7 Proven Keys to Success (and How to Use Them in Your Life )

Jun 1, 2017 | Personal Growth

Let’s face it: most advice about success is bad.

After all, if most of it were good, you and I would have to assume—given the sheer volume of advice on the topic a person can access at the click of a button—there would be a lot more successful people in the world today.

But as we both know, that is not the case.

Unfortunately, despite the good intentions, most advice about success suffers from one fatal flaw…

It’s built around a shortsighted definition of what success really is.

Society is quick to tell you that success means having a:

• Nice car
• Huge house
• Boat
• Large travel budget

We cling to things like this as indicators of success because they’re so easily visible. Over time, we develop tunnel vision about them, blinding ourselves to the possibility of pursuing things that actually make a lasting difference.

Things like:

• Your legacy
• Your level of influence
• Spending time with your family
• Your ability to give to those in need

So when searching for the keys to success, it’s important to take advice with a grain of salt. Be aware that most of it is designed to help you obtain more things rather than making more of an impact.

If, as I suspect, success means more to you than the kind of car in your driveway, I encourage you to keep reading.

This list is built to help you do two things:

1. Determine what success looks like in your life
2. Give you actionable steps to achieving it

I discovered each of these steps during my time studying the lives of thousands of history’s greatest achievers. No matter their area of expertise, they all had similar habits and beliefs that helped them produce incredible results.

Wait: Keep This Question in Mind As You Read the Keys to Success

Before we go any further, there’s one more important thing you need to know about the definition of success:

There is no one definition.

That’s why it’s critical that you define what it looks like to you.

Otherwise, you’ll be starting a journey without a destination. And without a destination, you’ll have no idea where to go, how to prepare, or if you’re even on the right track.

So, instead of simply asking, “What does success look like for me?” I want you to make a slight change to the question.

Ask yourself, “What would a successful life look like for me?”

To get your mind jogging, here are a few follow-up questions that can help you paint a mental picture of your successful life:

• What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind? What will people say when they describe my life?
• How much influence do I want and what will I do with it?
• Who do I want to impact and how will I go about it?
• How much time do I want to spend with my family?

You don’t need a definitive answer before you read any further, but keep this in mind as you continue. Once you can define your successful life, these seven keys to success will give you a blueprint to living it.

7 Keys to Living a Successful Life

1. Discipline

Most of us have trained our brains to have a negative connotation with this word. We think of discipline as punishment or as making ourselves do something we don’t want to do.

But I urge you to change the way you think about it…

Think about discipline as something you may not like doing, but have the opportunity to do in order to get the results you would like to have.

Take reading for example—most adults either don’t like reading or think they don’t have time for it.

But statistics show that people who read:

• Make more money than people who don’t
• Have a lower divorce rate than people who don’t
• Have fewer problems with their children than people who don’t
• Get promoted at a higher rate than people who don’t
• Get hired at a higher rate than people who don’t

Are you after those results? Then it really doesn’t matter if you like reading or not, does it? Because the results you are after in your life have very little to do with what you don’t like. In fact, forget what you don’t like. This is about WHAT. DO. YOU. WANT?

From now on, I encourage you to think of discipline in this way:

• What do I really want?
• What results would totally change my life and the lives of those I care about the most?
• Is it worth doing something I don’t want to do for relatively small chunks of time in order to achieve those results?

Omonowo Amoto Israel

Business Elite