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What is the secret to success?
Many people have a burning question in their heads: What is the secret to success? There are many articles on the web that claim to provide insights into the answer. Some of them are excellent and some of them not so much.
As someone who has spent years researching and experimenting with habit formation, productivity tools, motivation techniques, and more, here's what I think.
The secret to success is a combination of these three things: Self-awareness, Willpower, and Connection.
Self-awareness is the first part of the formula, and I could write an article on that alone. It does not just know what your strengths and weaknesses are, but it knows how to make use of them. Self-awareness is not about discovering your strengths; it's about learning to recognize your strengths when you see them.
To me, that means treating yourself as if you're a machine and making sure that you include other human beings in the process of improving yourself. Essentially, self-awareness means acting on the feedback you receive from others, as well as the feedback you receive from yourself.
Willpower is the second part of the formula. It's what allows you to use your strengths in ways that others automatically take advantage of their strengths.
Willpower comes from discipline, and it's best when it's derived from habits. For example, a habit of exercising can be a source of willpower leading to fruitful outcomes, like better health or productivity.
Self-awareness, coupled with the discipline and willpower from creating habits, can give you an edge in whatever area you're interested in. It's also the only way to become successful without sacrificing too much of your life.
Finally, Connections have a significant influence on success. The more people willing to help you achieve your goals, the better off you'll be.
This is true not just for businesses and organizations but also for families and friends. Connections to people who support your goals can be advantageous.
So there you have it, three ingredients to success. Self-awareness, willpower, and connections. No drugs, no magic pills, no hacks or workarounds. It's not a simple formula, but it's more reliable than any other source of information out there on the topic of success.
Self-awareness is the first step in learning about your strengths and weaknesses. Most people don't know their strengths and weaknesses, and that's why they're stuck in jobs they dislike.
Willpower is a habit of being disciplined; you'll learn to act on your strengths without having to think about it.
Connections are so meaningful because everything you do as an individual will always be less effective than what everyone else can do. Read my guide on the 80/20 principle for more information on this topic.
I firmly believe that if you work hard on learning what your strengths are, you'll make success look so easy. It's hard to become successful if you don't know what your strengths are. That means self-awareness and willpower.
Ah yes, Self-awareness. I want to cover a couple of things about this topic in the article.
The first one is how self-awareness affects you in your interactions with others.
It means that I'm not talking about the awareness of your weaknesses but your strengths. It would be best to become self-aware to use your muscles so that others don't have to use their strength.
The second thing I'd like to point out is the diversity of strengths and weaknesses within the human race. If you are white, this means that you probably have solid areas of strength that people of color don't have, and nearly every other group is the same.
So if you know what your strengths are, you can learn to use them to your advantage. I want to go into more detail on how to do this later. For now, let's get back to self-awareness.
So let's talk about self-awareness. How does one learn to become aware of their strengths?
The first thing you can do is stop asking the question, "What are my strengths?" and begin using your strengths to your advantage.
It would help if you had a visualization in your mind that tells you what you did well in the past and what you can do in the future.
For example, when I was writing this article, I mentally pictured myself sitting down with my ideas on paper and noting them. This way, I get a feeling for the way my strengths relate to my writing.
You see, what you did before is always an indicator of your future. If you're good at something, it means that you have the strength for it.
It's silly to ignore that just because people tell you that you're not good at something.
Self-awareness is a tricky subject, and I'll probably cover more on that in another post. The critical thing here is: Don't focus on your weaknesses because they'll stress you out. Instead, focus on your strengths and learn to take advantage of them.
So you've made the decision that you want to take action on your strengths. It means you need to look at your work ethic.
If you haven't been working hard in the past or even have a lazy attitude, then what do you expect in the future? You can't rely on willpower or discipline.
That's just going to feel forced at this point. You need to make use of your strengths and efforts.
With that said, I'd like to define the differences between willpower and discipline, which aren't separate entities as some claim. These are two different aspects of your ability to act on your goals.
Discipline is the act of putting in effort towards a goal that you want to accomplish in life. Self-discipline is the ability to achieve a goal even when you have doubts about its usefulness.
Willpower is the ability to act on dreams without fear of failure.
Let's consider a goal to build a new business. The difference between discipline and willpower in this scenario is that discipline comes through from working hard on your business and using willpower in your decision-making.
For example, if you want to build a successful company, you'll need to employ people and make difficult decisions about what types of clients to work with.
We already know that willpower is the factor in making you act on your goals, but discipline is a significant factor in making sure that you make progress.
Discipline is the power to push forward and accomplish your goals, even when you're afraid that it won't succeed.
Self-discipline can be a difficult task because we usually go against what others think about our plans. Perhaps your friends don't like your idea of owning a business, and they might tell you that it's not what you should do with your time.
With that in mind, I'd like to clarify that you don't need more discipline; you need more willpower.
Too often, people believe that discipline is what's holding them back from accomplishing their goals, but it's usually willpower.
Willpower is a habit of being disciplined, so if you do whatever you want in your life without considering the consequences, then your willpower will be strong enough to accomplish any complex task. See, willpower is a habit of acting on your goals without fear of failure.
Still, it's that very act of doing anything without considering the consequences that keep you from making progress to your goals.
The good news is that if you want to learn how to increase your willpower, then you have two options:
You could get wisdom from others. You could get advice on Youtube or other places and integrate those ideas into yourself.
I would recommend option two because it's much faster and maybe more helpful for many people. But if you're looking for wisdom from more experienced people, then I'd recommend doing what you can to obtain it.
The second thing I'd like to go over is self-discipline, which means how you can get past your flaws and make weaknesses into strengths.
For example, it's much easier for me to say no to people if I'm writing an article without giving in and losing motivation on a project.
Here's a great way to test your find if your self-discipline is strong enough. The next time you're facing a difficult task, try to refuse help, or you'll delay your progress on your goals.
If you constantly give in to friends who want to help you, it will take longer to accomplish anything.
In other words, if you want something in life, you have to take action on it and not wait for someone else. It is one of the reasons why the vast majority of people fail, and only a tiny percentage of people succeed in life.
Most people want success, but they keep waiting for someone else to do it for them.
The most important thing you can do to become more disciplined is to effort towards your goals. Without this, you'll never accomplish anything in life.
I see many people who don't put in any effort towards their goals because they feel like they can't change anything.
They give up before even trying because it seems too difficult for them to achieve what they want. But if you're doing this, then you're not going to accomplish anything in life.
There will always be something that's keeping you from achieving what you want, but without effort, then it's as though those things don't even exist.
If I tell myself that I can't accomplish something, then it's almost certain that I'm not going to do anything about it.
I also want to mention that effort is more important than intelligence when accomplishing your goals. We know that intelligence can be developed over time, but the action can't be improved.
So if you're someone that's always going to put in the effort, you'll become much more disciplined and capable of accomplishing anything in life.