How to get success in life – 7 Key steps you must take to be successful

Success in life is something that most, if not all, humans want to achieve. But figuring out exactly how to get success in life can sometimes feel like a massive challenge in and of itself.

How often do we walk around asking ourselves, “how can I be successful?” or “when will I be successful?”

Sometimes trying to find out what it will take to be successful takes so much time and energy that we never actually take the steps needed to become successful

But I am here to tell you that it does not have to be that difficult. Fortunately, the steps to take to achieve success in life are really not that complicated. The difficulty comes in actually trusting the process and sticking to it.

So let’s go over the list and then trust in the process. Once we trust in the process, we will see results that point to our success.

1. Define what success is for you

The reason that it can be hard to figure out how to get success in life is often because success means something different to each person. To some people, success is having a big house, to others it’s having a family, and to others it might be having the ability to go anywhere at any time without answering to anyone.

But often we have our definition for success set for us by the world around us – by our teachers at school, by our friends, by our family members, and generally by society around us.

Throughout school, we are mostly told that success means having a good job, making a lot of money, and having security. But to some people, that sounds like a nightmare. Some people like the freedom to travel, to go where they want when they want, and to not have to answer to anyone else.

Neither of those definitions of success – or any other definition of success – are wrong. The point is you have to define what success is for yourself.

So what does success mean to you? What are your values? What drives you?

Don’t worry about anyone else. Don’t worry about what your parents say success is, what your teachers say success is, or what the media makes you think success is. What is success to you?

2. Know why that means success to you

Following on from point 1, you must ask yourself WHY the above means success to you. Without knowing why, you are subject to having that definition change repeatedly and often.

If you know why what you define as success means success to you, you will be able to stay resilient when the world around you convinces you that something else means success.

The reason this is important is you need to not become distracted. It’s all too easy to get started going after what you want in life only to be derailed because you start wanting something else. And often you start wanting something else because your definition of success has changed.

For example, let’s say you start going after starting your own business because you realise success to you is having control of your own time. So you start going after things but then struggle when things get hard and you are running out of money in the early days. Then your friends start buying houses and starting families. It can then be very easy to be tempted to go back and work for someone else and think that success is having a big house and a big family. Then you go do that and realise you never got anywhere with your business and you become frustrated.

Well, that’s because you didn’t know WHY success to you meant having control over your time. For example, because it means you can explore the world, explore other possibilities, get new opportunities every day, build something for yourself, etc.

You don’t want to forget your definition of success because you never knew WHY you had it in the first place.

So you need to be concrete and solid in your definition of success and your reasons for that. And I know that it is tempting to just skip this step, but trust me when I say that this is a key step in answering how to get success in life.

Be sure to take the time to know your reasons why and to write them down. These will keep you focused moving forwards.

3. Take action

All of this is completely pointless unless you take action. In fact, if you have to pick one thing to answer the question of how to get success in life, it has to be to take action.

Too often, people want to research, read, listen to podcasts, watch videos, think their way through things… but then never take action. But without action, you will never get the success in life that you are after.

You can’t just think your way to success. You can’t research your way to success.

But people spend so much time reading around subjects or watching YouTube videos without ever taking action.

And action is the thing that will get you places.

And think about this – if you take action, you will soon figure out what works for you and what doesn’t. You will find out what takes you towards success and what doesn’t.

If you don’t take action, then you won’t find out what works.

Taking action can actually completely take the place of thinking about what to do because it gives you so many answers.

And, not only that, but taking action gives you confidence. Taking action gives you results you can build on.

But so often people don’t take action, and usually it is because they are scared to. They are either scared of the hard work involved or they are scared that they won’t get the results they want.

But, the thing is, if you take action, it’s impossible to fail. Even if you don’t get what you initially wanted when you started taking action the so-called “failure” just tells you something that didn’t work. So switch it up.

Remember: the only real failure so not taking action. So stop being a failure and take that action! It is action that will really help you to achieve success.

4. Stay focused

It’s so easy to become distracted with everything that goes on in the world around us. We have all these pulls taking our focus, from social media, our phones, advertising, TV, etc.

We also get distracted by what everyone else is doing – other people’s achievements, what they post about saying they have done, the lives they are living (or pretending to live), and so on.

But living a successful life involves not being distracted by these things going around us. In order to succeed in life you have to be able to stay focused on what you want, on your aims in life, and on what your definition of success is (not what everyone else’s is!).

