The Key To Success.
In my point of view.
Everyone’s definition of success is different. For some, it could be raising money whereas for others it could be achieving their goal. Either way, success is a process — it takes effort, dedication, perseverance, and smartness. So although success may look different for different people, the one similarity is that everyone has to work hard to be successful for themselves.
In my perspective, success can become a trap, like a never-ending whirlpool, if we’re not thoughtful in our decisions. It’s like, “oh I climbed this mountain, now let me try the even taller one.” It’s good to keep getting better and trying to achieve more and more, but to what extent and what cost?
Therefore, today we’re going to look into the “key” to success, using a personal experience, and how to not burn yourself out while conquering the world.
Learn.
Newsflash: No one is the best at everything.
There are always going to be people better than us, and that’s a beautiful thing because it gives us the opportunity to learn. We may not be the best at everything right now, but having something or someone to learn from is a blessing. If we are constantly learning and absorbing information, then we can keep processing and get better. And, to do this, we need to have an open mindset and remember that everyone and everything has something to offer.
How this has helped me: I wanted to try a different dance style for a project I was working on but had no prior knowledge of it. So I enlisted the help of a friend who does contemporary dance, asking her to show me some of the movements. After watching her dance, doing it with her (and failing countless times), and asking her questions, I was finally able to recreate some of those steps in my own style.
Notice that learning how to do some steps was a process (and required an open mind), but it proved useful because it helped me get one step closer to my goal of performing with contemporary moves.
Small Successes.
Speaking of getting one step closer, one of the most important things in the world is to keep celebrating the small successes we achieve. Why?
Well, it’s the little signs of progress that eventually lead up to the big checkmark. If we don’t keep pushing forward, no matter how big or small those pushes are, we may never be able to reach our goal, achieve our dreams, or be successful. Celebrating these small instances of life keeps the momentum going and positivity flowing.
It’s like this: once I was able to recreate some of the contemporary moves into my own, I was able to stitch larger sequences of the dance together — only because of the eight-beat moves I had originally learned. But if I hadn’t learned the smaller, basic moves beforehand, then choreographing the whole dance would not have worked as well (or at all).
It is important to remember that these little things not only motivate us to keep going but are also the stepping stones on the bigger path to success.
Mistakes.
Now, we talked about achievements, so what about failures? Based on what I’ve seen, we tend to shy away from making mistakes. I understand why, but let’s put this in a different way: without failures, we wouldn’t keep growing and getting better. So, in a way, mistakes are just as important as our achievements (if not more) because they, well, lead us down the path to success.
It’s not the mistakes that define us — it’s how we react or cope with them that makes us who we are. Are we letting them get to our head too much? Or are we taking action and learning from them?
When I was learning the dance steps, I fell numerous times. Literally. One time it was from being off-balance while the other was from doing it completely wrong. There are two ways I could’ve handled the falls. I could’ve given up and told her that I wasn’t going to get it. Or I could’ve kept going and maybe took it a beat slower to really learn it before quickening the pace.
The difference between the two is what determined whether or not I learned the movements. It’s the difference between being successful or letting failure make me quit.
People.
Part of not getting trapped is having at least one trustworthy companion along the way. This person should be able to keep us grounded, guide us in the right direction, celebrate our successes, and walk through our failures with us. They would be the person who would be with us when we think we have no one. However, it’s not just about having the person, it’s about, once again, having an open mindset to listen and learning from the feedback they give.
If I didn’t have that friend in my life, I wouldn’t have learned those small dance steps, which led me to create larger steps and into the whole dance later on. When I fell down, she gave me her hand. When I finally got the step, she jumped up and down with me. When I had questions, she answered them. And when I got carried away with a harder step that she knew I couldn’t do yet, she put me back on track. It’s because I had her, a trustworthy companion, that I was able to choreograph the whole dance — no YouTube video would’ve done the job better.
Having someone like that is crucial in a journey to success because we would have the extrinsic motivation to keep going, even when we think we can’t. So instead of quitting in between, we have someone to push us to keep going, and the cycle repeats.
Self-Motivation.
Passion and Perseverance. The Double-P couple is like the cherry on top of all the former. Regardless of whether we learn, celebrate small successes, make mistakes, and have the right people in our lives, we won’t achieve our goals without the self-motivation to do so.
The whole story of being able to choreograph the dance started with my passion for wanting to do so. With the passion, no matter how much I failed, I got back up because I was motivated to keep going, so I persevered towards my goal. The difference between having self-motivation and not is that with one, I can and will keep going whereas with the other, I’ll just brush it off.
With passion comes motivation, bringing in perseverance. We won’t give up because of how much it matters to us, and that’s what facilitates being successful. It’s often said, “when you feel like quitting, remember why you started,” because we’re reminded of our goal and remotivated to keep going.
Don’t Burn Yourself Down.
We should not let the desire to be successful trap us. It’s an endless spiral of wanting to get better and better and do more and more. But the cost of this should not put us at risk. If we don’t give ourselves breaks or stoppage points along the journey, then once we finally reach the goal, we’ll be tired and burned out from all the work. So all our hard work would’ve paid off, but we wouldn’t even have the energy to celebrate it.
That dance lesson spanned across multiple days. I knew that if I tried to cram everything into one day, then I wouldn’t have been able to learn everything (because my brain would overload) and I would tire myself out. But when I spread out the lessons into 1–1.5 hour intervals, I still learned a good amount, was happy with my progress, and wasn’t dragging myself to continue the process.
If we don’t learn to give ourselves breaks or stop when necessary, our journey will be more of a burden than anything. We’ll be demotivated and want to give up. Knowing that this is all a trap will help us not get sucked into it and give us the willpower to break, and then come back ready the next time.
So, what’s the key to success?
You. How you learn, how you act, how you make decisions, and how you maintain balance in your life.
Thanks for reading! Until next time, stay safe, happy, and healthy.
