Success isn’t something that’s cut and dry. How successful someone ends up being is
dependent on a wide variety of factors, including genes, attitude, personality,
and- quite simply- luck.
But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything that you can do to
affect your own success. All else being
equal, the person who develops the necessary skills to succeed will end up more
successful than the person who doesn’t.
Of course, the skills that would be successful for someone in, say,
engineering would be entirely different than the skills necessary for someone
to succeed in retail. But there are some
skills that bridge the gap between fields and situations, general skills that
really anyone in any field can use to get ahead.
One good example is critical thinking. No matter where life takes you, knowing how
to evaluate a situation and puzzle your way through a problem will help you out
immensely. Whether you’re trying to find
a foothold in a saturated market or navigate the treacherous waters of city
building codes critical thinking will serve you well. However, it is a tough skill to learn. Websites like criticalthinking.org can help
by offering suggestions on how to work through problems logically, but in the
end it’s a skill that you’ll only learn by trying.
Another excellent life skill that everyone should learn is
networking. Networking is so much more
than the pale definition bandied around by business seminars. At its base, networking is the act of
building a community of relationships that can help support you in your various
endeavors. It’s more than knowing
someone who can either get you a job or find you a client, it’s knowing people
who can connect you to a greater pool of knowledge and ideas. If you want to be a mover and shaker, someone
with their finger on the pulse of modern life, work on building your network.
And when all else fails, knowing how to research will put you head
and shoulders above your competition.
Someone who understands how to properly research a problem is never
truly at a loss. And given the sheer
amount of information out in there it’s more likely that knowing how to find
the solution to a problem will be more useful than trying to memorize every thing
you could possibly need to know.
All of these skills are useful no matter what you decide to do or
what field you end up in. And the lessons that you learn while developing them
are keys to your success, if only you’re willing to take them.
