You should never run out of success strategies that you’re willing to turn to in times of great pressure, anxiety, or crisis. We know you have a lot to choose from out there, and that’s a good thing.
We’re going to do our part to help you along by offering some of the best advice regarding success that we’ve seen in the undisclosed number of years we’re willing to admit that we’ve been out of college. The sooner you learn these the better.
Ready? Let’s not waste any time!
1. Set Out to Learn
Have you ever taken a course where you were sitting there bored and then you accidentally learned something? If you can’t think of an example, don’t worry because you’re not alone. If you can think of an example, we’re willing to lay money that it was more the exception to the rule of your educational journey.
The ideal way to learn is to be engaged. And that means actually wanting to learn what you’re about to cover. There is a way you can make this happen for yourself even if the subject you’re on isn’t a favorite. That way is to be committed to the process of learning.
Deconstruct what it is about learning new things that you actually enjoy. Is it the moment of realization? One of the steps leading up to it? The feeling of accomplishment when you’re able to look at how far you’ve come. Find the trigger and allow it to be your motivator.
2. Be Honest with Yourself
The website Chemistry.com forces its participants to answer a lengthy questionnaire that digs into their insights and preferences in dealing with people and life in general. Its goal: to group you into two of four categories, a primary and secondary.
The choices are Builder, Negotiator, Director, and Explorer. Whichever two of these you fall into will tell you what kind of person you are in dealing with friends and significant others. The reason behind this is that it wants to find your best “love match” based on your personality type.
The only problem is people don’t always see themselves how they actually are. That can end up skewing the results and spitting out false matches. This is a great metaphor for life. When we try to fool ourselves on what reality is, we end up living outside of it. And it’s tough to be successful once you’ve taken the wrong turn.
3. Have Confidence
The human brain is a powerful instrument. It can convince you that you’re a success or a failure before you even begin to undertake a task.
When Ronda Rousey and Mike Tyson were beating up everyone in their divisions, many of these fights were won before the first punch was thrown. You could see it in the intimidation factor on each opponent’s face. The first person to beat either one went into their respective fights not being intimidated. Beyond that, they each (Holly Holm and “Buster” Douglas) had assurance they would win even as the “experts” were writing them off.
Build your confidence. Trust your brain when it says you’re capable. Act on that confidence. You may not win every time, but the act of doing will turn even your failures into success.
4. Schedule Time for Reflection
We have to slow down occasionally and look at the reflection in the mirror. Are we doing everything we’ve set out to do? Where are we coming up short? What can we do to reverse course at once?
Make time at the beginning or end of your day for reflection. It’ll help you to process the past and plan for the future.
5. Get Disciplined!
Follow routines for everything in life: how early you get up, which breakfasts you prefer to eat for starting the workday, how long you work before allowing yourself a break.
Push yourself out the door to exercise or work long enough hours to pay off your debts. This discipline won’t always make for the most fun you’ve ever had, but it will put you in a place where you can get more accomplished more quickly.
6. Think in Terms of Strategy
Strategies are what keep us from working harder over smarter. By taking a little extra time to get started and work on a game plan, we can speed up the process no matter what we’re trying to do and produce a better quality outcome.
7. Find the Silver Lining
Life can sometimes feel like one failure after another. But if you really learn how to look for the silver lining, you will find it. Take a man or woman going through a divorce. They have one child with their spouse. Things are not on the best of terms. It can feel like life as he or she knows it is over.
And to an extent, it is. You’ll both need to create new routines, find different places to live, get new furniture to fill in any gaps from the split, acclimate your child to the new lifestyle, and attend court hearings and lawyer meetings when needed. Oh yeah, and you’ll probably have to pay thousands of dollars if anything at all in the divorce is contested. (With kids, it almost always is.)
We’ve painted a bleak picture, but now let’s step back and look at the flip side. You get to decide the routines that work for you without having to compromise with someone else. You get to choose where to live. You get to pick out the furniture. You get to enjoy the time you have with your child without splitting it with someone else or falling into the old traps of taking each other for granted.
And those court hearings and lawyer meetings? Well, once the case is settled, you get to cut them out altogether, thus having a heavy emotional and financial burden removed from your radar. See how this works?
8. Help Others
Gratitude for life in general can make it easy to lend a helping hand to others. It makes you feel better about yourself, your community, and the world-at-large. Make time to help others. It will pay all kinds of dividends — emotional, physical, and even financial.
9. Seek a Mentor
Mentors can guide you through all the mundane “getting started” questions of your field. They can keep you from making the same mistakes they made and help you find the right decision for yourself. Those skills are invaluable in the business world, and they’re very difficult to teach in school.
Mentors can be found in your school, your community, your state, or anywhere else where you have closer access to face time. Seek them out. They’re usually happy to help, but you do have to approach them first.
10. Push Through Resistance
The difference between “the decent” and “the exceptional” is that decent people reach a certain level of proficiency and get comfortable with it. The truly great ones push through resistance and make themselves more uncomfortable.
If you want to be truly exceptional at something, you will continue while the others are tapping out. This isn’t without its risks, of course, but the wins are far bigger than anyone else will get in life.
11. Ask Plenty of Questions
No questions are stupid questions. Teachers used to say that or some variation of it all the time. And there’s a lot of truth in that. You may feel like an idiot asking it, but if it results in a more complete understanding of the subject, you’ll have no problem forgetting a few awkward moments.
12. Know When to Let Go
This could include grudges, misguided choices of major, ideas and projects that aren’t working. You have to know the point in anything where it feels like you’re just wasting your time. Once you figure that out, you’ll feel freer down whichever road you choose to walk.
13. Emphasize Your Environment
A spacious, neat, and orderly environment will give you the proper mindset for tackling any challenge. If you’re having trouble getting started, just tidy things up for 15 or 20 minutes. The creative juices will start flooding back, and you’ll be ready to meet most any challenge.
These Success Strategies Work at Every Level of Life
While we’ve billed this article as “success strategies for students,” you can employ these at any moment in your life and see situations start to improve. Now it’s your turn. What are some success strategies that have worked wonders in your life? Sound off in the comments section below!
Aric Mitchell's work appears regularly here at 4tests.com and across the web for sites, such as The Inquisitr and Life'd. A former high school teacher, his passion for education has only intensified since leaving the classroom. At 4tests, he hopes to continue passing along words of encouragement and study tips to ensure you leave school ready to face an ever-changing world.
