How to be Successful in Life
When Warren Buffett started investing he was 10 years old, and it took him 20 years to grow his net worth to $1 million.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger started exercising he was 15, but didn’t win Mr. Olympia until 23.
When Tom Brady began playing college football it was 1995, but he didn’t win his first Super Bowl until 2001.
When you consider how to be successful in life, many things can come to mind. A loving family, a growth mindset and the right attitude - all of which may help. But there are two things that Warren Buffett, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Brady have in common...
The confidence to start and the consistency to finish.
Let me explain.
The Confidence to Start
When starting a new project we often ask for advice from loved ones, but we also receive, potentially unwarranted advice from the voice inside our heads.
And how often do you let this talk you out of something? Out of applying for your dream job, starting the side hustle or speaking to your love interest?
The voice inside your head is sometimes referred to as your internal dialogue, and can be extremely critical - bringing up negative experiences from your past as justification why you cannot do something.
Another related explanation could be the negativity effect, or negativity bias, whereby we use negative information far more than positive information.
The good news is that both of these can be addressed through the same mechanism - and the first step of this is to make yourself conscious and aware of the negative self-talk.
The second step is to embrace Stoic indifference, not necessarily at the thoughts themselves, but the things triggering the negative thoughts.
For example, your internal dialogue will often use previous negative experiences as evidence why you should not start something. But a lot of the time these experiences relate to external circumstances outside of your control.
As such it may be useful to approach these ‘negative’ experiences with indifference. Not indifference in that you do not care, but indifference in that you will be good either way…
Understanding where it is worth focusing your thoughts and where it is not.
“Learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference.” — Marcus Aurelius
Going back the example above, focusing on previous negative experiences won’t change the past, it will only change the future. Therefore it is futile to give these too much thought when making decisions on starting something new.
Warren Buffett was not a top investor when he was 10, Arnold was not Mr. Olympia at 15 and Tom Brady was not a Super Bowl champion at 18.
The point is that all of these people didn’t let negative experiences or self-talk deter them. They had the confidence to start, and then the consistency to succeed.
The Consistency to Succeed
The second part of being successful comes down to the persistence, grit and determination required to continue what you’ve started.
However once you have starts comes the question that everyone wants an answer for - how long before I reach my goal? Or how long before I find success?
We’ve all heard of the 10,000 hour rule proposed by Malcolm Gladwell, whereby it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert?
Well the 10,000 hour rule isn’t the only target to aim for.
On a recent podcast, successful YouTuber Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) stated that he believes anyone can become successful with 10 years of dedicated practice.
Now whether it’s 10,000 hours or 10 years, both require a lot of consistency. But how do we achieve this level of dedication?
The first step is deciding whether you have the opportunity to start with something you enjoy.
Do you have the resources and time available to spend on something you enjoy - and more to the point, do you even want to?
Let’s say you enjoy playing video games as a hobby, and feel that you can make a career in this area. What would you do when your hobby becomes your career?
When you already spend 8 hours a day playing video games for your work, what do you do when you leave?
This is a great way to speed up your journey to 10,000 hours, but it’s also a good way to reach burnout and lose enjoyment in your hobbies.
Alternatively, you could look towards a completely different field - one that you are interested in but have never given much consideration to.
In life, much of our happiness comes from striving towards goals, and the learning and progression that comes with this - rather than the fleeting moment of actually achieving the goal.
For this reason, whatever option you choose for your career has the potential to be fulfilling, perhaps even more so than something you’re already good at - because of the increased opportunities to learn.
Though you may be starting from zero, this provides increased opportunities to learn, grow and experience fulfilment from this growth.
If this is the route you choose to go down however, it is absolutely essential to remember to...
Measure yourself against the progress, not the results.
Staying the course is difficult enough, and it’s vital that you measure yourself against the progress you’ve made, not the results yourself (or others) are getting.
Two ways to ensure you are focusing on the right things are:
A) Track the things you can control (e.g. articles published, practice sessions attended, weight lifted) and avoid obsessing over the things you cannot (e.g. subscribers, views, job offers received).
B) Keep a done list alongside your to do list, and if possible spend more time reflecting on this. Look at how far you’ve come, not how far you have to go.
Conclusion
Achieving great things, or indeed anything at all requires two things: the courage to start and the consistency to continue.
These two components are evidenced by the vast majority of successful people throughout time - people like Warren Buffet, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Brady.
How we achieve these can vary, though I hope that this article has provided you with some ideas on how to address the voice in your head, and how to sustain momentum once you begin.
Thank You
If you made it this far thank you — I appreciate you taking the time to read my work and sincerely hope you enjoyed it. If you would like to continue reading, I’ve included a few of my most popular articles below.
Thanks again,
Rob