Have you ever thought about what makes a person successful?
I imagine most people would agree that success is having a happy personal life, doing well at a job, and making at least enough money that you don’t have to stress.
I think that hard work and determination are a couple of other success factors, but there’s more to it than that. In fact, those may not be the primary secrets to what makes a person successful.
Lately I’ve noticed something else about the people I know who seem to be successful: they’re filled with enthusiasm and confidence. They see the bright side. While to outsiders it may seem as though they magically catch all the breaks, they just let the negatives they do encounter wash over them.
The thing is, a big part of what makes a person successful is that while they make mistakes and face obstacles just like the rest of us, they don’t spend their time moaning about it. You won’t hear a litany of complaints about how they have to work so hard to pay their mortgage bill or how it’s not fair that the person in front of them at the grocery store got a discount when they didn’t.
Nope, they’re people you just plain want to be around.
They put a positive spin on things, no matter how mundane.
They got a great deal on their mortgage and are excited to watch the balance drop as they pay it down. They buy one of those “donate $2 toward the food bank” cards while the other person is getting their discount at the grocery store, and count themselves lucky to be able to do so.
They’re confident that they can either handle things themselves, or that there will be people willing to help them do so. More importantly, they’re friendly and willing to help out others.
When people want to be around you, good things happen. Especially when you actively and regularly seek those good things out, and then work on them with passion. That’s what makes a person successful.
Posted in Success on 11.17.09 with 2 comments.
Success tends to be measured in monetary terms, while there’s so much more to it. I think you nailed it in your article. Personally, I meet people who are making a great deal of money but who are nowhere near what I’d call successful, essentially because they’re missing that “enthusiasm and confidence” that you talk about in your article.
I believe that to a degree, it has to do with whether or not you enjoy what you do for a living, and whether or not you manage to have a certain balance in your life (work-leisure-family). Of course, the financial part has to be taken care of, but so many people focus solely on it that they miss the bigger picture.
Thanks, and I think enjoying what you do is a big part of it too. (Or at the very least taking pleasure in the little daily tasks.)