How to be successful in life

We all want to figure out how to be successful in life. Success looks different for everyone, but there is one equation you can use to achieve the results you’re after. The ultimate formula for how to be successful consists of several key principles: know your desired outcome, know what inspires you, take massive action, notice your results and adapt your approach. Here, we’ll dive deeper into this formula so you can put these principles into action and apply them to your own life.

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How to be successful

Learning how to become successful is a highly personal process that you’ll need to adapt to reflect your unique values. The following strategies will bring you closer to your authentic self and the success you’re after. 

1. Define success

Clarity is power. Knowing what success looks like to you is a critical component in achieving any kind of improvement. Are you looking to deepen your personal relationships? Maybe your goal is to advance your career. When you’re specific about what you want, it becomes easier to take the actionable steps to achieve it. 

For instance, “I want to get a promotion” doesn’t give you a lot to build on. What role, specifically, do you want and how will obtaining that role better your life? Refine your vision to be something like, “I want to be vice president of the company within six months, making $300,000 per year.” It’s an ambitious jump, but it gives you a clear end result and something you can track your progress against along the way.

The psychology of success

When you’re working on how to be successful in life, you must also know your reasons for wanting to achieve your goals. Because when you have absolute clarity of purpose, you’ll keep that goal in mind even when it gets tough. Think about why you want that promotion – it likely has to do with financial freedom or providing for your family. Tony tells us that “Success is doing what you want, when you want, where you want, with whom you want as much as you want.” That’s a powerful purpose. 

It isn’t always easy to define something as massive as your purpose in life. Use Tony’s three-part system, The Ultimate Edge, to learn how to create an extraordinary life in any environment. Tony Robbins himself coaches and entertains throughout this life-changing program. Learn that the key to success is discovering what you truly need and want in your life.

2. Adopt the right mindset

mindset

The art of knowing how to be successful in life pivots on a central fact: where focus goes, energy flows.

By focusing on everything that could go wrong, you’re essentially setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy. Persistent negative thoughts about yourself, like “I don’t think I can do this” or “Someone much smarter than me is better suited” are called limiting beliefs. Your energy will flow toward whatever is on your mind – so if you’re approaching a situation full of doubt and negativity, you’re likely to receive the outcome you feared.  

When you focus your energy on what you don’t want, you only bring more negativity into your life. But if you clarify for yourself what you do want and train your brain to notice things that can help you make it happen, you’ll attract positivity. When a negative thought pops up, replace it with a positive one. Instead of thinking, “I’m never going to learn how to become successful,” think, “I can do this” or “I’m going to figure this out.” Instead of dwelling on worst-case scenarios, imagine extraordinary results.

When circumstances become challenging, reflect on what caused you to pursue success in the first place. Were you conventionally successful but internally unhappy? Have you not utilized your skills as much as you’d like to? Whatever your reasons for wanting to succeed, use them as the cornerstone of your desire to work hard and achieve more.

Changing your mindset in this way takes work. Unlock the secrets of your psychological foundation with Tony’s comprehensive Personal Power II: 30-Day System. Learn how to build on that foundation to begin your ideal career, improve your relationships, optimize your time, reach financial success, strengthen your business, revitalize your health – and ultimately discover how to become successful.

3. Take action

Determining what you want is only part of learning how to be successful in life. Once you’ve done the inner work, it’s time to take massive action – because true rewards come with action, not discussion. This means shaking up your routines drastically, learning a new skill set and replacing bad habits with beneficial ones.

You can start by creating SMART goals, which are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and set within a Time frame. Setting goals in this way helps break them down into manageable tasks that you can more easily achieve. That sense of accomplishment gives you the energy and drive to continue your hard work, creating a cycle of success that propels you toward your dreams. 

set goals

Working toward your goals can involve long hours, lots of practice and getting outside your comfort zone. Remember, failure is often part of the process. If you take massive action and experience failure along the way, keep going. Some of the greatest leaders of our time failed terribly before finally succeeding.

4. Study the successes of others

celebrate sucess

No matter what field you’re in or what you want to do with your life, someone else has done it before. As you learn how to become successful, study their strategies and modify them for your own purposes. Tony Robbins calls this “modeling” because you’re modeling your efforts on theirs. This is why the world’s most successful people – including Tony himself – have benefited from having mentors throughout their lives.

Successfully practicing modeling requires you to pick the right person and learn everything you can about them. What challenges did they face and how did they overcome them? Do you see similarities between their roadblocks and your own? As you dig into their life and understand their setbacks, you can build your own strategy for how to be successful in life.

