Korea Institute of Psycho-education: What to learn from successful people

When people achieve their goal in life, they are referred to as successful people. If you want to succeed, you must first know what your interests are and decide on the direction you want to take. Then, you can set the goal and pursue values of life. Values of life can be categorized into financial values, relational values, and social values. When you make efforts in the right direction without digression to achieve your goal, you will find yourself getting closer to success. Humans are designed to pursue happiness with self-actualization. They set goals and pursue values of life for self-actualization. In the pursuit of values of life, the process is more important than the result of success by giving you the sense of achievement through overcoming difficulties. The immersion into what you pursue with passion is more important than the achievement itself to make you feel the sense of fulfillment.

You must continuously make efforts with the will power to pursue values of life. Success never comes from luck but from effort. If you are born with everything you can ask for in life, you don't have to make any effort and don't have to pursue self-actualization. Then, you may indulge yourself with only fun and pleasure but you cannot achieve happiness and success since you don't pursue self-actualization.

You must form habits of success to be able to achieve success. Habits are formed only through constant practice and any great idea is of no use unless it is put into actions. You must begin by setting a small and practical goal to form habits of success. You can set bigger and bigger goals gradually and you can form habits of success and abilities for great achievement. When you set too high a goal, you are more likely to give up and form habits of failure since it is too difficult.

Everyone wants to become successful but only a small number of people end up being successful. Naturally, people try to learn about how to succeed from successful people's experiences. What you must learn from successful people is not how they have made the achievement in their field but their will power and effort in the process of the pursuit of their goal. The will power and efforts come from hope, and successful people acquire and accumulate knowledge and put their ideas into actions one by one. Putting your ideas into practice means that you build the will power and keep making efforts. Each practice is accumulated to make values of your life increase. Then, you will also grow confidence and ability to solve problems and cope with crises, which in turn charge you with more energy and passion for even further pursuit of values of life.

One of the most important factor in achieving success is one's own experience. It is to put your ideas and knowledge into practice. Through first-hand experience, you go through trials and errors learning what more you need and building problem solving abilities. No one can succeed with only one try in an easy way. Every successful person has experienced trials and errors and continued to try without losing hope. They enjoy the process, overcome difficulties, and continue to generate passion for further challenge.

Success in one area does not mean that your whole life is a successful one, and any life is to go through ups and downs. If you just focus on seeking pleasure thinking that you are in golden days of your life, you will soon fall into dark days in the near future. People who achieve success in a true sense never choose to stay in the present comfort and never stop pursuing self-actualization based on their experience of success.

Many people give up right before reaching the summit not because it is impossible to climb the cliff but because they think it is impossible. One's thought results in one's action and negative thoughts will lead you to stop going forward. On the other hand, there are some people who achieve success with only one try. They may easily collapse since they lack experiences as well as habits and abilities of success. Therefore, there is not much to learn from people who have succeeded with good luck. Any path to success is long and rough and it is strange and scary to anyone. You will fall and get confused many times. People without strong will power for their goal will easily give up but people with strong will power will keep going making trials and errors until they find their own ways.

The more experiences you have, the more abilities you can build for problem solving. People with abilities for success always focus on restoration and make efforts when they are faced with crises. You don't have to fear making mistakes since you are just building abilities through trials and errors. However, you cannot go closer to your goal if you avoid or give up.

To be able to achieve success in life, knowledge and experience are necessary elements. However, many people fail because they just try to follow the experiences of successful people without their own knowledge and experience. Some people even try to follow the successful people's life itself. Then, they are imitating other people's life instead of living their own life and their life becomes a clear failure. Life is to accumulate the whole range of facts and emotions through unique experiences and imitating other people's life without making efforts with your own knowledge and experience may simply lead you nowhere.

It would be ignorant of you to try to learn about the know-how of success from successful people since success is possible only when you make efforts with your own knowledge and experience. The only thing you can learn from successful people is their strong will power, efforts, and perseverance. No one can succeed without numerous trials and errors. Those who hold onto hope and make efforts even in the worst situation will find the way to success and those who do not will fail. You must find your own way to success. When you follow the path other people have taken, you may lose the way in spite of yourself. Other people's methods of success cannot be your method of success.

You may want to learn about how to succeed from successful people since you want to reach the destination in easy and comfortable ways. Then, you could take a shortcut and wouldn't have to make efforts with strong will power. However, the shortcut is what the successful people have found with their will power and effort not with yours. It must always be kept in mind that you must learn the successful people's will power and effort not the specific methods of success.