What I learnt about successful people

What I learnt about successful people

What I learnt about successful people prompted me to take a moment to reflect upon how they had gotten to this point, and the lessons I learnt along the way about what it really takes to achieve success. Here’s what I realized:

1. Your career progression is not limited by your background or education

It was reported that some of the most successful entrepreneurs’ like Bill Gate founder of Microsoft and Mark Zuckerberg founder of Facebook and many other successful entrepreneur are either college or university dropouts.  Then I realized a degree isn’t all what is required to lead anyone down the right career path. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates have no A-levels, and before starting a career in his Facebook and Microsoft respectively.

So, to be candid, when it comes to career success, your background doesn’t need to matter, neither does your education. What matters more is your potential, your ability to recognize that potential, and your level of proactivity in finding out how to really fulfill it.

2. Success comes as a result of hard work and effort

In any walk of life, if you want to become successful, you have to be prepared to work hard for it. This sounds obvious, and everybody believe this in theory, but not everyone is willing to practice it.  A wise man once said success is no accident, it is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do that guarantee success.

You will be guaranteed a success without a doubt if you put in an extra effort if you put in an extra hours and effort to research, learn, practice and be sure to maintain those routine of going an extra mile to get the required result. With this your carrier will never lose momentum and you will grow from strength to strength. When you put a lot of hard work into one goal and you achieve it, that’s a really good feeling because you don’t get anything in life without hard work!

3. Knowledge is power (and breeds success)

I you a part of the category of people that didn’t take much interest in politics, business or current events, and as a result you have limited knowledge of the world around you. You wouldn’t be able to contribute to conversations, and you wouldn’t be able to form or express opinions and you will lack confidence in communicating.

Therefore, to become successful in a business environment, you need to gain knowledge of the world around you, especially within your field or industry. It’s simple – read the news daily, check out relevant blogs on social media and pick up industry magazines. Make this a habit.

An even simpler but incredibly effective approach towards building your knowledge is to always be inquisitive and ask lots of questions – you’ll soon learn what you need to know, and it will stick. Your inquisitive mind shouldn’t ever be discouraged, no matter how senior you get. Remember – true experts always learn.

4. Successful individuals lift people up instead of stepping on them to get to the top

Research shows that most influential managers are the most amazing role model when it came to leading people and developing a positive culture. They made their employee feel good about themselves; they make work fun and had faith in everybody’s abilities. And the less influential managers are the complete opposite – they ruled with fear and spent most of their time trying to catch people out for doing the wrong thing

Great managers are the ones that always support and develop their employee. They know that having good people beneath them who feel motivated, positive and empowered to do their jobs, and do their jobs well, makes their lives easier and contributes to the organizations’ on-going success. As a result, they try to do the same-encouraging, motivating and developing their team members. This makes for a more productive, fruitful and positive working environment. It also means that they can continue to progress and take on more responsibility.

5. Success is a journey – celebrate the wins and more will follow

Successful people have goals and ambitions. They have clear ideas of what they want and where they want to be, and they have a plan on how to get there. They dream big and set goals along the way, and they always celebrate when they reach these milestones.

If you want to be successful, imagine what you want to achieve, consider how you’ll get there and set yourself realistic and measurable goals. Don’t lose track of the end goal, but be mindful that you won’t get there overnight. Be patient.

6. Successful people ask themselves “what’s next?” but not at the expense of recognizing where they are and what they’ve achieved

If you’ve been guilty in the past of being promoted and immediately thinking to yourself “right, what’s next?” Whilst there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, you can recognize that this kind of thinking can result in you placing too much pressure on yourself, meaning you don’t always celebrate or give yourself credit for your most recent achievement. Just like in professional sport, you need to give yourself some time to recover before you start working towards your next goal.