You also need to be able to steer clear of distractions that suck your time. How much time do you think you waste watching TV or clicking around on your phone? Honestly. Hours every day? Think what you could do with that time.

In order to become successful in life, you must develop the ability to stay focused despite these distractions.

And this is not about not having time off. Having time off is important so you don’t face burn-out. But how much time do you REALLY need off? Can you be more efficient with your time off?

Stay focused and keep moving towards a happy and successful life.

5. Don’t let others or the world around you bring you down

A key to success in life is being resilient when the world around you, or people you know, starts trying to bring you down.

Whether intentionally or otherwise, negative people or negative situations can start to affect your mental ability to keep going.

We’ve all had times where we have stated to friends or family that we want to do something and we have been met with a negative response. And how much did that affect you or stop you moving forwards?

People often react negatively to things you want to do because they are jealous, don’t understand, or don’t want to lose you as you excel and start doing things outside of their sphere of comfort.

But your life isn’t about what they want or what they are comfortable with. Life success means going after what YOU want for yourself.

Likewise, when the world around you tells you that things are hard or impossible – like “the economy is bad”, “the current market is bad”, “no-one is investing at the moment”, “AI is taking over and this field won’t exist soon”, or whatever other reason they throw out – you need to focus on the positive, what you are doing, and how you are moving forwards.

Lasting success involves being able to stay resilient when the world around you tries to bring you down – intentionally or otherwise – so that when others are wondering how to get success in life, you will be cracking on, going after what you desire.

6. When things go wrong, keep going or switch things up

Inevitably, when you are trying to move towards what you want in life, things are going to go wrong. And a big part of how to get success in life is to be able to keep going when things get hard, or switch things up when you realise they aren’t working.

It’s so easy to just give up at the first hurdle, to stop when things go wrong. But a key secret to success is to realise that when things go wrong there is a lesson that can be learned.

If something has gone wrong, ask yourself what you can learn. Then take what you have learned and use that new knowledge in moving forwards. Don’t just give up! A successful life is often defined by a person’s ability to keep moving forwards when things go wrong.

But this also doesn’t mean you have to keep beating at something that isn’t working. You equally need to be able to look at a situation for what it is, and realise that if something definitely is not going to work, or is going to be a generally bad way to do something, then it’s okay to switch things up and do something else.

There is no point in wasting time on a course of action that you know will not work, or will be very hard or time-consuming to make work, if there is a better way to do it. You don’t need to keep doing something just because you have sunk a lot of time and energy in to it up until this point (the sunk cost fallacy). It’s okay to do something new if that is the best thing to do and if it will move you towards your goals more efficiently.

The point of this is to say that, a key part of being successful in life is to have the ability to keep going when things get hard or switch things up when you know something is wrong. And then keep doing that. And keep doing that. And keep doing that.

And, remember, when things don’t go right, go left!

7. Repeat

Success in life does not mean doing these things once and then stopping! You must repeat these things daily in order to achieve success. You can’t just do this process for one week, one month, one year and think that you will achieve success in life.

So you need to define yourself as someone who consistently does these things. You need to be prepared to practise these things on a daily basis. You need to be able to do these things when you are tired, run-down, and fed-up. You need to do them when things are going right and when they are going wrong.

And this applies to all parts. For example, you should not be scared to change how you define success if you feel like you would benefit from changing your definition. Perhaps your reasons why have changed. That is okay! You succeed in life by addressing these things, not ignoring them.

So be prepared to do these things over and over again, no matter how often you need to, and no matter how much energy it takes. That is how you get success in life.

And, crucially, when you start feeling successful, don’t stop doing these things! If you keep doing them then you will achieve more and more success. So learn to love these steps and learn to love doing them habitually.

Conclusion – How to get success in life

The question of how to get success in life does not have to be complicated. When you think about it, these steps are very simple. Do not over-complicate things!

Get clarity by asking yourself how you define success, know why those things mean success to you, take action towards those things and stay focused as you do, don’t let the world around you bring you down and be willing to stay the course or switch things up when they go wrong, and then repeat the process.

Remember that success in your life will be determined by your ability to do these things and your ability to do them on a consistent basis. So start now and you will be on your way to living a successful life!

Further Reading

Think you are already on the way? Check out these 7 things that are clear signs you will be successful in life and see if they match what you think.

Want to be successful but don’t know what you want to do with you life? This post will guide you on exactly how to figure out what to do with your life.