Table of Contents
Meaning of Success
Success is the term used to describe the good outcome of an accomplished task. In other words, it is the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors. A person or thing that has good results as measured by the attainment of goals, position, wealth, honors, or the like is also termed “a success” or said to be successful.
It is the inherent desire of everyone to have success in all endeavors and undertakings. This why the idea or concept of success is not new at all. It leaves everyone with a constant longing for its attainment, as it gives a sense of self-worth, and a consolation in time, resources, and efforts put into the execution of a project.
Our life endeavors have success as their central pursuit. No one will embark on an assignment or delve into a project just for the sake of it, and not desire to succeed at it. This makes the concept of success relatable and uniting while making the way about achieving it an interesting adventure.
It is pertinent to note that success is relative (meaning different things to different people). Our individual differences make for our different needs, aspirations, priorities, and desires. This, as a result, does success mean different things to us. At the center of all, however, is the uniting idea of having good results and accomplishing one’s goal (which we may have differed).
Definition of success in life
Success in life is the term used to describe a development that entails holistic progress on all fronts of life and wellbeing. This makes for all fulfilling results in all shades of life with the enviable proof of happiness, wealth, comfort, and a sense of satisfaction.
Who is a successful person?
A successful person is someone who has attained a certain level of success based on society’s standards for measuring success and is said to be accomplished in every sense.
A successful person in the real sense can be said to be one who is happy with his or her own accomplishment, and not dependent on others – one that follows his or her dreams. This is so because often times, society’s parameter for measuring success may be on the basics of material possession which is not necessarily so.
Who is the most successful person?
With a rough net worth of about $150 billion, Jeff Bezos is said to be the richest man in the world. And as Bloomberg puts it, the richest in modern history. His company, Amazon, which he founded in 1994 in a garage, became the second US company to achieve a valuation of more than $1 trillion in 2018.
With this unspeakable wealth and a potential for more, It is natural to conclude that Jeff Bezos is the most successful person, in the world. It may not necessarily be so, however, because as we earlier established, success is not a function of wealth, but rather the happiness that comes with the accomplishment of goals, and how well this outcome (which may be in monetary value), affects you and the lives of others around.
Having understood what real success means and who a successful person is, it is not out of place to want to desire to succeed too. It is pertinent to note what successful people do every day that makes them seem extraordinary.
In recent times, success has been used interchangeably with the following words to buttress its meaning or make it relatable to different fields of human endeavors. Below are some examples of success synonyms.
Success synonyms
The following are synonyms of success:
- Achievement
- Fame
- Triumph
- Victory
- Conquest
- Ascendancy
- Boom
- Gain
- Savvy
- Accomplishment
Having looked at the definition of success, its importance in our daily lives, and other concepts relatable to it, which serve as pointers to it; we now look at day-to-day activities that can mean success to different people.
What are examples of success?
Success, as we have already established means different things to different people, but has as a unifying theme, the accomplishment of a goal which we said may be different. This depends on the task that is being carried out and the expected outcome in each case.
The following are examples and representation of the success of different people:
- Solving a puzzle correctly
- Winning a football match
- Performing well at school with an excellent result
- Doing well in career or a chosen discipline
- Graduating from college or high school
- Making remarkable strides in the profession, and
- Building a house among others.
Throughout the examples above, we will find that even though the activities alongside the processes through each, are different; the end result which we can term good and desirable, gives it the tag of success.
Is success defined by money?
An important factor we will find in the understanding of the idea of success, regardless of the activity, is passion. As in each case above, before the material decimal (as important as it is), comes to play, you must love and enjoy what you do to achieve the desired success. This is contrary to the view by many that money is all that matters in attaining success or worse still, is the parameter for measuring success.
In reality, when it comes to defining success, money or wealth has little or nothing to do with it. Therefore, it is wrong to consider people successful by how much money they make, or the people they associate with. Ultimately, true success should be measured by how happy you are.
People who have all the material things in life which others covet after, may not necessarily be the most successful ones. The most successful ones are those who derive joy from what they do and achieve their goal, whether or not they have money to show for it.
Sidelining money, there are keys to success, which, when activated by anyone, success becomes inevitable.
Keys to Success
Discipline
This is the intentional stretching of one’s self in order to achieve set goals and succeed in an endeavor.
Discipline is an important virtue in daily life and in achieving your goal. It makes you organize yourself for the task to be accomplished while enabling you to eradicate habits that may pose as an obstruction to achieving the set goals. Discipline affects every area of life such as sleeping, talking, time management, and even feeding habits.
The discipline holds an inevitable place in the art of success. Without discipline, it is almost impossible to succeed. Discipline gives the needed taming, focus, and endurance needed to achieve a goal, and bring any worthwhile adventure to a reasonably close.
Persistence
This is the virtue of importunately pressing hard and not giving up on a particular endeavor till the desired outcome is accomplished.
Persistence plays a very important role in achieving success in any given endeavor because most times, success does not come easy. On the floor of success are always a few who in spite of the odds, persisted and got what they wanted.
To succeed and succeed greatly, you must be armed with the virtue of persistence, as this will help you surmount the inevitable bend of failure, discouragement, and uncertainty on the path of success. The ocean does not break through the rock because of strength, but its persistence as the saying goes. The same thing applies to success.
