Many people mistakenly believe that success is about luck. Or it’s about having the right connections, or coming from a wealthy family. Or it’s about being the “right” gender or ethnicity. However, none of that really matters when it comes to success. When it comes to being successful, the only thing that matters is having a mindset for success.
For example, I know plenty of people for whom life was handed to them on a silver platter. They had affluent parents. They had the opportunity to receive great educations. And yet, they have underachieved in life. Why? They didn’t possess the right attitude.
Realize that successful people have a “no excuses” attitude. They don’t blame their parents or society for their failures. They own their choices, and they don’t make excuses for their bad ones. Instead, they acknowledge their bad choices, chock them up to learning experiences, and keep forging on.
Below are 8 attitudes that you need to develop to have the mindset for success. Consider adopting them, and watch yourself grow in success and happiness!
Realize That Success Is A Journey
The hard truth about life is that you aren’t going to achieve great success right away. Big goals require years (if not decades) of effort. And in a society that is used to instant gratification, that is a hard pill to swallow.
In our society, we are accustomed to getting what we want, when we want it. For instance, Amazon delivers our packages in one day. We can go to a fast-food restaurant and get a meal in matter of minutes. The Internet allows us to get answers to our questions in mere seconds!
And that is why many people today fail. They can’t stick with a goal. Folks are so used to getting what they want immediately, that waiting and persevering for months or even years to reach a goal is too much for them.
Don’t be like those people. Develop a mindset for success by viewing your route to success as a journey. In fact, I suggest putting yourself on a 10-year plan for any truly big goal. And then commit for the next 10 years to making some effort each day toward that goal. If you become the kind of person who gives your goal steady, committed effort for that amount of time, you ultimately will be the kind of person who succeeds.
Don’t Be Easily Discouraged
When working toward a goal, it can be frustrating if you don’t feel like you have the skills necessary to achieve that goal. But realize that no one starts out being perfect at any skill. People who are highly skilled in any area have worked at that skill for years.
So, if you aren’t as good as you’d like to be at something, strategize about how you can get better. For example, let’s say that your goal is to become a great pianist. You aren’t going to start out playing the piano perfectly. Great pianists practice for hours every day. They also listen to the performances of other pianists to learn from them. And they are willing to persevere until they perfect their playing.
You can apply that approach to learning any skill. Practice. Study. Perseverance. Those three things will allow you to master any skill and accomplish your goals.
However, if you are the type of person who is easily discouraged, then practice, study and perseverance will be impossible for you. So, don’t be easily discouraged! Be someone who commits to improving your skills, even if it takes more work than you originally envisioned.
To Develop a Mindset for Success, Don’t Settle for Mediocrity
If you want to be truly successful in life, excellence has to pervade your life. That means that in everything that you do, you need to be a person of excellence. Whether you are folding your laundry, cleaning your bathroom, or doing your job, you need to do every task to the best of your ability.
Realize that truly successful people hold themselves to a high standard in all things. Excellence pervades their very beings. So, a person of excellence makes their bed every morning. They field work emails in a timely manner. They pay their bills on time each month. And they treat people with kindness at all times, even when they don’t feel like it.
Be mindful while excellence in one area of your life will breed excellence in all areas, so will mediocrity. People with sloppy personal habits also tend to be negative and critical with their friends and family. And negative, critical people also tend to have substandard work performance. Because once you accept being mediocre in one area of your life, you’ll generally start being mediocre in all areas.
So, don’t settle for mediocrity! Don’t accept being average. Hold yourself to a high standard in all areas of your life, and see how successful you become!
Don’t Give Up If Something Is Hard
Anytime you start pursuing a big goal, whether it be to lose weight or start a new career, there will come a point when you say to yourself, “This is just too hard. It would be easier just to give up.” Don’t. Don’t give up.
The reality is that most goals are conquerable with effort. Yes, there are some goals that we can’t achieve simply due to genetics. For instance, I cannot be in the WNBA. I am neither young nor tall. But barring professional sports, I don’t set any limits on what I can do with my life.
