steps to success

Steps to success

Read on these steps to success for a bigger view of the picture. What is the point of doing something without a goal? Even recreational activities have a goal in mind: pleasure, relaxation, time spent with friends. It’s in achieving goals when doing certain activities that we find purpose as well as motivation when the going gets tough. When you reach your goals you’re looking for, then you’ve found success.

steps to success

Steps to Success

Imagine your life is the process of climbing a mountain. No one climbs a mountain just because there was nothing better to do. They’re trying to reach a certain point. Success is the summit of that mountain. Mountains come in all different sizes, and victory is the same. It comes in different forms, but the one universal fact about all different forms of success is that it’s the point at which you can stop and simply enjoy the view.

Defining What Success Means to You

Success means different things to different people at different stages. You’re bound to have a number of goals in your life, so if you’re lucky, you’ll experience a number of successes. It may be opening a business, or expanding that business into a national franchise. It may be having the influence to start a charity or help a cause that you care about. Or it may be something small. Maybe it’s just reaching a point of economic stability that allows you to provide for your family.

Even financial freedom and economic stability mean different things, depending on who you are. Do you want to be able to buy your own house and pay off your mortgage, or do you want the freedom to be able to travel? Maybe it has more to do with your business: in order to make it everything you dreamed of, you have to have the capital to expand it.

There are societal pressures everywhere that try to define what success means: how many degrees you should have, how big your house should be, even how many Tips to Achieve Successfollowers you should have on social media. Under this nearly unattainable standard, it can be easy to feel as though you’re failing and that you’ll never find it. However, images of success as presented by the media aren’t necessarily relevant to your life.

The truth is the only one who can determine what success means to you is you. Success looks different to everyone because everyone is striving for different things. Just like there’s no one-size-fits-all when you buy new clothing, you can’t expect to fit perfectly into the picture of triumph that was designed for someone else. Instead, take a moment to write out what you want from your life and what would make you feel content. It doesn’t have to be grand, and in fact, it should be realistic and attainable. That doesn’t mean you have to think small, either. It simply means that if your success is a higher summit, you’ll have a more challenging climb ahead of you.

Steps to Achieve Success

Of course, the question that everyone wants answering is: how do you achieve success? It sounds like a simple question on paper, but in actuality, it’s much more complicated. Just like the definition of it is different from person to person, the path to success is different for everyone. However, successful people often have a mindset that focuses on what they want to achieve and isn’t daunted by obstacles or pressures. You need that sort of mental fortitude to succeed at anything, so here are a few tips to achieve it:

1. Commit to it. You can’t wait for inspiration or motivation to strike if you want to be successful. You can’t wait for opportunities to simply fall in your lap. Sometimes you won’t feel like putting in the work, but if you give in to that feeling, you’ll fall short of success. Instead, commit yourself to what you want, whether you feel like it or not.
2. Set goals regularly. Success is indefinable without goals to precede it, so the more goals you set, the clearer your picture of it will be. Have long-term goals — those “where do you see yourself in ten years?” goals — as well as short-term goals. Some find that quarterly goals or even monthly goals help them to realistically envision and achieve success. Find what works for you, but make sure to set regular goals and stick to them.
3. Know your weaknesses. Do you have a habit of being sucked into social media for hours at a time? Are you too easily swayed by the opinions of your friends and family? It’s important to know what stands in the way of your success — and sometimes that includes yourself. When you know your weaknesses, you can work to overcome them or remove the temptation to give in to them. Related to that…
4. Learn from your failures. Every failure can be a lesson if you allow yourself to step back and look at it objectively. How did this particular failure come about? What can you do to avoid that in the future? And better still, what was working before you failed?
5. Stay positive. When you’re striving for it, there will be a plethora of obstacles standing in your way. Setbacks, like losing a job opportunity you wanted or being denied a loan, can cripple you if you’re in a negative mindset. Instead, imagine your success as an inevitable outcome. Setbacks, then, just add character to the journey and an opportunity to learn. If you have a positive mindset, it will be much harder to knock you down.

Beware Hyper-fixation on Success

Focusing on success and committing to achieving it is all well and good. However, sometimes fixating too obsessively on it can cause you to be hard on yourself and miss important aspects of the present. For instance, being the owner of a national chain of arts and crafts stores is a fine image of success; working without rest until you no longer enjoy what you do because you’re so fixated on your ultimate goal, however, crosses into unhealthy territory.

Without an end goal in mind, nothing would be worth doing, but that doesn’t mean that the end goal is the only thing that matters. You should also be able to enjoy the journey. Maybe not every day, but ultimately, you should be satisfied with what you do. You can avoid hyper-fixation on success by setting regular goals and celebrating small victories. Your first store, your first customer, the first time you make your monthly financial goal — all these things count as successes, even if they’re not the ultimate picture of it.

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Enjoy small successes. They’ll bring you memories as well as lessons, and ultimately, they’ll make a big success that much sweeter when you finally reach it.