What is success?
Most people don’t actually have a clear definition of what success is, or how to go about achieving it. There are billions of people on the planet but not all of them will or can be a success.
This is going to dive deep on success, and how to become successful in life in a fairly short period of time. Much shorter than you would have thought actually, so get comfortable and close those other tabs that you probably weren’t going to read anyway. That’s step 1!
What actually is success
Before going any further, we need to define success. What actually makes somebody successful? Is it what they do, what they’ve done, what they WANT to do or none of the above?
The answer is a little harder than that. It’s not as easy as simply saying somebody is a success if they earn more than say $100K a year, or if they have a certain type of car or even house. It’s actually not much to do with those things at all.
It’s much easier to define than that. It’s simply:
A person who does what they’ve decided to do in life, because they wanted to do it.
Now that could look like a number of things, but that’s ultimately the definition of success. If somebodies doing something they love, because they WANTED to do it and they’re happy doing it, they’re a success. If they’re not doing that, they’re a failure.
It’s of course not always black and white like that, but that’s the main idea. The actual definition of the word ‘success’ is to ‘achieve or accomplish a goal’. so anyone that set a goal and then achieved or is doing that goal, is by definition a success.
That leads people to question the REAL meaning of the word, though. If somebody simply needs to set a goal and then achieve it, then surely even BAD things could be considered successes?
You could for example, have a bank robber set a GOAL to rob a certain bank. If they rob that bank and steal loads of money, are they successful people? You see how the actual meaning of success doesn’t really mean what we INTEND it to mean.
When you think of someone who’s a success, you normally think of the things they’ve achieved that are for the greater good.
Everyone can agree that building a big company or writing a book are clearly more POSITIVE and worthwhile goals than getting high or completing a certain video game, right?
Because to some degree, success is subjective. There are people who think success means ONLY happiness, and others who think it actually relates to a different definition of success.
To some that idea of success looks like financial freedom, optimal health and fitness, great relationships and love life, and so on. THAT’s really the most common definition of success, the money, health, love and TIME to do what you WANT to do every day.
I would argue actually, that THAT is the real definition of success. A bank robber who achieves his goal of robbing a bank is not a successful person.
But they guy who came up with an idea for a business, and then acted on it since a young age and didn’t come from anything, no money, and then who woke up early every day for 5 years and built that big company?
The guy who always makes time for his partner despite building a company or whatever he’s doing?
He’s a success.
He’s actually achieved something worthwhile, and he’s helping the world in some way or another. His company might be providing a product that people need and supplying the local people with jobs. His relationship is fulfilling and loving, and it makes both of their lives better.
He has time to do the things he loves, and he never has to do something his heart isn’t in, or answer to a horrible boss.
That’s success.
Now of course, there are MANY ways we could go with this. Does it count as success if somebody makes lots of money but they don’t have the loving relationship? What about if the guy in this example didn’t WANT a relationship?
Does he need one in order to be successful? Well, it comes down to choice again doesn’t it. If the person in question DID want a loving relationship but he’s never making time for his partner and they’re unhappy because of his obsession with his business?
Then maybe not so much.
It’s about balance, and I would propose the following is a better definition of success, which as you’ll notice is a lot more detailed and complex than our earlier definition of success which was simply ‘having goals and completing them’.
- Being to some degree financially free meaning you don’t have to worry about money and can decide to do things because they’re what you truly want to do
- Be time rich meaning you have the flexibility to do what you want when you want, and you make the decisions around your life
- Have some sort of higher goal or purpose that aims to help the planet, and NOT just be about making money or doing fun things
- Make time to work on yourself every day and treat your BODY with respect, meaning eating healthily, exercising to stay in your best condition, and taking the time to maintain a good appearance
- Having a loving, caring and healthy relationship IF YOU WANT ONE! Some people are genuinely happy alone but you have to be honest with yourself about what you want
- Being a nice, caring and loving person. Not wishing others harm, spreading negative thoughts or ideas, putting others down or trying to manipulate or cause pain to others
- Setting goals regularly for business, health, relationships, travel and so on and then taking steps to achieving those goals every day
So, what if somebody doesn’t do all of those things?
Well, they can still be on their way to becoming successful, but they’re not YET 100% successful. They’re not quite operating at the outer limits of their potential.
You need to see, humans have MASSIVE potential. Every huge change in the world, every innovation was somebodies brain and someones thoughts. In most cases, it was one person who came up with the idea of did 90% of the work to make it happen.
A person can do a lot, and so when I see people who are perfectly healthy, young and nice people just sitting around playing games or getting high, or just doing nothing at all?
It’s hard to see. It’s even harder to know that it’s the case with most people these days. We’re obsessed with mediocrity and just being ‘ok’. We’re happy with a boring as hell job if it pays just what we need in order to continue sitting around eating, paying our rent, and driving to work.