I figure that with enough effort, I pretty much can accomplish anything that I set out to do. Now, of course, I have limitations. There are only so many hours in a day that I can devote to my goals. But I will never give up on a goal because it is hard. I just keep hammering at it, and I keep adjusting my Estimated Date of Accomplishment!
Remember that hard work is the most important factor for success. As Thomas Edison aptly said, “Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.” So, don’t give up because something is hard. Be willing to put in the hard work to succeed!
Don’t Fear Making Mistakes
There is no way to be truly successful without making some mistakes along the way. So, don’t let the fear of making mistakes stop you from pursuing your goals.
Realize that making mistakes is valuable in two important ways. First, you learn how not to do something. In fact, think of mistakes as trying out different approaches to achieve a goal. If you make enough mistakes, ultimately, you will hit on the right approach! So, don’t fear making mistakes. View them as lessons on how to approach a goal in the right way.
However, by far, the best thing that mistakes teach us is humility. And when we are humble, we are more apt to be careful when we work toward a goal. I’ve made my share of mistakes in life, and everyone of them has taught me a valuable lesson in being more careful and conscientious. More importantly, I’ve learned to not judgmental of others when they make mistakes. Those are important lessons to learn on the path to success.
To Develop a Mindset for Success, Don’t Compare Yourself to Others
We all make the mistake of comparing ourselves to others. It’s hard not to. If you went to college, you’ll naturally compare how far along you are career-wise with the people with whom you graduated. At work, you may compare yourself to your colleagues and be concerned if they get promotions before you do.
But the key to having a successful mindset is to run your own race. You can’t look to your left or your right. In life, you have to put on your blinders, look straight ahead and go for your goals.
Of course, that is easier said than done! Human beings are competitive by nature. But realize that the journey to success is long. And it’s rarely a straight line. So, if your peers are moving ahead of you, don’t give it a lot of thought. Just keep working hard and keep being kind.
As the years pass, you’ll find that your journey to success will be completely different from anyone else’s. And that is OK! Because you bring a completely different set of skills and talents to your endeavor. And you naturally will get different results. Results that will suit you to a tee!
Don’t Let Lack of Knowledge Stop You
If you want to be successful, you need to erase the sentence, “I don’t know how” from your way of thinking. “Not knowing how” is not an excuse to not pursue your goals. If there is something that you don’t know that is necessary for your success, then learn about it!
In this day and age, figuring stuff out has never been easier. If you want to learn how to do anything, there is a YouTube video, a book or an Internet article ready to teach you. For example, when my daughter applied to college, we purchased about 10 books on how to get into the college of your dreams. On top of that, she watched countless YouTube videos and read articles about crafting the best college applications. And after all that research (and a lot of work completing college applications), she got into a terrific university!
Realize that the only thing standing in the way between you and figuring out how to do nearly anything is research. For example, when I started this blog, I knew absolutely nothing about setting up a website. But then I learned that there are 600 million blogs on the Internet. And I figured that if 600 million people can figure something out, I certainly can! So, after doing a lot of research, I ultimately did figure it out, and this blog now has been up and running for two-and-a-half years.
If you want to be successful at anything, you can’t let a lack of knowledge stop you. Have a mindset for success, and decide that you can figure out anything that you set your mind to!
Don’t Settle for Where You Are
I have a friend who recently told me that when he turned 50, he decided that he no longer needed to achieve anything. The “achievement” part of his life was over. I thought that was the most depressing thing that I’d ever heard.
People who have a mindset for success don’t settle for where they are. Their goal is to keep learning and to keep improving until the day they die.
Now, I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t feel good about yourself today. You should feel good! We should always be celebrating the accomplishments that we have achieved thus far.
But if you want to develop a mindset for success, you need to be someone who is always looking for ways to improve. For instance, I am constantly on the lookout for ways to improve myself, whether it be improving my health, my appearance, my knowledge or my skills. Stagnating is not part of my vocabulary.
So, don’t settle in life. Always be striving to improve yourself. In that way, you can be assured that on your final day, you will have had a life well-lived.
Realize that success does not come from having rich parents, the right connections or boatloads of luck. It comes from having a mindset for success. Consider applying the strategies above in your own life, develop a mindset for success, and see yourself achieve your greatest goals. (To read about unlocking your potential for success, click here.)
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