The Key To Success
- Successful people have been studied in depth for more than
100 years. They have been interviewed extensively to determine
what it is they do and how they think that enables them to
accomplish so much more than the average person.
In my writings, you learn
the most important single factor of long-term success and
how you can build it into your personality and your attitude.
You learn how to virtually guarantee yourself a great future.
The Harvard Discovery on Success
In 1970, sociologist Dr. Edward
Banfield of Harvard University wrote a book entitled The Unheavenly
City. He described one of the most profound studies on success
and priority setting ever conducted.
Banfield’s goal was
to find out how and why some people became financially independent
during the course of their working lifetimes. He started off
convinced that the answer to this question would be found
in factors such as family background, education, intelligence,
influential contacts, or some other concrete factor. What
he finally discovered was that the major reason for success
in life was a particular attitude of mind.
Develop Long Time Perspective
Banfield called this attitude
“long time perspective.” He said that men and
women who were the most successful in life and the most likely
to move up economically were those who took the future into
consideration with every decision they made in the present.
He found that the longer the period of time a person took
into consideration while planning and acting, the more likely
it was that he would achieve greatly during his career.
For example, one of the reasons
your family doctor is among the most respected people in America
is because he or she has invested many years of hard work
and study to finally earn the right to practice medicine.
After university courses,
internship, residency and practical training, a doctor may
be more than 30 years old before he or she is capable of earning
a good living. But from that point onward, these men and women
are some of the most respected and most successful professional
people in any society. They had long time perspectives.
Measure the Potential Future
Impact
The key to success in setting
priorities is having a long time perspective. You can tell
how important something is today by measuring its potential
future impact on your life.
For example, if you come home
from work at night and choose to play with your children or
spend time with your spouse, rather than watch TV or read
the paper, you have a long time perspective. You know that
investing time in the health and happiness of your children
and your spouse is a very valuable, high-priority use of time.
The potential future impact of quality time with your family
is very high.
If you take additional courses
in the evening to upgrade your skills and make yourself more
valuable to your employer, you’re acting with a long
time perspective. Learning something practical and useful
can have a long-term effect on your career.
Practice Delayed Gratification
Economists say that the inability
to delay gratification-that is, the natural tendency of individuals
to spend everything they earn plus a little bit more, and
the mind-set of doing what is fun, easy and enjoyable-is the
primary cause of economic and personal failure in life. On
the other hand, disciplining yourself to do what you know
is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad
to pride, self-esteem and personal satisfaction.
The long term comes soon enough,
and every sacrifice that you make today will be rewarded with
compound interest in the great future that lies ahead for
you.
Action Exercises:
Here are three steps you can
take immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, think long-term. Sit
down today and write out a description of your ideal life
ten and twenty years into the future. This automatically develops
longer-time perspective.
Second, look at everything
you do in terms of its long-term potential impact on your
life. Do more things that have greater long-term value to
you.
Third, develop the habit of
delaying gratification in small things, small expenditures,
small pleasures, so that you can enjoy greater rewards and
greater satisfaction in the future.
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