for The Unexpected
Many of the best laid plans have been derailed by a single misstep. It’s no accident we chose this as the 2nd of the 10 keys to success in life. Preparing for the unexpected can be the key difference between having a plan that ends in failure and having a plan that succeeds despite a bump in the road.
So how do you prepare for the unexpected? Start by making a list of things that could go wrong in your plan. Then create workarounds and back ups for each potential problem. Even when I’m driving a route I know well, I usually keep my GPS up and running to help me navigate traffic jams, construction, or missed turns.
3rd Key to Success in Life: Forming Good Habits
You can have big dreams, great goals, and still fail. Success requires turning knowledge into action. It means repeatedly taking action towards your goals. Repeated actions become habits. And once you form the right habits, you create momentum.
Creating systems for your life as you are forming good habits can help you to stay on track. You can build systems by grouping good habits together. Having a system in place can keep you from having to make decisions on the fly or keep track of doing all your goal-oriented tasks one-by-one. Instead, you follow an intentional daily pattern that moves you towards your goals with less stress. This has the added benefits of reducing stress and freeing your attention to focus on the things that truly require more brain power.
4th Key to Success in Life: Prioritizing Goals
As you create your systems and put your good habits into practice, you’ll probably find there isn’t enough time in each day to work towards every goal. Prioritizing goals will help you figure out which ones to do first or spend more time on."Prioritizing goals will help you figure out which ones to do first." @finallyfamilyhomes #fosterkids #ahopeandafuture Click To Tweet
If you’re not sure how to prioritize goals, it may help to apply some techniques like a numerical ranking system or the Eisenhower Matrix. Prioritizing your goals also means not letting things that never even made your list get in front of pursuing what did. In other words, don’t let talking to a telemarketer derail your plan to clean the house.
5th Key to Success in Life: Learning from Your Mistakes
They say “the road to success is paved with failure.” What they don’t say, is that each piece of failure on that road probably looks different than the other. Success most likely came by way of trying (and failing) many different ways. Yes, you can fail your way to success, but almost never by making the same mistake over and over.
Failure is a part of success if it becomes a trainer or teacher. Learning and growing after failure is what can make it useful. Every race a sprinter loses, they can be building up strength and trying new running techniques. Each race, though a loss, can move them closer to getting first place next time.
6th Key to Success in Life: Trying Different Strategies
The road to success is not straight. There are stops and starts, turns and detours. Anyone who says they’ve got the exact path to success for you is probably lying. As the (creepy) saying goes, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” Heck, there’s more than one way to get the meaning of that saying across. Let’s make up a newer more pet-friendly one – “There’s more than one way to peel a banana.”
Any way you put it, there’s more than one way to do – just about everything. So, if at first you don’t succeed, try another way. Try a new strategy. Come at your goal from a new angle, at a different time, with a different person. There could in fact be many effective strategies. You just need to find the right one. The only way to find it is to keep changing and keep trying until you find one that works.
7th Key to Success in Life: Taking Smart Risks
As you try out different strategies, you may find that you trying something that has never been tried before. It might feel scary. Taking risks can be intimidating, but taking smart risks can have big payoffs. Taking a smart or calculated risk means researching potential outcomes and determining what your chances of success are and if the payoff is worth risking the harm that could be done.
It takes time to develop good risk-taking skills. You may have a few painful failures as you figure out how to take calculated risks in life. It’s best to start out taking small risks. As you get better at it, you’ll probably become more comfortable. But don’t let your comfort be the only deciding factor. Often, taking a risk is the only way to achieve success.
8th Key to Success in Life: Learning from the Experts
While it’s true that there is no one path to success, a lot can be learned from studying other successful people. Even better is to be mentored or to study directly under someone. Recorded history doesn’t always catch all the details and nuances.
Start with doing some research and study successful people who did something in the same realm of what you are striving to achieve. Want to innovate? Study innovators. Want to be a great painter? Study Van Gogh, Monet, and Picasso. Want to own a restaurant? Learn from someone who knows cooking and business. Watch what they do, take notes, and ask questions.
9th Key to Success in Life: Learning How to Say No
I think our culture undervalues the importance of saying no. It can be uncomfortable. But in listening to interviews with successful people, you’ll probably hear them talk about turning down great opportunities they knew aren’t right for them.
Learning how to say no is an essential key to success in life. Successful people say no all the time. Saying no means knowing yourself, your boundaries, and being able to determine what is worth your time and energy. Saying no to the wrong thing leaves space to say yes to the right thing. It leaves room for the right opportunity.
10th Key to Success in Life: Investing in Relationships
While I think the saying, “it’s not what you know it’s who you know” overstates the importance of relationships to success, it’s certainly not without merit. And it’s definitely worth investing in relationships, regardless of your goals. People are made to be in community. The benefits of being in a safe and encouraging community go beyond success in any one area of life.
There are many types of relationships that can boost your chances of success in life. The right relationship may just be that cheerleader or assistant who has no “connections,” but gives you the support you need to keep going when times are tough. Maybe the relationship you need is with a competitor, someone to challenge you and keep you sharp. And of course, there is the mentoring relationship, which can lead to networking opportunities and invaluable advice. In fact, is the lack of these relationships that can be the biggest gap between aged out foster youth and success.