Influence
Since we do not get to live through life and engage in our endeavors as lone-rangers; we receive certain cues from others that have the capacity to drive our own lives and make or mar us. This phenomenon is known as influence and it plays a very important role in our success.
Our eventual success or failure can be largely connected to the kind of influence on us. To succeed, therefore, we need to have around us the right company whose positive influence on us, can facilitate and make possible the desired outcome.
Coaching
This is also an important people factor that is a key to success. It operates like influence, but in this case, from a person that is considered more experienced, and whose impact can bring about the needed success.
Coaching makes for an eye-opener, a transfer of experiences, and a path-finding spree. It helps you avoid certain mistakes you would have made ordinarily if left on your own and guarantee you the desired success.
Having a personal mission statement
This is the practice of creating for yourself a pattern to follow and being personally convicted about that. It is personally deciding on the path to follow and by implication, being willing to wield your all to it.
Having a personal mission statement (preferably in written form) is a key to success as it helps in giving you a focus, and energizing you on your chosen path, or in the course of the execution of your projects and endeavors.
Belief and goal setting
Belief is an important key for success as everything worthwhile can only be achieved on the grounds of personal convictions which the idea of belief revolves around. This is also the foundation on which a personal mission statement is supported. You must first believe in the reality, and possibility of a thing before expecting a successful outcome from it.
Goal setting, on the other hand, entails planning the feat to be accomplished and when it should be. This is an important key to success, as success ultimately is measured by the degree to which set goals are accomplished.
In goal setting, your goals must be SMART. This is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.
Make a plan
Closely related to goal setting for the attainment of success is planning. Here, after setting the goal, you put up a plan as to how to go about the execution of the set goal in order to achieve the desired outcome which we term success in this case.
Making a plan enables you to weigh all the options and settle for the best alternative that can guarantee you success given the necessary resource, opportunities, and time.
Through the process of preparing, planning, and working for a successful outcome, one thing stands out and has every other factor hinged on it. This is the motivation. Without motivation, you cannot get started, and hence cannot have the desired outcome. Therefore, to succeed, you need to be motivated.
Success in all endeavors (which is the goal of every individual), is attainable given the necessary motivation and applying the outlined key.
The most difficult kind of success (for some people), which happens to be the most substantial of all, however, is success in life. This explains why certain students graduate with good grades from school,l but are unable to secure the dream job, or a good career person failing in other areas of life.
Succeeding in life is a function of understanding what life entails and applying in a more broad sense, certain keys to success as already learned.
How can I achieve success?
To succeed, you simply learn and follow the process that has proven to be a workable path in the achievement of success. This is observed in the lives of successful people.
How to succeed in life and career
In order to succeed in life or your career, you need to understand the keys to success which are actions you need to take, behaviors you need to change, and ways you need to take in order to be successful.
To succeed in life, which is the desire of everyone, you need to position yourself to certain strategies which are:
- Ask Questions: Do not be proud to admit ignorance. Ask good questions when in doubt in order to get the needed clarity that can make you successful.
- Be honest always: Honesty is still the best legacy. Its place in attaining success cannot be overemphasized.
- Maintain a high “say and do” ratio: To succeed greatly in life, you must be a man or a woman of your words. You must only say what you mean and mean what you say. That way, you get the necessary focus needed to succeed.
- Keep it simple: Avoid ambiguity at all costs and make your goal clearly stated in understandable white and black ink. Do things within the circle of your abilities and do not try to be who you are not.
- Accept responsibility: This is very important in order to succeed in life and career. Take responsibility for actions and inactions, and be willing to accept the consequences of either of the two. That way you learn and you are better positioned to succeed.
- Listen: Be willing to listen, especially those who have traded the path you want to trade and those who are headed in the same direction as you. Be willing to take useful suggestions and advice from those that have achieved what you want to achieve and those headed the same way as you are.
- Work Hard: Working hard is an all-important aspect of succeeding in life and any other useful venture. You must work hard and work really hard in order to succeed. There is no achievement for a lazy person who idles around.
How to be successful in business
To succeed in business, just like in other careers, you must persistently find new ways of operating and channel your all into the pursuit of a good outcome.
When punctuality, resourcefulness, and foresight, converge in a business, success is guaranteed.
What is most important for success in life?
To succeed in life, the most important thing is perseverance. Success is not a destination, it is a journey. You need the perseverance to keep on with the disappointments, setbacks, and even failure. As you would see from the quotes below, the path to succeed in life and that of failure are similar but those that succeed simply did more than those that did not; that is why you need to have discipline, perseverance, and persistence in order to achieve your life goals.
SUCCESS QUOTES
Here are some popular success quotes to help inspire your to greatness and to achieve what you need in life.
Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts. by Winston S. Churchill.
This tells you to simply continue making progress in life whether you fail or you succeed; just continue to work on yourself to become better.
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. by Herman Melville.
This means that how you become successful is as important as having success. It is honorable to succeed legitimately than through illegal means which leads to disgrace in the end.
The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same. by Colin R. Davis
What makes others succeed is simply persisting more than those who fail and doing more than those that fail; this shows that the path to failure and success are similar but that of success is lengthier.
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. by Henry David Thoreau
In order to succeed in life or your career, you should be busy taking actions instead of sourcing for knowledge without actually putting it into use.