How to Be Successful in Life: 12 Principles to Live By

Are you struggling to achieve the success you deserve? Have you ever wondered what it takes to unlock the secrets of success and live a life that truly resonates with your dreams?

If the answer is yes, then you're in for a treat. Join us to examine the fundamentals of success! Welcome to the ultimate guide, “How to Be Successful in Life: 12 Principles to Live By,” where we'll uncover the 12 principles that empower individuals to soar to monumental heights.

Whether you're looking to supercharge your career, enrich personal relationships, or find inner peace, these principles are your blueprint for a thriving existence.

So buckle up as we explore the essentials of success, complete with practical tips and inspiration to keep you motivated!

Let’s get started.

How to Be Successful in Life: 12 Principles

1. Practice Self-Discipline and Willpower

Self-discipline and willpower are crucial in pursuing long-term success, as they empower individuals to delay gratification and resist the temptation of immediate pleasures.

At the core of consistency lies the ability to establish and maintain daily habits that support one's ambitions.

Top performers across various fields know how to commit to their goals, prioritizing incremental improvement over quick wins. By using willpower and self-discipline, you can effectively manage procrastination and distractions, ensuring that you remain focused on your goals.

How To Increase Willpower and Self-Discipline

Setting and achieving small goals is instrumental in building self-discipline, as it allows for gradually developing willpower. As motivation ebbs and flows, the discipline developed through consistent action becomes the driving force for progress.

By mastering the art of delayed gratification, individuals can nurture the patience required to see long-term projects through to completion. Goal achievement, therefore, is not merely the result of inspiration but a testament to one's ability to stay dedicated and persevere through challenges, regardless of immediate outcomes.

Ultimately, the synergy between self-discipline and willpower forms a solid foundation for personal and professional growth. Those who persistently cultivate these traits will be better equipped for success.

For more inspiration, here are some Eric Thomas quotes on motivation and success.

2. Experiment

Start making small changes in the same permanent conditions you’ve always lived in. If you start by changing yourself and developing good habits, then everything in your life can begin to change–and often, the thing you need to change about yourself is your perspective. And the critical thing to note here is that there can be a subtle difference between success and failure. Your path to success may be blocked by a few minor judgment errors that you repeat daily.

You may think, “I took the elevator instead of the stairs again today, and it still hasn’t impacted me, so it’s fine.” However, this mindset and error in judgment will lead to the eventual development of chronic diseases down the road. These small mistakes will cost you in the end.

Now, let’s look at someone who experimented with small changes that led to career success, perhaps the top sales rep at a company or a highly demanded real estate agent. These people may have implemented minor changes to their routine, such as writing personal thank-you notes to their clients or following up several months later to ensure they are still satisfied. These small decisions can add up and make a huge difference.

The only thing that this kind of career success requires is discipline, which is essential for advancement. You have the unique ability to influence change in your life. You must consciously engage in actions that can compound and succeed in the long run. And the truth is you need to work every day for years before you become successful in life.

You won’t find your ultimate success in an ad you see online for a three-day conference or a new “proprietary blend” supplement that promises to melt fat away. If these things worked, everyone would be successful.

Finding success doesn’t come at a magical moment when everything falls into place. It’s more about the more minor (and sometimes seemingly insignificant) moments that happen in between. It’s in the moments when you’re happy and soaking in your surroundings because you feel a sense of gratitude for your life.

And the fact is that these moments can happen even if you are currently in a career or situation far from your ultimate long-term goal. Without taking these baby steps to achieve success, you can’t be sure if what you’re chasing is something you genuinely want or think you want.

3. Try to Have a Positive Mindset At All Times

A positive mindset is one of the most potent tools for success. Mindset influences how we perceive challenges and adversities.

Adopting an optimistic outlook enables people to transform setbacks into learning opportunities, fostering resilience and mental toughness.