Not sure where to find these successful people? Learn how to find a mentor. Join a mastermind group. Find support online. Or take advantage of Tony’s PowerTalk! series. These interviews with the greatest achievers in the world provide you with multi-faceted descriptions of the keys to success from an array of people who’ve already achieved it. Model your success after those who have already reached major milestones.

5. Track your progress

When you find yourself repeatedly saying “I want to know how to be successful” and working toward your goal, don’t forget to stop to check your progress along the way. Noticing your results is critical to unlocking how to become successful, because you must accurately assess your progress.

Are the things you’re doing leading you closer to achieving your goals? Have you hit a plateau as far as progress is concerned?

Online coaching

Objectively look at the actions you’re taking in your everyday life and decide if they’re actually helping you become the type of person you want to be. Use a journal to write down your goals at the beginning of the day and your accomplishments at the end. Tony’s Rapid Planning Method system, which includes a Vision Planner, Life Planner and Success Journal, is a valuable tool for tracking your progress.

When you reach your goals, have a productive day or conquer one of your fears, remember to celebrate your success. Celebrating accomplishments is a key part of keeping your momentum going.

6. Be flexible

personal growth

No success is achieved without any effort. Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” The ability to shift gears and master new things is an indication of a growth mindset and an important key to mastering how to be successful in life. Tony feels the same way: “I have plenty of failures, but I don’t look at them that way, not because I am in denial but because I make myself learn something from it. Then it becomes a stepping stone instead of a failure.”

If one attempt doesn’t work, change your strategy. A willingness to look at things from a different perspective will take you far. 

As you continue exploring how to be successful and what success means to you personally, never be afraid to start over and switch up what you’re doing. The path to personal growth is long and ever-changing. Although you can trust that success doesn’t mean the same thing for any two people, you can rest easily knowing no one finds it without effort, action and plenty of inner strength.

7. Ask for help when you need it

If you need help, ask for it. Society glorifies those who get everything done on their own, but the reality is learning to be successful doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You will find people – friends, family and colleagues – who want to offer their assistance. They may see a challenge from a different angle, or notice a pattern that you don’t. Their advice could be the incentive you need to make a change, overcome that last hurdle and crush your obstacles.

ask for help

Friends and family will listen deeply and understand where you’re coming from. A supportive partner will take some of the load off of you so that you can focus on your goals. You might also look into working with a coach who has helped others become successful. They’ve seen exactly what you’re going through and will be able to help you work through whatever challenges you’re facing.

Tony Robbins has several options for coaching that can transform your life. Results Coaches are hand-selected and trained by Tony himself. Each coach is enthusiastically devoted to teaching you how to be successful in life and has completed over 250 hours of training. Learn how to empower yourself with accountability, insight and focus to achieve consistent, lasting results.

Not ready to jump right into personalized results coaching? The Personal Coaching Collection is comprised of six audio/video programs that teach you how to be successful. The emphasis here is in the decades of experience Tony has with people striving for success all over the world.

8. Choose goals you can commit to

commitment

When you’re starting off learning how to be successful, it might be tempting to measure success in every area of life, from your lifestyle and relationships to your professional life. If you take this route you’ll quickly lose steam from asking too much of yourself.

It’s also tempting to choose goals based on what other people want us to do or out of fear: fear of failure or fear of what others will think. Society conditions us to see our futures in a specific way – get a job, work your way up at your company, get married, have children and so on. Learning how to be successful is about examining these goals and asking yourself: Is this what I really want? 

The goals you can commit to will be the goals and outcomes that would elevate your life exponentially or fill an aching void. These are the goals you’ll feel passionate about – and that hunger will destroy your fear of failure.

9. Make your pursuit of success fun

The minute you add “learn how to be successful” to your to-do list, it becomes a chore, something you “should” do to feel better about yourself. As Tony says, don’t “should” all over yourself. Instead, make your efforts at success fun.

If success for you means being healthy, find creative recipes you enjoy and learn to love working out. If success means making more connections, find ways to widen your network that are enjoyable and relaxing. As you incorporate new behaviors and activities into your efforts at success, you’ll find you’re creating a vibrant, meaningful lifestyle along the way. 

celebrate success

10. Think outside the box

think outside of box

If you’re coming up short in mastering how to be successful in life, it could be that the goals you’re pursuing are actually limiting you. Maybe you’re pursuing ideals that were given to you by a parent or teacher that don’t truly resonate with you. Get out of that box. 

Think back to the last time you truly lost track of time, or an experience that left you feeling exuberant. What were you doing? Who was with you? What were the circumstances? When you think outside the box you access your subconscious, which isn’t limited by others’ expectations or even your own. From there, you’ll find unexpected avenues to success and contentment.  

Ready to unlock the secrets to how to be successful?

Build your own definition of success and get the tools you need to reach those goals at Date With Destiny.