Some people are more successful at adapting to life's circumstances than others - and they not only literally survive, but bounce back faster.
Resilience is their main and common feature, or rather, the ability to quickly recover and adapt to changes. However, do not rush to think that these people can live a relaxed and carefree life just because they were lucky to be born that way. Being a resilient person does not mean not experiencing difficulties or suffering.
Heartache and sadness are common among people who have experienced significant adversity or trauma in their lives. In fact, the path to fortitude is the result of significant emotional experiences.
But still, what helps them overcome even the most difficult times?
Strength of character
This refers to the ability to persistently strive for a goal, maintaining interest in it despite failures, boredom and temporary lack of progress.
It is the combination of passion, resilience and self-discipline that moves us forward despite obstacles. According to psychologist Angela Duckworth, author of the book “Grit,” this quality is even more important for success than talent or intelligence. No matter how gifted you are, without strong character you will achieve little. It is he who helps to strive for the goal over time.
Radiate positive energy
The world needs more calm and positive people. Be the person who genuinely radiates positive and uplifting energy.
Be sincere and transparent. Be a beacon of light for others. Avoid complaining about circumstances, the weather, or the government.
Avoid making negative assumptions and judgments about people. Be optimistic. Benefit people. Accept the flaws of others. Forgive people's mistakes.
Be generous with your compliments. Make people feel good.
Ability to adapt
We live in a world that is constantly changing, and this process is unlikely to slow down in the future. The skills, knowledge and connections that were important yesterday may very well be worthless tomorrow. Therefore, the ability to change and adapt to new conditions is an extremely important skill. Most companies will need people who have it to remain relevant.
Darwin also said that it is not the strongest or the smartest who survive, but the one who best adapts to change. This ability to adapt, improvise and change strategy depending on the problem gives a human an advantage over a computer.
Be simpler and calmer
Ego sometimes makes us too serious and too rigid. Let go of the desire to always be defensive towards yourself.
Let go of the desire to show other people how superior you are. Be a simple and calm person.
Stop taking things too personally and learn to laugh at your shortcomings. We are all flesh and bones, and none of us are perfect.
Life is much more enjoyable and colorful when we push aside the ego and allow ourselves to relax.
Accepting failure
Paradoxically, the first step to success is failure. Nothing is perfect and nothing can be perfect. Try, fail and try again. At the same time, focus not on the results, but on the lessons learned: those who learn them will achieve success in the future. Every failure brings you closer to your goal. If, of course, you study on it. And we truly “fail” only if we don’t get back on our feet after falling.
“An iterative evolutionary algorithm involving variation and selection finds solutions in a world where problems are constantly changing, trying every possible option and doing whatever might work,” writes economist Tim Harford in Through Failure to Victory. Darwin's laws in life and business."
So if you fail, try to learn from it as soon as possible.
Flexibility in learning
As futurist Alvin Toffler said, in the 21st century, the illiterate will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn. Real learning begins with your career. It requires you to constantly acquire new knowledge, and in the process you will have to repeatedly abandon outdated methods.
To succeed in the modern world, you need to be constantly ready to adapt: forget old rules and learn new ones. This requires questioning commonly held beliefs, challenging old views, and relearning what is currently important to your work, your industry, and your life in general.
Four steps to success
There is no universal recipe that will allow you to develop all the qualities of a successful person. But there are certain steps that will contribute to the development of personal properties that are useful for achieving life goals.
Steps to achieve success:
- Setting short-term, medium-term and long-term goals. It is important that they meet the goal, are specific and logical. Having small tasks will allow you to achieve serious results in the medium and long term using successive steps. Each of them must be given a reasonable time limit. Objectives and goals must be flexible so that they can be adjusted in response to changing external conditions.
- Reading and self-improvement. It is important to constantly learn, learn about new products in the field where the goal is to achieve success. Literature must also be selected for these tasks. Reading should not be spontaneous, just like trainings, courses and educational programs. Everything must be systematized and structured.
- To hone the qualities of self-control, discipline and planning, it is worth starting to record everything on paper or electronic media. Having a tangible plan for the year, month or day will make it easier to stick to it without violations or deviations. To better understand yourself and self-analysis, you can start keeping a diary where you can write down all your thoughts, successes and failures, strengths and weaknesses.
- It is important to structure your life so that all areas of it are controlled. You need to exercise daily, read, breathe fresh air, eat right, and give up bad habits. Expand your horizons through travel and new acquaintances.
