Is there a key to success in life?

“Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams” Ralph Waldo Emerson

I can safely bet that there isn't a single person in the entire world who has never asked this question at least once in their life, after all, who doesn't want to be succesful? who doesn't look at the top 1% of society and wonder, what are their secrets? why there are 30 year olds that have six-figure business built from scratch and at the same time, 30 years olds who were born in wealth and managed to lose everything they had?

The fact that there has to be a key difference between those who achieve everything they set themselves to achieve and those who fail or don't even try is clear, but what is this secret ingredient? is it genetic factors like IQ, height, talent or being attractive? meaning that everyone has a predetermined capability of happiness, or it's something else? something that can be cultivated by anyone at anytime?

To answer this question we first have to determine what is 'success', what is the 'secret' ingredient to achieving it and how can any of us cultivate it in our lives.

What being succesful means?

Firstly let's start to determine what is a succesful person, altrough in our culture we may be inclined to say that everyone who is rich is succesful the truth isn't that simple, success in life is an extremely broad concept, and altrough having lots of money can be an indicator of success, this isn't always what happens in real life.

Let me give you an example: a celebrity that earns more than a million per year, can buy anything he wants at anytime and do what whatever he wants and he still will have some people loving him but at the same time, he is hopelessly addicted to drugs, can't go a single day without taking tons of different medicines and is always feeling like living is just our obligation as human beings. Having a truly look at this person life would you say that he is a role model and has a life everyone would want to trade for? of course not, having material things but not feeling truly satisfied with the state you are means nothing when we are speaking about success.

A truthfully succesful person is someone who is in a constant state of satisfaction with his life, his material needs are exactly at the point he desires, his relationships and friendships are also in tune with his objectives , he feels proud and confident in the person he is and lastly if someone were to take everything he conquered from him, that would make him sad and devasted for a while but eventually he would be back up, being able to rebuilt it all from scratch.

This is actually the real meaning of success in an individual, not what he has, but what he is, you can't actually 'have' success, but you can be a succesful person. 

So what is the secret ingredient then?

The answer to this question may actually surprise a lot of people, we love to say the same two things when we see someone achieving their lifelong dreams: 'They were lucky' or 'They where born talented', and altrough this is indeed the case in some situations I can confidently affirm that the majority of success cases actually has nothing to do with either, don't believe in me? let me prove you wrong with real life stories then.

Walt Disney

Did you know that this guy has more academy awards than any other person in the world? and at the same time, before truly becoming the legend he was, Walt was told he 'Lacked imagination and didn't have any good ideas' and at one point he had to eat dog food to survive.

Oprah Winfrey

Born in a very harsh environment, dealing with poverty, pregnancy and even her child's death before having 18 years old, Oprah didn't give up her dreams and managed to create her own network, being one of the most famours woman in the entire world.

Sthephen King

Probably the most famours horror writer in history, breaking the paradigm of what was truly good on his field, One of his most famous work 'Carrie' got reject more than thirty times, and he even threw his manuscript on the trash at one point.

After knowing these success stories you can safely say that lucky wasn't the reason right? and if they had mind-blowing talent, they wouldn't have to handle with the failures they did in their lives.

So do you know what is the quality they all shared and that made their legacy be what it is today? the answer is simple:

They transformed bad habits into good habits daily, and maintained that consistency over their entire life.

So instead of watching TV their entire day, they made a little bit of effort towards their dream each day, instead of spending their entire time on alcohol or complaining about their situation, they choose to organize and plan their goals and instead of deciding to give up forever, they decided to take a deep breath and think about giving up on another day.

Over time, those tiny little changes started to compound over time, like the small rain drop that eventually joins and becomes part of the ocean, their decisions had built a extremely strong base for their success, and after they had internalized their good habits, nothing could stop them.

Now you may be finally questioning yourself, how can I do the same to my life? how can I achieve the same level of success in life those people have?

The key to cultivate success in your life

If someone asked you to choose between eating a fruit or eating a candy, which one would you choose? altrough many of us would say that we would choose the fruit, the truth is that we are way more likely to choose the candy, if we had to choose between reading a book for 10 minutes or watching a movie for 10 minutes the answer is the same.

We are always way more likely to choose the thing that bring us most comfort, and over time, we start to stop to even think about those questions, we automatically choose the candy or the TV, our brain stops thinking about this decision, after all, there isn't any risk in choosing either right? actually there is, choosing either a single time doesn't impact your life very much, but if you take the same path day after day, eventually you will be extremely unhealthy and your knowledge about the world will be extremely skewed after watching soo much TV.

The key to success is just learning to choose our discomfort and stick with that intention consistently, and to be able to do this in your life, you actually just need to start to be mindful of those bad habits, start to change one step at a time how you spend your time, don't try to rush this proccess, start small, like in the examples below:

If you want to be healthy: Start by choosing to walk 2 minutes and drink a cup of water everytime you feel the urge to eat something bad for you, increase this time gradually, always be patient and don't blame yourself when you do eat something bad, that's ok, with time you will start forget about that urge and eventually you won't ever be eating badly again.

if you want to have a succesful carrer: Instead of spending 2 or more hours a day on social media, try to spend at least 5 minutes reading a book or listening to advices related to your field, increase the time slowly, after a few years your circle of competence will have expanded by leaps and bounds, people will admire you by the amount of knowledge you have on your area and no one will ever doubt your capabilities.

Now that you have the answer you will actually need to apply it on your life, forget about your doubts and just try to take one step at a time towards the dream you want to achieve, don't give up and be patient, with time, people will be amazed at the feats you managed to accomplish, admiration will flow towards who you are, and when you hear the question "What's the key for success?" you will be the one answering it this time.