As someone once said, “we’re not going to say anything that hasn’t been said before, but since many people weren’t listening when it was said, we’ll say it again.”
In the search for shortcuts to success or to getting ahead in life, the best shortcuts often come from advice we may not give all the importance it deserves. The other day we shared 17 rules for life; along very similar lines, here are 8 things, or rules, you should put into practice as soon as possible.
1. Decide what is important to you
We can’t do everything, and we can’t please everyone. Stop and think about what really matters to you, focus on that, and don’t waste too much time on everything else that isn’t as important.
The same goes for your goals and objectives. Write down on a piece of paper the 10 or 15 things you would like to achieve, pick the 3 most important ones, cross out the rest and don’t think about them again. Put all your focus and energy into what you want to achieve.
2. Work out your values in life, and never make them negotiable
As you go through life, your interests may change, which is perfectly healthy. But we need to define our values and principles, and these can never change. The moment you negotiate your values, you start ending up in places that may bring immediate rewards at first but, in the long run, will only make your life worse. Setting values and principles gives your life meaning and purpose.
3. Stop procrastinating right now
Putting things off, or not doing what we should be doing, is probably one of the worst habits we can pick up. The habit of success is discipline, and procrastination is the “kryptonite” of discipline, and therefore of success.
4. Surround yourself with people smarter than you and avoid pessimists
As the saying goes, we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. Surrounding yourself with people who are smarter than you is one of the biggest shortcuts to learning new things and improving. Surround yourself with passionate people who push you forward, and avoid at all costs the people who subtract from your life and bring you nothing but pessimism.
5. Become a curious person and keep exploring
Keep trying new things, especially if you haven’t yet figured out what you want to do with your life. Pick up new knowledge and new skills every day, even new hobbies, and get into new circles. Above all, in your professional life and in business, plant lots of seeds. The more, the better.
Some of those seeds will end up bearing fruit: something new you learn will be the solution to a problem, and a new skill may end up becoming your main source of income.
You have to be open to new experiences and opportunities. Success often means taking a different path from the one you’ve been on, or trying a completely different approach.
6. Try not to do anything just for the money
Even Richard Branson often says that a business that only makes money is a poor business. Whatever you do, if all it gives you is a monetary profit, you’ll end up losing sight of why you do it, or you’ll be overtaken by someone who is truly passionate about it.
Look for work in which you feel you’re doing something meaningful that helps you grow as a person, and in which you feel you’re helping other people in some way. It may sound silly, but knowing that you’re making the world a better place can give meaning to your work in the hardest moments.
7. Recognise the dichotomy of control
You can’t control what people think of you, where you were born or even the outcome of your efforts. Nor can you control the hundreds of external factors that can appear in your life at any moment. But you can control how you respond to all of it. Learning how to act, how to think and what to do with everything that happens to you should become a top-priority habit. We will probably suffer misfortunes, failures, problems and disappointments often, so we need to learn to break even negative patterns. It’s fine to feel bad or sad for a while, but we must keep that negative state from dragging on. And yes, you can learn to do that.
8. Live to change and learn to adapt
Life is constant change, and lately change happens faster than ever. From jobs to friends and partners, from desires to fears, everything is constantly changing, so we must accept change as part of life. In fact, we should get used to the idea that we came into this life to change. These days it’s also called progress.
See also: 5 brilliant tips for success from Brian Tracy
Featured image: john.schultz, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