Mindsets of Success (and the ones holding your back):

• Competitive Mindset: Strives to achieve personal best but may sometimes lead to unhealthy rivalry if unchecked.
• Growth Mindset: Embraces challenges and views failures as opportunities for learning and development.
• Fixed Mindset: Believes abilities are static and avoids challenges, hindering personal and professional growth.
• Positive Mindset: Focuses on opportunities and solutions, fostering resilience and motivation.
• Negative Mindset: Dwells on obstacles and discouragement, often leading to stagnation.
• Creative Mindset: Encourages innovative thinking and openness to new ideas, driving progress and adaptability.
• Risk Tolerance: Willingness to take calculated risks and embrace uncertainty, leading to growth and success.
• Coping Skills: Managing stress and overcoming challenges, promoting mental well-being and perseverance.
• Self-Encouragement: Using positive self-talk to boost confidence and motivation, helping overcome self-doubt.
• Positive Thinking: Approaches situations with a positive attitude, generating more favorable outcomes.
• Resilience: Bouncing back from setbacks and adversity, persevering towards goals even in the face of challenges.
• Fear-Based Mindset: Driven by anxiety and fear of failure, restricting risk-taking and innovation.
• Collaborative Mindset: Values teamwork and diverse perspectives, enhancing learning and success through synergy.

4. Seek Out Mentors

While you may think you can gain all of the knowledge that you need in books, the truth is that most authors don’t reveal everything about their experiences or struggles in the books that they write. Instead, personal connections with someone can boost your self-confidence and reassure you.

Find people who are already “successful” in your mind, no matter what that looks like to you. If you think success means finding life-long love, research the habits of the happiest couples together for decades. If you want to start your own business, find some successful entrepreneurs whose businesses have taken off from where they started.

Having a mentor or a role model will give you a personal guide to achieving the greatness that you desire. When you learn through other people’s experiences, you can learn from their mistakes and success stories. Many people who view the world as successful today start with a mentor.

One study found that 80% of CEOs reported having a mentor before achieving their success.

However, don’t confuse having a mentor with having a boss. A mentor isn’t there to pick up your slack or give you so much feedback that they are essentially doing the work themselves.

A mentor just provides helpful, constructive criticism so you can help yourself.

The important thing about your success is that you’re creating it in the unique way you want to. Having your mentor decide for you means giving up the freedom to make your journey.

While you want to hear about someone else’s mistakes who has already been in your shoes, you won’t learn from them like you will learn from your mistakes.

Learn more about finding and working with a mentor.

5. Develop a Growth Mindset

Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck's research into the growth mindset, reveals its profound impact on the success and personal development.

Unlike a fixed mindset that views intelligence and innate talents as static traits, a growth mindset embraces challenges and sees intelligence and talents as things that can be improved with effort.

This mental framework is built on the belief that abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work, fostering resilience and mental toughness. It encourages individuals to learn from experiences, seeing failures as stepping stones rather than obstacles.

A growth mindset is crucial in cultivating key attributes such as character and emotional intelligence. As a result, those with a growth mindset often exhibit a more robust character, equipped to handle criticism constructively while maintaining focus on long-term goals.

Furthermore, embracing a growth mindset can lead to more fulfilling and successful personal and professional lives. Its focus on continuous learning aligns with the demands of modern environments that require adaptability and innovation.

Integrating a growth mindset into everyday practices allows you to develop the flexibility needed to thrive in an ever-evolving world. This mindset enhances intelligence and competence and enriches character, providing a solid foundation for sustained success and personal fulfillment.

6. Check-In With Yourself Regularly

To increase your chances of success, you need to consistently monitor, evaluate, and adjust your approach and methods. You must also work to avoid complacency and continue to meet your greater standards. You also need to check in with yourself to ensure that you’re still passionate about what you’re doing and that all of the work you are putting forth will ultimately be worth the time you have spent.

One of the best ways to stay motivated and accountable is to write down the specific tasks involved in demonstrating exceptional work that will guide you toward your definition of success. Then, write down what a complacent execution of work would look like.

Finally, describe the steps you plan to take to avoid the lesser of the two habits. Check this list regularly to see where your work falls in this range. (Keeping a journal, like many successful and famous people do, is also a good way of checking in with yourself regularly.)

Having power over your direction in life means you have to set performance standards that lie somewhere between complacency and perfection.

