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ADVICE/SUCCEEDING AT WORK /GETTING AHEAD

7 Science-Backed Secrets for
Achieving Success in Life
by
Christina Desmarais of Inc.
Updated
6/19/2020

Success is a subjective notion, if there ever was one.

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SKIP

But for simplicity’s sake, let’s assume the higher you are on Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs, the better you’re doing. In case you don’t remember the
levels from Psych 101, essentially, people can’t be their best possible selves
(self-actualization) until lower-level needs are met first. In other words, you
can’t be an ideal version of yourself if you don’t have enough food
and money to pay the bills, or enough love and esteem to feel good about your
value as a human being.
So, what can you do to move yourself up the pyramid?

Check out the findings from several studies, which shine a light on what it
takes to achieve more in life.

1. Increase Your Confidence by Taking Action

Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, authors of The Confidence Code, wrote a stellar
article for The Atlantic on this subject. Highlighting scads of studies that have
found that a wide confidence gap exists between the sexes, they point out that
success is just as dependent on confidence as it is on competence. Their
conclusion? Low confidence results in inaction. “[T]aking action bolsters one’s
belief in one’s ability to succeed,” they write. “So confidence accumulates—
through hard work, through success, and even through failure.”

2. Broaden Your Definition of Authenticity

Authenticity is a much sought-after leadership trait, with the prevailing idea
being that the best leaders are those who self-disclose, who are true to
themselves, and who make decisions based on their values. Yet in a
recent Harvard Business Review article titled “The Authenticity Paradox,”
Insead professor Herminia Ibarra discusses interesting research on the subject
and tells the cautionary tale of a newly promoted general manager who
admitted to subordinates that she felt scared in her expanded role, asking
them to help her succeed. “Her candor backfired,” Ibarra writes. “She lost
credibility with people who wanted and needed a confident leader to take
charge.” So know this: Play-acting to emulate the qualities of successful
leaders doesn’t make you a fake. It merely means you’re a work in progress.

3. Improve Your Social Skills

According to research by University of California Santa Barbara economist
Catherine Weinberger, the most successful business people excel in both
cognitive ability and social skills, something that hasn’t always been true. She
crunched data linking adolescent skills in 1972 and 1992 with adult outcomes,
and found that in 1980, having both skills didn’t correlate with better success,
whereas today the combination does. “The people who are both smart and
socially adept earn more in today’s workforce than similarly endowed workers
in 1980,” she says.

4. Train Yourself to Delay Gratification

The classic Marshmallow Experiment of 1972 involved placing a marshmallow
in front of a young child, with the promise of a second marshmallow if he or
she could refrain from eating the squishy blob while a researcher stepped out
of the room for 15 minutes. Follow-up studies over the next 40 years found
that the children who were able to resist the temptation to eat the
marshmallow grew up to be people with better social skills, higher test scores,
and lower incidence of substance abuse. They also turned out to be less obese
and better able to deal with stress. But how to improve your ability to delay
things like eating junk food when healthy alternatives aren’t available, or to
remain on the treadmill when you’d rather just stop?
Writer James Clear suggests starting small, choosing one thing to improve
incrementally every day, and committing to not pushing off things that take
less than two minutes to do, such as washing the dishes after a meal or eating
a piece of fruit to work toward the goal of eating healthier. Committing to
doing something every single day works too. “Top performers in every field—
athletes, musicians, CEOs, artists—they are all more consistent than their
peers,” he writes. “They show up and deliver day after day while everyone else
gets bogged down with the urgencies of daily life and fights a constant battle
between procrastination and motivation.”

5. Demonstrate Passion and Perseverance for

Long-Term Goals
Psychologist Angela Duckworth has spent years studying kids and adults and
found that one characteristic is a significant predictor of success: grit. “Grit is
having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for
the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to
make that future a reality,” she said in a TED talk on the subject. “Grit is living
life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

6. Embrace a “Growth Mindset”

According to research conducted by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, how
people view their personality affects their capacity for happiness and success.
Those with a “fixed mindset” believe things like character, intelligence, and
creativity are unchangeable, and avoiding failure is a way of proving skill and
smarts.

People with a “growth mindset,” however, see failure as a way to grow and
therefore embrace challenges, persevere against setbacks, learn from criticism,
and reach higher levels of achievement. “Do people with this mindset believe
that anyone can be anything, that anyone with proper motivation or education
can become Einstein or Beethoven? No, but they believe that a person’s true
potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it’s impossible to foresee what
can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training,” she writes.

7. Invest in Your Relationships

After following the lives of 268 Harvard undergraduate males from the classes
of 1938 to 1940 for decades, psychiatrist George Vaillant concluded something
you probably already know: Love is the key to happiness. Even if a man
succeeded in work, amassed piles of money, and experienced good health,
without loving relationships he wouldn’t be happy, Vaillant found. The
longitudinal study showed happiness depends on two things: “One is love,” he
wrote. “The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love
away.”

More From Inc.

▪ How to Instantly Click With Everyone You Meet
▪ 10 Best Ways to Start a Company
▪ How to Beat Your Competition With Love

Photo of escalator courtesy of Shutterstock.

Inc.com is where you can find everything you need to know to start and grow your business
now. Inc.com is replete with small business ideas, information, and inspiration, as well as
practical advice from those who have done it before.

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