The 8 Pillars of Success in Life

Sometimes, we are blindly chasing after the illusion of success that we forget why we want to be successful in the first place. We live our lives in the illusion of achieving success and unknowingly become the living vehicle of our egos. Until one day, we break down…

So what is it that we need to have in order to achieve a successful life? Whatever success is to you, we have gathered 8 pillars of success that will help you to live a happy life.

1. Physical Health

As obvious as it is, not many of us are doing it right. To achieve optimum quality of health, we need a balance of quality food, moderate exercise, and a healthy lifestyle. Instead, we cheat ourselves by cutting out all ‘bad’ food, eating takeaways on the go to save time, buying ‘healthy’ food at the end of their expiry date to save a dollar, taking unnecessary supplements, working out excessively, glued to our phone, and rely on energy drinks so we can work till we drop. Then we tell ourselves, we are healthy because we are young, we have no sickness… yet. But time will catch up, and we will repay all the debts we owe to our body, plus compound interests and more.

2. Mentality

Apart from the important positive thinking and inner confidence, believing in ourselves is crucial to achieving anything in life. When we have doubts, what-ifs, and buts, we’re planning for a plan B without even giving plan A 100%. Failure is an experience, it’s a stepping stone to a bigger achievement, and when we give all we’ve got, we walk away with valuable lessons no matter what the outcome is. If we want to be rich, we first need to have a rich mentality, and I don’t mean just financially rich. Believing that there’s an abundance of money, food, love, and joy out there, we can afford to give and share, and funny enough, whatever we give in life, always return back to us in buckets, in one form or another. If we believe everything is scarce, we’ll forever be chained to being a beggar. That’s Karma.

3. Personal Growth

Sometimes when we lose sight of the big picture, we forget to live our lives, subsequently slows down our personal growth, yet personal growth sets the limits to our success. It’s great to be a master of one, but we must remain curious and humble. It’s a shame to live in this highly accessible world without knowing much about what else it can offer.

How about a crazy idea, take a month off to travel solo, an unfamiliar environment will do these things to us:

• Force us to calm down and restore inner peace.
• Distract and pull us away from the tunnel of success.
• Broaden our hearts and mind.
• Teach us to find ways around obstacles.
• Learn to be independent and responsible.
• Pop the comfort zone bubble and expand our potentials.
• Find our inner alignments
• Give us time to really understand what we truly want in life.

4. EQ

Having emotions is what makes us human, but emotions can also be a double-edged dagger. We all have an evil twin that lives inside our heads, feasting and manifesting on our negative emotions, it is up to our true selves to conquer it. Try visualizing throwing our evil twin to a fire pit, or withdrawing emotions into a box before speaking. If we can manage to separate emotions in every situation, refuse to let them linger on, we may do things differently, and make different decisions. This in turn makes us more rational, empathetic, solution-focused, patient, and have better relationships with people. It takes years to build trust and respect, but only seconds to destroy them.

My rule of thumb is, if it’s a situation I can change, change it. If I can’t change it, remove myself from it. If I can’t remove myself from it, then accept it and make the best out of it. Let tomorrow’s problems be tomorrow’s worry. Stay present. Being emotional can’t solve problems nor can it make a rainy day disappear, however, we may feel today, the clock will keep ticking, so might as well spend our energy wisely.

5. Family

It’s so easy to take advantage of the closest people around us, because they give us a false impression that they’ll always be there. So naturally, we dump our distress and frustration to them and lose that layer of distance called respect. Our families are usually the first victims to suffer from this egoic attack, yet they can be the strongest backbone to support us when we fall. They are our safety net, just how tall can we stand without a backbone, give them the time, attention and priority they deserve, because ‘unconditional’ love always comes with conditions in this imperfect world.

6. Face Fears Head On

The biggest enemy to fears, is courage. We all have fears, it is what we do to fears that separate us from the mediocre. Face it head-on, quite often we’ll find they’re much scarier in our minds than in reality. Each time we conquer a weakness, we grow stronger, when we grow stronger, windows of opportunities open up and the journey ahead becomes easier. When we face fears, we uncover true potentials and gain inner confidence that makes us one step closer to achieving success.

7. Separate Personal and Business

When it comes to business and career, switch on, when it comes to personal matters, switch off. Keeping the balance between the two is easier said than done, but it’s crucial not to mix them together if we want to go far in life. Step out of the comfort zone, refrain from doing business with friends and family, or tapping into their personal connections, business is rational and profit-driven, personal is emotional and love-driven. It’s so much easier to say no to an unprofitable situation than upsetting our dear old friend for not doing them a favor at our own loss.

8. Other People… Let Them Be. 

Dad always said, what others think of you is none of your business. The voice is theirs, we have no control over it nor can we change it, whatever they may feel about you is their emotions, not yours. We can only truly breathe freely once we understand that. Only then, can we be ourselves, and enjoy the freedom of being wonderfully unique. Only then, can we live life to the fullest, and do what our hearts desire. Only then, can we be truly happy and successful. Care less, and live more.

What do you think the pillars of success are?