7. Set Goals – The SMART Way

Setting clear, achievable goals is critical in the journey toward success, as it provides a structured pathway.

The SMART goal framework—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound—serves as an effective goal-setting guide, ensuring each goal is well-defined and attainable.

By aligning your goals with your values and ensuring they are relevant to your long-term aspirations, you strengthen your self-esteem and commitment.

The specificity of SMART goals allows you to chart progress and celebrate small victories, which boosts motivation along the way. Adding time-bound deadlines encourages a sense of urgency and keeps you on track.

Moreover, distinguishing between short- and long-term goals and scheduling them on a calendar can help balance immediate needs with future ambitions, ultimately fostering a more organized and driven pursuit of success.

Learn more about SMART goal setting and grab some excellent tools:

• 13 Steps to Write & Set SMART Goals
• 13 Free Printable SMART Goals Worksheets
• 35 SMART Goals Examples for All Areas of Your Life
• 14 SMART Goals Templates to Edit, Download, and Print

8. Take a Break

There is a difference between taking a break and avoiding doing work. You will easily experience burnout if you do not take the necessary healthy breaks to rejuvenate your mind. Learn how to recognize the signs of mental fatigue and take the time to rest and recuperate.

You can allow your mind and body to rest by scheduling breaks into your calendar, just as you do with meetings. Make these breaks a priority and treat them as firm appointments.

You can do anything during these breaks if they take your mind off your goal. This can be anything from going for a short walk in the middle of the day to going on a week’s vacation. Just as long as you don’t spend every waking hour solely concentrating on the success you crave.

9. Learn How to Brainstorm

I’m sure you’ve heard this term often, but do you know what it means? One of the guidelines for success in life involves letting your brain go–whether by yourself or in collaboration with others. This means you release your hang-ups and objections, take an idea, and run with it. Don’t plan your train of thought or its final destination; think freely.

Brainstorming is used to generate ideas, engage in creative problem-solving, and learn through inquiry. When brainstorming is used for problem-solving in a team environment, it incorporates team members' diverse experiences to increase the depth of the ideas being explored, meaning you can typically come up with better solutions to problems than when thinking on your own.

When you’re inquiry learning, you explore the targeted issue by asking questions, making discoveries, gaining a new understanding, and fulfilling your curiosities. (Read our post on idea generation to learn other ways to develop new ideas.)

If you’re having a brainstorming session with a group, you have to let go of your ego or fear of saying something completely unrealistic. Your outlandish thought could trigger someone else to morph it into a practical idea. This collective thought process will allow you to develop your ideas through diverse thought processes.

However, for a brainstorming session to be practical in a group setting, everyone has to be comfortable enough with each other to be willing to share. Otherwise, someone may hold back from saying something that will solve the problem.

Group brainstorming is great for generating ideas that may not arise during a normal problem-solving conversation. However, studies have suggested that brainstorming solo may result in more and even better ideas than when working with a group.

If you’re brainstorming alone, you must get your brain to think outside of your everyday routine by considering ideas without considering their practicality. By thinking without boundaries, you may come up with a solution that initially seems completely unreasonable; however, the process lets you open up your range of thought, eventually leading to the right solution.

This can be done more effectively individually than in a group setting because groups can often be distracting when people don’t follow a brainstorming behavior protocol. Also, if you’re paying all your attention to others in the group, you may not generate your ideas.

To leverage your individual brainstorming, find a place where distractions are minimal and you can focus. Brainstorming sessions can truly spark success in your life because they may be when you have a “lightbulb moment” that improves your entire method of working.

After your brainstorming session, whether with a group or by yourself, you will have many ideas to sort through. Pick the best and analyze them to see if they can be integrated. If you can’t find a purpose for all of your ideas, write them down for later use. 

Tools and lessons for improved brainstorming sessions:

• 11 Mind Map Template Websites & Apps
• 6 Rules for an Effective Brainstorming Session
• 11 Best Brain Dump Apps to Upload Your Ideas

10. Stop Seeking Validation

If you want to know how to be successful in life, you won’t find it if you rely on everyone around you to approve your work and ideas. When it comes to your success, do it your way. If you feel you’re on the right track, you don’t need other people to validate that.