There’ no concept for most people of the future or or their dreams. most people actually don’t even seem to have goals for the most part, and if you asked most people what they were planning to have achieved by the time they’re 80?
Well you’ll get a blank stare if anything at all. But I’ve started ranting, this article is about how to start achieving success, or the right way of going about it. So we’ve defined success and of course, there are examples where somebody will do most of those things and still be a success.
But I’ve come to this list of definitions after lots of thinking. We’re all humans on this planet and we have a duty to be kind to eachother. Not only that, but we have to set some sort of goal otherwise there really is no point to life for the most part.
Humans are very capable of living a life FAR beyond what they normally do. We just have to set a goal and take steps towards it. You won’t find many people who would read that list of success definitions, and NOT want them.
It’s what we all want, when we really think about it. Do you want to feel better? Earn more? Have more time and have a healthy, good looking body?
Of course you do, we all want success. So why don’t we all have it? Well, we’re getting to that.
Why isn’t everyone successful?
Because humans are wired in an unfortunate way.
Our brains are wired by default to WANT things to benefit us instantly. We find it hard to delay gratification. This means were more likely to accept $5 NOW than $10 in a week. We want the instant fix, the instant shot of dopamine we get from doing something we like.
but success requires you to DELAY that gratification. It might mean spending 6 months writing for 6 hours every day instead of going to the pub! You might miss some crazy, drunken nights out. Most people though? They go to the pub instead. They get that INSTANT gratification of a cold beer.
They can’t delay it. The guy who sat and wrote for 6 months instead of going to the pub? His website grew exponentially and he now earns $5K a month in sort of passive income. He’s on his way to achieving success.
And that’s really why we’re not ALL successful, because most of us don’t understand the brain. They don’t understand how it traps you into doing something that will be fun NOW but WON’T move you closer to your goal LATER.
It’s a constant battle between what you want now and what you know you should do to be happier later. And the truth is, if you just figure out how to delay that gratification? The payoff is enormous.
Absolutely massive. I remember spending a whole year not drinking at all (I still don’t drink to this day actually) and instead working on building one of the first websites I owned. I wrote for hours, sometimes until I couldn’t look at the screen any more.
I sacrificed the instant ‘fun’ of going out to the pub or watching a new Netflix show for working on my goals. I knew that long term it would set my life up. And it did! I now work 100% for myself and have done for a long time. I travel whenever I want, and earn far more than I’d ever earned form any job.
And that’s not to show off, but to show you a classic example of how DELAYING gratification led to success. It would have been far more fun at the time to just watch Netflix all day every day or go drinking, or whatever, but I didn’t.
So you have to learn how to say NO to your brain. Success is often about doing the things you NEED to do regardless of whether you feel like it or not.
Once you’ve worked out your path, your routine and HOW you’re going to achieve your goals, it’s simple. You set a plan for example, wake up at 5AM every day and write 10K words. If that’s your goal, you’re going to not feel like it in a weeks time. You’ve got to be able to IGNORE that feeling and just do it anyway.
If you just push through, success is VERY much closer than you think. But most people can’t do that. Can you? We’ll see..
How to become successful in life very quickly
Like we’ve said, potentially anyone could achieve success, but hardly anyone actually will. If you think you’re one of the people who WILL, then you should probably read the following steps and insights closely.
1: Decide what you actually want
Before we go onto the main steps, you’ve got to work out what you want, and WHY you want it.
- It’s not just enough to say ‘I want to make $50K a year’.
- By doing what?
- For how long? And why do you need or want that amount of money?
You need to know the answers to these things. So to start with, think about what you want, and be REALLY clear about it. Don’t just say ‘I want to sell cars’. Figure out what type of cars, HOW yo want to sell them, and an exact amount of money you want to be paid.
- The same goes for your fitness goals, what do you want to look like and BY WHEN?
- What do you want in a relationship and be REALLY specific.
- Once you’ve written down a clear goal including an exact salary, detailed descriptions of everything and what you REALLY want to do, we’re ready.
PS: If you’ve just written down something you want to do for work BECAUSE you know it makes lots of money, try again. It’s got to be something you really want to do, that’s FAR more import ant than the money.
2: Get your mind right
There is probably a lifetime of negative thinking patterns and ideas in your mind right now. You need to change that and rewire your brain for success. A lot of self help books are geared towards rewiring your brain and that’s because it’s often the first step.
If you’ve been alive for about 20 years or more you’ll have been told basic lies and stories by the people around you such as:
- You have to get a job and work for someone else to be successful
- Only really lucky people become wealthy
- You can’t build a business on your own
- It’s not that easy, don’t bother trying
- Work hard and the money will come
And most of those are lies. Working hard comes into it and you should work hard, but you should also work smart otherwise you’re wasting your time. If working hard meant financial success or even freedom, coal miners or construction workers would all be millionaires able to choose how and when they work.
