09 Jun 5 important life lessons to make you more successful
My definition of “success” would be very much about happiness.
So this article about being “successful” is, in my opinion, very relevant to those of us seeking to create more happiness…
via the Ladders by LaRae Quy
I wish I’d been smarter in my teens and early twenties. Like many others, I thought I knew what was best for myself, but I wasn’t seasoned enough to understand how life lessons are gifts that keep coming—until we die.
In my younger years, I didn’t characterize many of my life lessons as gifts. They looked more like trials and tribulations. It’s taken a while for me to understand that those same trials and tribulations created my destiny; they created person I became over the years.
Life is a process: we rise up and fall down; we succeed and we fail. But these experiences hold important lessons for us—ones we need to learn if we hope to be a success in business and life.
Here are 5 important life lessons to make you more successful:
Life Lesson #1 Define Good Values
Too often, success is measured only in terms of money or personal power. We all know people who became famous or made lots of money but failed miserably at being a good person because they didn’t take the time to define good values for themselves.
To become a successful human being, we need to mature physically, emotionally, socially, cognitively, spiritually, and morally. For many, the development of ethics and values is something that happens with little or no conscious thought. As a result, their life revolves around crappy values like the pursuit of pleasure, possession of material things, and a narcissistic “me first” mentality.
Despite what the media tells you, pleasure won’t create life satisfaction. If you measure your success by material things and not your behavior, you’re a shallow person. As far as narcissism goes—if others think you’re God, that’s OK; but if you think you are, that makes you a jerk.
Humans were created for wholeness. We yearn to live a whole life, one of purpose and value. At our core, we are driven by a desire to be closer to people, to be part of meaningful conversations and community. Pleasure, material things, and selfishness are nothing but empty highs.
Bad values are destructive and fractious. You have no control over them, which makes your life satisfaction dependent on the whim of others. Instead, nail down good values then pleasure, material things, and success will emerge from them. Good values happen on the inside, in that place that has no shape but gives us meaning and yearns for good.
How To Make It Work For You: Values are personal choices you make about what’s important to you. Here are some questions that will help you identify your top values in life:
- What are the three things you like most about yourself? Why?
- Who is the happiest person you know? Why?
- Who are the two people you like and respect the most? Why?
- Who are you?
Life Lesson #2 Develop Self-Awareness
When people ask me to talk about how they can become mentally tough, I suggest they start with self-awareness. Self-awareness is the ability to take an honest look at ourselves, without judging what we find as either good or bad. Many people don’t take the time or make the effort to get to know the most important person in their life—themselves.
Ignorance of your competition makes you vulnerable. Ignorance of yourself makes you stupid—LaRae Quy
Everything we need can be found inside ourselves. We have the tools we need to be aware of our bodies, aware of our emotions, and aware of our relationships. We cannot become self aware by reading self-help books or articles.
Instead, we need a deep understanding of our past and current self. People with painful experiences in the past often balk at reliving that part of their life. Our experiences (both good and bad) shape how we see the world, so it’s vital for us to understand how the world has shaped our personalities.
Your narrative is the story of your life and it impacts everything you do. Once you recognize your pattern of behavior when confronted with obstacles, disappointments, and setbacks you can control your response. Self-awareness enables you to anticipate a negative reaction and choose a behavior that will help you land on your feet when confronted by the unknown.
As Woody Allen said, “It’s important to have some laughs, but you gotta suffer a little too because otherwise, you miss the whole point of life.”
How To Make It Work For You: Make it a daily practice to set aside twenty minutes to reflect upon your day. Identify what experiences, people, or settings prompted an energizing joy. Why? Identify what experiences, people, or settings prompted an interior heaviness. Why?
… keep reading the full & original article HERE
#happiness #success #positivepsychology