Success is a tricky thing. It is defined differently by every person. Whether you are the richest person on the Forbes list or you are a broke college kid, we are all striving for our definition of success. Often times it seems so distant. Do you ever feel like giving up?
Success can never be bought — it can only be rented. The best part about that is that anyone can be successful if they keep trying and paying the rent. If you are doing the 5 things below, you are closer to success than you might realize.
You are not far away from success if…
1. You have friends who are more successful than you.
Have you ever heard the term “Success by association?” The term was coined by Harvard professor David McClelland. He devoted most of his life to studying the most common characteristics in successful people. He discovered that the single most important factor in determining success or failure is your reference group. Who you associate with is even more important than how hard you try.
If you are anything like me, you get filled with jealousy when someone else gets the raise you thought you deserved. You get angry when your friend get’s the promotion or they get the bigger deal than you. It’s extremely common to be jealous, but if you continue to surround yourself with those types of people, you will be that much closer to your success.
If your friends are more successful than you, you are in a very good place.
2. You hate to lose.
Everyone loves to win, but not everyone hates to lose.
Don Yaeger, one of the sports writing greats, penned a book called The 16 characteristics of True Champions . The number one characteristic of champions was that they hate to lose more than they love to win. He studied all the greats — from Michael Jordan to UCLA coach John Wooden — and that was the #1 thing that every single champion had in common.
Do you hate it when your sibling beats you in Monopoly? Do you hate it when your spouse wins in a “friendly” game of pool? If you hate losing in the small parts of life all the way to the big time, you are not from away from success.
3. You read.
President Harry S. Truman said, “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”
It has been proven over and over that the children who read more than average are more successful in school. They score higher on tests and are more literate. Do you think this carries over once you are out of school? Of course it does. I would take a wild guess that you are reading this article because you strive for success in at least one area of your life.
People who are not looking for success don’t look in books or articles. The single fact that you are reading this article proves you are that much closer to success than you realize.
4. You have failed.
“Failure is success in progress.” –Albert Einstein
What does success have to do with failure? Everything. The title of Tim Harford’s latest best selling book was called Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure. Failure leads to success because it does a lot of things to you:
- It makes you change.
- You learn what doesn’t work.
- It gives you thick skin.
- It helps you not fear failure.
Darren Hardy describes failure and success like a pendulum. On one side, you have success, growth and achievement. On the other side, you have failure, rejection and pain. The further you swing the pendulum to the failure side, the further the pendulum will swing to the success side. If you have ever failed, or you have been failing recently, you are not far away from success.
Success is a tricky thing. Sometimes it feels like our success is miles away and headed the other way. But if you are doing these four things, it’s not as far away as you think.