There are many such steps that can be formulated. But even if you implement only the four steps listed above, you will notice how your life will change for the better: your attitude towards life will become more meaningful, and the basic qualities of a successful person will be formed. And this is halfway in the process of achieving success in life.
Working with information
The ability to comprehend, analyze and apply information is an extremely important skill. After all, in order to make decisions and cope with problems, you need to collect reliable data, evaluate it and choose the most suitable option for a particular situation.
Someone who can look at a problem from different angles often finds an unexpectedly elegant solution, while simultaneously revealing how narrowly others have viewed the issue.
This requires both critical and creative thinking. According to philosopher Francis Bacon, critical thinking is the desire to seek and the testing of patience. It presupposes a rejection of haste in passing judgments and caution in their execution, as well as hatred of any kind of deception. Creative thinking is based on ingenuity and the ability to find new ways to perform old tasks.
Emotional intellect
People with high levels of emotional intelligence have well-developed sensitivity, empathy, and self-awareness. They also know how to communicate perfectly: this skill helps to build relationships with others, understand their motives and predict their reactions.
All areas of activity that require emotional intelligence, which is not available to computers, will be very popular in the future. And if you're not a very social person, you still have time to develop communication skills to better understand others.
Success concept
Each person understands success differently. This depends on the intellectual and cultural level of the individual, the rules accepted in society, the characteristics of upbringing, and value guidelines. There is no universal concept of success, but you can make a list of classic traits that characterize it.
Aspects that make up success:
- Faith in the future, having dreams and clear goals. A positive attitude towards what is happening.
- Love for your activity.
- Out-of-the-box thinking, creativity.
- Honesty towards yourself and others.
- Adequate response to mistakes. Learning from your own and others' shortcomings. After each failure, an analysis of the reasons that led to the fiasco is carried out. Adequate conclusions are drawn that will help avoid similar mistakes in the future. Any failure only makes you stronger.
- Structure and organization of daily life.
- Focus on self-development and self-improvement. Ability to see advantages and opportunities. Investing in your development and improvement.
- Taking care of your body, playing sports, active lifestyle, proper sleep, proper nutrition.
- Resistance to occupational deformation is desirable.
Based on the above aspects, you can try to form a simple concept of the phenomenon in question.
Success is achieving your goals through thoughtful and systematic decisions and actions. In a narrower sense, success is a positive result in any activity, recognition of a person’s merits in society.
Personal branding
The impression that is created about you is very important. Among other things, it helps to inspire trust among colleagues, clients and managers.
In many areas, being successful means standing out in some way. Think about what you are particularly good at. Select one or more skills around which you will build your personal brand.
Also think about what your social media profiles say about you. If you're not active on platforms relevant to your work, it's time to get active. Update your information to match your new look. Start with the basics: remove inappropriate photos and change your email name to something more professional.
Deep Thinking
We are usually not taught to think - it is assumed that we already know how to do it. But having information is not the same as understanding. Deeper thinking leads to deeper living. And the superficial is the opposite. So think about how deep a thinker you are.
Challenge yourself for the next year to commit to going deeper into the areas that matter to you. This will help you understand them better. Compare results, analyze, understand and apply different mental models.
It’s like reading. If you read a book once, you will only have a superficial understanding of the subject. And if you read it several times, make extracts, formulate conclusions, then you will understand the topic much better.
Professional quality
For career growth and getting a prestigious job, it is important to determine your strong professional qualities. These are character traits that will help in career development; they will be a good help for developing your own business.
- Learning something new quickly , especially in our progressive society, is a very important trait for a good employee. Today it is important to be able to quickly find an approach to emerging innovations in the technical field and be able to quickly master the intricacies of your professional activity.
- Hard work. You can't do without this either. To achieve something you need to be ready to make every effort. You need to be ready to spend your time and perform the task efficiently.
- Responsibility. This character trait will be useful in everyday life, but in the workplace, responsibility will follow you everywhere. This applies not only to leadership positions; even an ordinary worker must be able to approach his work responsibly and be able to be responsible for his actions.
- Organized. It can determine an employee's productivity in the workplace. More organized people can quickly decide on priority tasks and can plan their day to get the most out of every minute. This quality helps even in everyday life. The ability to organize your day allows you to spend a minimum of time doing the maximum amount of work.
