What is the key for success and happiness in life? That all depends on how YOU define success and happiness!
Everybody wants to have a happy, healthy and meaningful life. Everyone wants to feel that they are important to those around them. They want to be loved and valued for who they are.
Some people believe that success and happiness is obtained through fame and fortune. Others want to make a difference by making the world a better place. They want to have a positive influence on those around them.
Are wealthy people happy? You don’t have to be wealthy to be happy. Most people would be happy if they can achieve financial independence doing work that they enjoy. They would be content with a job or a career that provides them with opportunities for advancement.
Regardless of how you define success and happiness, below are 7 key factors that everyone should pursue in order to ensure a successful, and happy life.
1. Relationships
Excellent relationships are the ones that make us the happiest. It’s great to be with people who appreciate, love, or respect us.
It’s uplifting to share ideas and experiences with people that we care about. And to surround ourselves with people who are concerned about our well-being. Good relationships are one of the keys for success in life as they help strengthen our self-esteem and our confidence in ourselves.
The other day, my partner and I, decided to spend some quality time in each other’s company. We put away all our electronic gadgets and just started talking.
It was so relaxing just being together without any interruptions from the internet, social media, the TV, or from phone calls. We got to reminisce on experiences that we shared.
We laughed a lot, talked about the future, and learned some new things about each other. I believe that our relationship is now stronger for the time that we spent together. It was a very happy and fulfilling experience.
The relationships that we form with other people impinge on our happiness and well-being. For example, good relationships will make you content with yourself and with life. Whereas abusive relationships, or relationships that are lacking in some way, will make you unhappy and disillusioned.
When we are happy in our relationships, we have a positive attitude to life. We believe that everything is achievable, that the “world is our oyster”. Relationships, therefore, can affect how successful we are in life.
2. Communication
Communication is one of the most important keys to a successful life. The reason why communication skills are important is because if you don’t communicate effectively, you will never get to really know other people.
You will never truly know what your family members, friends, peers, customers, or audience, think, want, desire, believe, trust, etc. If you don’t communicate with others, you will never get to know them, and they will never get to know you.
The gift of communicating comes easier to some people than others. One of the best ways to improve your communication skills is to ask questions. When you ask questions of someone else, you are saying to them, “I am interested in you, I want to hear what you have to say”.
When people are asked for their opinions they feel valued and appreciated. But asking for their opinions won’t make people feel valued, if you don’t listen to their replies.
Listening
Listening is an important aspect of communicating and is an important key for success in life. When done right, it can improve relationships, friendships, and/or customer loyalty.
If you are face to face with a person, look them in the eye. But don’t stare them down. When you establish eye contact, you’ll be able to read that person’s facial expressions, and their body language.
These will help you to determine how the person feels about the subject being discussed. You will then be able to ask more in-depth questions. Soon, you will get an understanding of what is important to that person.
You can then act on the information you collect to improve your relationship with that person. If you are communicating with a customer, use the information you collect to improve your product, your services or your customer loyalty.
Communication isn’t always face to face. It can be over the phone, over the internet or via the written word. Regardless of its form, ask questions, listen to the answers, then act on the information you receive.
The ability to communicate, listen and then act, will help you succeed in life, at work and in business. These are vital skills for success!
3. Attitude
Should we totally rely on the relationships that we have with other people to make us happy and therefore successful in life. The answer to this question must be “NO!” If we absolutely rely on other people to make us happy, then we are sure to fail.
People come and go in our lives. Their presence and our interaction with them can influence how we feel. Other people have the ability to make us happy, excited, sad, fearful, angry, stressed, etc. But only if we let them!
While these emotions impinge on how we feel, they don’t control our lives unless we allow them to. For example, you might work with a colleague that puts you down by telling you that you are stupid.
You have the choice to let these words effect you, or not affect you. If you allow yourself be affected by what your colleague says, then you will feel bad about yourself. Your confidence and self-esteem will fall.
When people are cruel, insensitive or have strong opinions that differ to your own it’s no use in arguing with them. The best course of action for your own well being is to walk away. If you walk away, your self-esteem will remain intact.
If you can’t walk away, have the courage to stand up for yourself. Don’t argue with them, because that will usually escalate the problem.
Instead, tell them that you are not stupid, and that you are not interested in their opinions. Then totally ignore them and get on with your work. Negative or vindictive people are not worth your time or effort.
Self-esteem
Another important key for success and happiness in life is having a high level of self esteem. We shouldn’t let other people’s negative opinions effect our self-esteem. You are the only person who has control over what you think and how you react to the people around you.
If your thoughts and attitude are negative in regards to yourself or the world around you, then you will be unhappy. If they are positive, your self-esteem and satisfaction with life will be high.
Our own thoughts and attitudes are what will ultimately determine our happiness and therefore success. If you want to be successful you need to have a positive attitude.
4. Persistence And Sacrifice
In life and in business, you are in it for the long haul. If you want a successful happy life, or to have a brilliant career, you need to be persistent.
Success is never immediate it takes time and planning to become successful! You also need to be persistent working towards it day in, and day out. Yes, persistence can be boring. But if you don’t persist and give up too quickly, then you will never succeed.
For success to occur, you must also be willing to sacrifice time, money and effort to make things happen. If you don’t sacrifice these things, then you won’t get what you really want.