Ask yourself if you are living the life that you want. If you believe that you are, it means you’re achieving success. If you decide you’re not living the life you want, figure out what changes you need to make and implement them.

However, don’t let other people who may have their own biases impact your thinking. While people may think they know the best thing for you, you’re the only one who does. You need to trust yourself, and you will recognize that you know exactly what you’re doing.

Instead of validation, seek inspiration. Here are 15 short inspirational stories with a motivating moral.

11. Surround Yourself With Greatness

You have probably heard the suggestion that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

If you surround yourself with successful people, you will also become successful. People fail by themselves; they need supporters, partners, and other people who inspire them to increase the chance of success.

The key to picking the people you spend the most time with is ensuring you choose those exponentially superior to you in several ways. If you’re the most competent person in the room, you lose the opportunity to challenge and improve yourself.

As you find yourself in new stages of your journey to success, your five people may come and go. For example, the people with whom you spend the most time during the inception of your vision of success will probably evolve as their roles change and you make new contacts.

Your lifelong friendships will always be there for you, but you must focus your relevant time suitably on achieving success. If there are people you know who can help teach you, inspire you, or help you improve, make it a point to spend time with them.

Alternatively, if people in your life do not share your values, are harmful, self-absorbed, or detrimental to your success in some way, gracefully cut them out.

12. Improve 1% Every Day***

I put stars next to the title for this one to highlight the importance. Daily incremental improvements are the most powerful tools for success.

If you want to know how to be successful in life, you have to realize that you must take on the role of being a life-long learner. You won’t achieve success overnight. You must take consistent action, test various ideas, fail, get back up, and slowly see your growth. Just like in finances, the power of compounding your growth is an unstoppable force.

But how do you define 1%?

Well, you don’t. But this refers to improving yourself just a bit every day. While it is hard to measure, think of it this way: if you improve 1% daily, it will be a 3800% improvement in one year. Alternatively, if you become 1% worse every day, your value will decrease by 97% in that year.

Maintaining this growth mindset allows you to take every opportunity to be a better employee, student, spouse, parent, doctor, writer, or whatever. Success never happens in one day. But if you continue to improve yourself every day, you will be successful.

Let’s look at an example. You want to be successful by completing a marathon. Here is what most people would do (and how it breaks down):

Now, let’s look at what a successful marathoner would do:

The key part of these is that the “normal” view tries to make running an “addition” to a routine. The second (successful) plan views this as an essential habit to the daily routine—no different than showering in the morning and brushing your teeth—something you do when you are up, down, depressed, angry, or busy.

While it may be easier to just do what is needed to get by, if you take advantage of every opportunity that can create extraordinary returns and boost the quality of your work, success is within reach.

You don't need earth-shattering improvements. 1% every day will reach any success goal in the long run.

The Importance of Success

Many obsess about success and what it takes to become successful. If we fail in our lives, we may look to the past with utter disappointment regarding everything we could have accomplished but didn't.

Personal growth and success depend on what we believe our greater purpose is and how that will impact ourselves and others. So, what is the importance of success?

Success makes us more confident and secure. It gives us a greater sense of well-being and allows us to contribute more. It will enable us to understand hope and leadership. Without success, our goals, dreams, and passions may not survive.

Final Thoughts on How to Lead a Successful Life

Your success ultimately comes down to your actions, perceptions, and attitudes.

There are many tips out there on how to be successful in life, but unless you are proactive in doing the work required, you will find yourself settling for a life that isn’t what you dreamed it to be.

Remember: Having a goal is half the battle. You need to have a plan and take action.

Now that you have finished reading these guidelines on how to be a more successful person, take advantage of the ideas that sound unique to you and tailor them to fit into your success plan. I hope that using these principles helps you find fulfillment in your endeavors and achieve what you believe to be the epitome of success.

Finally, if you want to take your goal-setting efforts to the next level, check out this FREE printable worksheet and a step-by-step process that will help you set effective SMART goals.