But that’s not the reality. You’ve got to set yourself up for success and in this step I’m mainly talking about financial success. Money will solve most of your money related problems like rent, food, bills and so on.
It lets you go and do the things you want to do. Sadly in the game of life money plays a key role and without it, we can’t do much. So regardless of how you feel about money you’re going to have to learn to earn and keep it more.
Start by just talking to yourself more. Tell yourself a BETTER story about your life, success and money. It’s all within your grasp, if you just believe you can actually get it and do it. When you first hear something like that, your instinct is to think ‘no it’s not, it’s for other, luckier people’ but that’s wrong.
It really is that easy, you just have to decide on a goal, make a plan to get there, and stick to it. I wish there was some complex solution or detailed map I could give you but that’s really the main part.
But your mindset will do everything it can to stop you believing that. Some of you will have already clicked away from this article because there’s no magic bullet formula here. Some of you were expecting to find a downloadable PDF guide showing you step by step how to earn loads of money and become successful.
It doesn’t work that way. I know people that have read dozens of personal development or business books, but because they don’t have the right mindset or they don’t take action? They’re stuck doing something they hate.
I’m sure you also know people who live the exact same life year in year out. Work in the same job for years on end, with no sign of moving on, improving, being promoted or even enjoying what they’re doing with their entire life and all their time.
So your mindset can make or break you, and the vast majority of your battles and challenges are in your head. It’s so true and I wish I’d learned that earlier. I always thought it was something OUT THERE like an external hurdle or that I wasn’t lucky enough.
No.
It was my mind, it always was. I just had to overcome my doubts, work towards the goal and keep trying. That’s all it ever was but at the time, I thought I needed to buy some software, or a course, or a magic bullet or trading strategy or something..
Anyone can research on the internet how to do almost anything. For free. Right now, you could learn 99% of ANYTHING you would find in paid courses, seminars, coaching programs or even university. It’s all out there, but people are lazy and want an instant solution.
They think that if they just buy this one more course, it will teach them in a way that makes it easier. No, the information is there, on the internet for everyone to use and learn. So start by changing your mindset to positive thoughts and believing you can learn or do anything.
3: Figure out a pathway to get what you want
Figuring out how to actually get what you want in life sounds like a bit of a paradox. Surely if you already knew how to get it, you would have got it.. Well not quite.
Most of us sort of know roughly what we should do in order to get what we want in life, we just don’t do it. We know that things like playing video games probably won’t get us closer to our goal.. But researching things about it might.
You might for example research how to set up a website, or how to write a book. These things could move you closer to your goal. You could also research how to set up an advertising campaign and start dropshipping.. Again these things are productive.
But playing games won’t get you there. It all starts with deciding your goals, and working out how to get there. It might even be something as simple as researching ‘how to do x’.
Say your goal is to be a surgeon.
Your first step or first goal is to research ‘how to become a surgeon’ and read what people say. Then you might learn that you have to have a degree in it, so you learn that you need to go to uni.. Now your goal has shifted to going to and completing a university course.
Your goals will always shift based on what’s going to get yo close to what you want. You’ve got to be flexible, and adaptable. Able to move around easily, and pivot to something new or a different approach.
So spend a little bit of time doing this. Really think about what you want, and then do a few Google searches to figure out what sort of thing you should be DOING to get closer to that goal.
4: Create balance in your life
Now putting goals to one side for a second, let’s think about balance.
Life is balance, and if you have ever met someone who works ALL THE TIME, and they’re miserable?
They’re not living a balanced life. You see balance is about making sure you have time to earn money, work on your business, AND time to spend with your loved ones. Time to relax, and time to exercise and cook yourself nice meals.
If you don’t have time for those things, you need to make time. It’s more important than anything else. You’re going to be working most of your life, so it’s CRITICAL to get a good routine and balance early on.
Otherwise, you’ll be always working, staying late in the office or wherever, and never having any time to do other things in your life that are just as important.
We can safely say that the following things are good to include in your life
- Time with loved ones
- Time to work on your personal goals
- Time to exercise and get out into nature
- Time to be alone, recharge, eat well and think about your life
- Time to work on your business
- Notice anything?
Well, it’s all about TIME.
Time is the most important thing. The billionaire and the beggar both have the same 24 hours in each day, so it’s really all about how you use those hours. What you do, and how you do it makes a big difference.
You must construct a plan to divide the time you have each day into chunks. Make time for each of those areas if you can. It might mean you have to work less hours and even earn slightly less money at first.