You will end up having to settle for second best. For example, you want to own the latest sports car. But you aren’t willing to work hard and save your money. Because of this you won’t be able to afford that car and have to settle for something else.
Is Being Wealthy The Key For Success In Life?
You may be thinking that life would be much easier if you could just win the lottery. That will make you happy right? Well it won’t necessarily. Statistics, show that people that win excessive amounts of money aren’t any happier, in the long term, than those that work for their money.
Winning a huge amount of money causes many people to stress excessively. This is because they don’t know what to do with it. OK, they could buy their dream house and the most fabulous car ever produced. They could also go on the best vacation ever, fly first class, and stay in the top hotels.
But there is more to life than being on one long, never ending holiday. Human beings need to be active. They need to be productive and they need to feel that they are contributing to life in some way. Being on a permanent holiday isn’t what is key for success in life.
5. Resilience
Resilience is another important key for success in life and for the obtainment of happiness. It is what keeps you going when things aren’t working out the way you thought. You get knocked down, but you get up again!
Children who have a terrible illness are often resilient. Despite their setbacks, they remain cheery. They laugh and play even with limitations such as a loss of limbs, or life-threatening diseases or cancers.
But many adults who face these same circumstances in their adult life, can’t cope. They mope around feeling sorry for themselves. They complain about life being unfair. Their negative attitude makes it even more difficult on themselves as well as those around them.
I suppose the difference is that a child who is born with an illness, doesn’t know anything different. Whereas an adult who becomes ill, does, and morns their lost opportunity.
In order to achieve happiness and success in life we need to be resilient. We need to accept our weaknesses, short comings and lost opportunities.
Once we accept them, we can then move forward and find ways of working around them. To ensure success it’s essential to be resilient and keep trying to do our best, even when things don’t go our way.
6. Practice Makes Perfect
For success to occur you need the right skills, knowledge and training. Just like a good piano player you then need to practice what you have learnt. With practice the things that at first seemed to be overwhelming, will soon become familiar. But many times, we don’t see this.
When we are young, we accept that we will go to school for about 12 years of our lives. We also accept that we will spend additional years studying if we decide to continue onto tertiary education. When we are young, we don’t expect to learn and know everything within the first week, month, or year.
Most people easily accept that musicians, sportspeople, singers, actors and others, need to practice and keep practicing in order to excel in their field. Yet when it comes to ourselves we seem to have very little tolerance for practicing skills.
Because of our impatience to succeed, we want to know everything all at once. We thus become annoyed with having to learn new things from scratch.
The way to happiness and success is to take it slow. Through your training, learn everything you need to learn. Then practice and keep practicing until it becomes second nature.
Apply what you have learnt to your life, work, or to your business and success will follow.
7. Opportunity
There are numerous times in our lives when an opportunity will present itself. But many times, we miss these great opportunities mainly because the timing wasn’t right.
For example, a property may come on the market that is an “absolute steal”. But at that particular time, you don’t have enough money for a deposit. Or the perfect job suddenly becomes available, but you don’t have the right qualifications. So these opportunities pass you by.
There is no such thing as the perfect opportunity. If we want to succeed, we need to create opportunities that are right for us. When we create our own opportunities we can tailor make them based on our dreams. We can then generate our opportunities based on the things that we love doing, and are passionate about.
We can create opportunities when the timing is right for our own circumstances. To create an opportunity, use your knowledge, skills, and passions to develop your ideas. Think about how you can improve work outcomes by doing something better, or faster.
Creative people might create an opportunity by deciding to go into business for themselves. They can then create or produce items that they love working on, rather than things that someone else wants.
If you manufacture items; can you make them cheaper or at a higher quality than competing brands. If you can, use your ideas to stand out from the crowd. Great ideas will get you noticed by the people that matter.
Dreams Happen
Opportunities will only serve us if we have the gumption to act on them! So, once you develop your idea or dream and know it will work, take action to make it happen.
Approach your boss, and present your ideas. If on the other hand you work for yourself, implement your new strategies to improve your product, work practices or business.
Unfortunately, most people won’t act on their ideas or dreams. This is because of fear of failure, or fear of the unknown. To minimize failure, learn all there is to know about your subject.
Then put faith in yourself and your training, set goals for yourself, make a business plan and pursue your dreams.
Your first attempt may not work, so keep on trying. Because if you give up, you will never move ahead or change your circumstances to achieve success and happiness.
What Is The Key For Success In Life?
There are 7 key factors that determine success and happiness. These include:
- Good relationships that make us feel loved and valued.
- The ability to communicate and listen effectively, and then acting appropriately on the information you obtain.
- A positive attitude to yourself and your life, as your thoughts and attitude is completely within your own control.
- Persistence to pursue your dreams and the desire to sacrifice your time, money and to do whatever it takes to make your dreams come true.
- Resilience to bounce back when things don’t go your way.
- The desire to learn new things that will lead to success. Then practice those things over and over until they become second nature.
- Recognize and grab any opportunities that come your way. Don’t let fear prevent you from creating your own opportunities.
If you follow the above 7 key factors, success and happiness will soon be within your grasp.
Now that you know what is the key for success in life; what is preventing YOU from attaining success and happiness?
Is fear of failure preventing you from following your dreams?
I would love to hear your opinions on this subject. Please leave your questions or comments below.
