Sometimes one event in life is enough to make you ask the important question: “What does it take to have a successful life?”
It seems like a simple question, but the more you dig into it, the more difficult it becomes. For example, success is not as easy as winning. It can mean one thing for one person and another thing for another.
That said, throughout history, those who have been successful have had specific themes in their lives. Sometimes they need a mentor or an important figure in their lives. Others had a certain mindset.
With that in mind, let's look at what it means to live a successful life and how you can get it.
What does it mean to be successful
Before diving in, let's take a look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. This is a motivational theory in psychology, which consists of five levels.
The first four levels are simple: physiological needs, safety, place to be, and esteem needs.
The last level is where you want to focus on right now: self-actualization.
Self-realization is the idea that life is something more and that we are striving for a goal. Whatever that goal is, we will strive towards it in order to feel whole. When it comes to a successful life, it's easy to say that self-realization simply satisfies the four aspects of our lives.
Here are the four pillars that create our success:
- personal health
- Strong relationships
- financial security
- Passion for your work
1. Health
Personal health is one of the pillars because as we get older, things don't function the way they should or will. We begin to lose our strength as we acquire unhealthy habits.
Not only that, but the negative aspects of ill health affect many areas of our lives. Also, if you want to help others (including yourself), you need to be in good mental and physical health.
This does not mean that you have to be incredibly amateur, but rather that you are physically capable of doing what you want to do.
2. Strong Relationships
From romantic partners to friends and other connections, we all have social needs. When it comes to romantic partners, it's important that they complement you, your goals and the life you want to live and how you want to live. You want them to support you in your search for a successful life.
This mentality also applies to other connections. Strong relationships are formed when both people get something out of those relationships.
3. Financial stability
Financial stability is not the same as being rich. Financial stability can mean living comfortably with what you have now, or living within your means.
The whole idea here is to focus on the things in your life that you have over the things that you don't. This changes your point of view as you won't be focusing on hoarding items for the sake of it.
Another way to look at it is like retirement. Retirement is the idea of living with the money you have and still maintain the life you want without having to work as much.
4. Passion for your work
The last pillar is passion for your work. Being passionate about something is huge, but it can be difficult to pinpoint the details. As you start thinking about your passion, you will likely find a few themes or ideas that inspire you.
Whatever you choose to do is up to you, but you want to make sure that it will provide financial stability at the right time. In general, your work should:
- Get you out of bed in the morning.
- Be something that excites you and gives you energy.
- Be something you know you'll enjoy doing for years to come.
How to lead a successful life
With the above four pillars in mind, you have a general idea of what it means to have a successful life. And although all these things are simple at first glance, these aspects are not always so easy to achieve.
Some of these things can take a few years or more, depending on where you are in life. However, there are certain features that will help you with this.
When you develop these special qualities, your successful life will become easier in many ways. We know this because these are habits and qualities that many people imitate over and over again in order to achieve a successful life.
1. Faith in yourself
The first one is the obvious one, but it can get left behind when you run into problems. At those times, it can be easy for us to give up and stop doing what we are doing.
When we have faith in ourselves, the faith that we will have a successful life is very strong. After all, how we see ourselves contributes a lot to success or failure.
2. Goal setting
Another habit is the idea of goal setting. Everyone needs goals as they are seen as your compass and give you direction to work from.
I would, however, encourage going beyond goal setting. Instead, try focusing on systems. James Clear, author of Atomic Habits Over time realized that the goals he set were not the source of his success.
Instead, it was the systems he created.
For example, if you are a musician, you would set a goal for yourself, such as learning a new piece once a week. To make this goal a reality, you will develop a system. You will practice daily for an hour or two and seek feedback regularly.
Another example is improving your relationship with your spouse. The system for this is perhaps researching relationship advice and applying some of it to the relationship shortly thereafter.
Creating these systems can ensure that you achieve your goals as long as you develop this habit and stick with it. As you can also tell, these systems can be applied to different parts of our lives.
3. Time Management
Another valuable skill for a successful life is time management. Everyone has 24 hours a day and they can do so many things in it. Time is the most important resource in our entire life and should not be wasted.
Of course, there are several ways to manage your time. One of the tried and true ways to stick to a schedule or system to complete your tasks.
Like everyday work, there is a structure and everything goes well because people go to work and immediately know what they need to do. This time management trick works the same way. If you know what needs to be done or what you want to work on, it will be easier for you to get into it than to think about what will happen next.
Time management also means knowing what your time is worth. It is a skill that accumulates over time and is acquired with experience. This is a valuable skill, and one way to develop it is to consider the amount of work and effort required to complete a task versus the potential rewards you can get from it.
4. Money management
The second most valuable resource is money. Like it or not, money is essential for a successful life. Money is what we need to survive.
However, the key to this is knowing how much you need to live this life. This idea is similar to retirement, where you live the life you want without having to work so much.
To improve your money management, you need to learn the language of finance and create a budget to stick to. It's not about being conservative, it's about living within the means of your lifestyle.
When you're short on money, it's easy to spend money without thinking and make financial arrangements when you don't know what you're getting into. So many people go into massive debt without considering financial alternatives or thinking about whether or not to invest in them.
To avoid such situations, create budgets and write down your spending habits and other behaviors.
Brief Summary
Success is not entirely determined by what you read in a book. Each person has their own definition and views on success. I believe that we can agree that meeting these basic principles is important for everyone.
If we are healthy, we can enjoy our success. If we surround the people we love, it makes the path to success easier. When we are financially stable, we can afford to live the life we want. Finally, when we have passion for our work, we will continue to thrive.