It might mean you have to wake up a bit earlier, or watch a bit less TV in the evenings. There might be time you could use for other things, in a more productive way..
Time saving hacks
One of the best time saving hacks and methods I use, is working out what things I HAVE to do every day.
Let’s say you have to do things like brush your teeth for 5 minutes a day. That’s a great time to do calf raises because you’re not doing anything else! Other than staring into a mirror. Get a little calf workout in, you’re going to spend the time either way!
Another example is if you commute to work, don’t listen to music. That’s prime time to learn something new! You could learn a language, listen to a podcast, or even just listen to positive, reaffirming messages.
Or if you’re at the gym exercising, listen to a podcast at the same time. It’s time that you’re going to be using anyway, so you might as well use it more effectively. Another really effective way of saving time is to batch things together.
If you’re going to be eating meals that you cook every day of the week, just cook a MASSIVE meal on Sunday night and then put the leftovers into 5 Tupperware’s. That’s saved you prep time for all 5 meals for the week.
You can do the same for things like replying to emails, running errands etc. Try and collect things, and consolidate errands into one day where you can hit them all at the same time.
The new currency in todays world is time. It’s better to have less money but more time, and LOTS of money but no time.
Start thinking about how you can save time, or get MORE time in your life. You need to do this to be successful, otherwise you’ll always be a slave..
A cog in the machinery of the world never really experiencing life or deciding what to spend your time doing.
5: Optimise your life for that goal
So now going back to setting your goals.. You need to set your life up to achieve that goal.
Let’s take an example of a waiter wanting to write a book and become an author.
You should put inspiring messages and images around your room. You should take less shifts of waiting work to allow for time to write your book. Put your laptop in an easy to reach place in your room and write every single day.
Spend time writing instead of watching TV, and don’t make the mistake of working for someone else before YOU.
When I was building my own business along side my day job I would wake up at 4 every day. Why so early? Because I KNEW that my mental energy is limited.
I knew that if I waited until I got back from a full day of my day job, I wouldn’t have the mental energy to do anything for myself. It’s science..
Your brain has a limited amount of energy and focus, and if you use that all on someone elses business then there’s none left to build yours. So I like to wake up early and work on my stuff before ANYTHING else.
Prioritise what you want to work on, and then go to work for someone else if you have to. Think of the job like a stepping stone, or a tool to give you the bare minimum amount of money you need to keep going.
You want to just earn enough from your job that you can cover your costs, but keep working on your vision, your ultimate goal. In this example, it would look like this:
- The guy that wants to be a writer sets his alarm for 4AM, and gets up to work on his book. His first book might not be a success but it’s the moving forward that’s important. The moving towards a bigger goal of being a writer.
- THEN after he’s written a few thousand words for his book, he goes to work at his day job.
- All day he thinks about writing and how he’s going to write even more the following morning
- If he talks to people, he’s alert and aware. He’s ready to mention his writing
- Because opportunities can come from anywhere. You never know who’s around you listening and waiting to give you an opportunity.
6: Take steps (according to the plan) every day
The plan you’ve now made should be your bible.
Stick to your plan and make sure to work on your goals every single day. It won’t be easy but if you do it, you’ll slowly get closer to your goals week by week.
What will really help you with taking steps towards your goal is a morning routine.
Why morning? Because as I said your brain is STRONGEST in the morning. That’s when you have the most mental energy and focus.
Therefore it makes sense to work on your business or goals first thing in the morning. It’s also critical to do that if you have another job like a day job.
If you have anther job you’ve got to wakeup at least 3-4 hours before that starts so you can work on your things first. If you start your day job at 9AM, this might be a challenge but at least try and get a couple of hours BEFORE your job working on your own stuff.
The more time you’re able to work on your things the faster it will grow and the faster you’ll be able to give up your job and just do what you love. The best way I’ve found of doing this is just to wake up earlier and make sure it gets done.
They say that successful people just do what needs to be done, regardless of whether they feel like it or not. Be one of those people and just get things done.
7: Always change course if needed
You’ll make mistakes on the path to success.
We all do, but it’s about being able to learn from them and move into a better position. Let’s say you’re building a business selling a type of shirt, and you figure out that no one wants to buy that shirt.
Move onto something else and use the design of the shirt for a hat. This is a basic example but you must be willing to know when to change course and move into something different. This DOESN’T mean giving up on a dream or a goal.
It just means working out the best way of doing it.
8: Follow your heart
Do what makes you happy is what they say.
And that’s true to a large degree. But first, you need to learn what actually does make you happy. And not everyone even knows. You can make money doing almost anything these days, especially with the internet and things like YouTube.
Conclusion
It’s hard to define success let alone explain how to get there. This hopefully explained a few important things, but there’s more to learn. Here are some important articles: