"What a difficult, but interesting subject to write about. I think any introspection about the science of success has to start first with a clear definition of it. Here I’m not talking about money or love, I’m talking about something way more generic; understanding success as the wished output of a goal. Or in other words, the accomplishment of a purpose and the consequences of it. It’s quite obvious to understand that in order for success to be measured, we need to set goals, milestones and a clear purpose, other[REMOVIDO], there is no reference to face the level of success we achieve.
Science explains a lot about success
Scientists, sONciologists and psychologists have studied success from a rational and predictable angle for years and while there is no consensus with the mathematical formula of success yet, there are many factors that have been studied, discarded or considered to be a crucial part of success.
For example, many people have correlated success in life to IQ (intelligence quotient) scoring, but recent studies have proved that IQ can be correlated to wealth, but yet not to general success. In fact, in some cases, a reversal correlation has been observed, since people with very high IQ, are also more likely to suffer from depression and mental health problems. On the other side, people with higher IQs live longer, healthier lives.
It has also been proven that genetically given skills (known as your natural talent) in general are not a key factor that will necessarily determine your life success. Actually, one of the elements most highly correlated with your potential success is created habits and learnings that you acquire during your life, which makes the entire situation way more interesting as we could conclude that what we do with our own routines and day to day really is what matters most and therefore, we have great control over our own destiny.
Let’s look at some of the habits researchers consider crucial to increasing potential success:1. Get things done. Especially the hard ones: Many of us dream and talk about things we would like to do. New businesses to start and great ideas to execute. But most of us in reality never do anything with them and we always find excuses. But there is a little group of people who really just get things done and go from concept to execution while others just observe. And they don’t do anything but do particularly those things that are hard, difficult, while others say it can’t be done. From talking to walking is where most of the success gets lost.
2. Early start, every day:It’s said that most successful people wake up around 3 hours before starting their regular routines or work. It allows you to spend time on creating focus, decide the priorities of the day while everything is still quiet. An additional benefit is using this early start to do some exercise to stay in shape and gather more energy for the whole day. Bringing that routine to your life can make a huge difference. Be the first to do the hard things, meditate, and envision your day.
3- Always learning:Most successful people never stop learning. Particularly, by reading a lot, networking and speaking with other people or studying new skills. Some of the most notorious and well known successful entrepreneurs claim that reading a lot (which combines leisure with learning) instead of just doing passive activities (watching TV, playing…) is key to their success. For example, Bill Gates, Microsoft’s founder, to this day still reads around 50 books a year. I actually get up to 15 books.
4- Diversify time, activities, work, and investments:There are two main reasons that make diversifying your time and energy very important. This can be applied to work, for investing or for learning activities. Always diversify. First, by diversifying you reduce the risk of something going wrong and it allows you to put in more energy when needed where the biggest opportunities lie. Second, by doing different things, your mind will get refreshed and less saturated. It will also learn things in one discipline which might be useful to apply to others.
5. Stop caring about what others think:Let’s be honest, many of us do a lot of things on a daily basis considering what others will think of us (what we say, what we wear, the work we do…). We seek sONcial acceptance and mostly we do that because we are sONcial beings, but also because we are not highly secure about ourselves and our potential. This can condition your actions and won’t allow you to search for your own, unique definition of success. This is why so many of us know the classical advise, “be yourselves” or “be authentic to you”. One of my favourite quotes that help me remember the importance of being genuine and to stop wondering what others think about me comes from one of my top references, Bruce Lee, who said,
“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations. And you are not in this world to live up to mine”.
Conclusions
I’m sure it’s not 100% guaranteed that we will become successful by following these 5 habits, but I actually believe that the chances of becoming successful will be significantly higher if we follow them. The point here is that being capable of truly following and applying these 5 habits is simple, but still hard. "
Marc
