Being successful in Nigeria is not an easy feat to achieve. So many factors are involved. Most people believe formal education is the only way one can attain success but that is not always the case. If you decide to measure success through educational achievements alone, you might want to know that industrialists like Innocent Chukwuma (Innoson) stopped at secondary school. Maybe, when you want to refer to academic success you can then use people’s educational attainment as the yardstick for measuring success. But remember, many Ph.D. holders do not know what to do with their certificates.
Furthermore, it will be out of place to determine success based on financial achievement. Success, in the context of this essay, refers to one’s ability to reach the peak of his endeavour. Endeavour here could be anything. For instance, some people wish to be their possible best in medicine. Some want to become exceptionally good at playing football, scrabble, chess, or any other games. Some may wish their businesses to thrive. And there are those that wish to reach the top position in their offices. All these are examples of success. Hence, people become successful if they achieve their aims.
As mentioned earlier, for a person to become successful, he must have some characteristics that set him apart from others. They do ordinary things in extraordinary ways. One interesting thing about these people is that they all exhibit the same behaviour. All of them, irrespective of age, gender, race, or religion, have the right qualities that pushed them up.
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Characteristics of Successful People
Based on observation, the following are the characteristics of successful people:
a. Ambitious: The desire to reach higher peaks is one factor that drives these people. A person that is not ambitious cannot push through hurdles that might stand in the way to success. Apart from that, non-ambitious people easily get contented and so find no reasons to “stress” themselves with climbing the next rung. However, the ambitious never settle; their success is their motivation for the next move.
b. Constant Learning: These people never stop learning. They are aware that they don’t know it all and so are willing to learn more. They don’t undermine people’s ideas because they believe knowledge and information can come from anywhere. These people are the reason knowledge is said to hold power.
c. Risk Taking: The people that fear taking risks might find it hard to grow. Like people say, if something becomes easy to accomplish, it will become children’s plaything. This means that if a task is easy to accomplish, it will become flooded. Hence, only those that can take risks can push into unfamiliar grounds and conquer. This quality has been exhibited by all the successful people I know. In fact, those risks they took gave them their biggest breaks. Nevertheless, their risks were well-planned out; they went for things they could control if they achieve them.
d. Building Great Network: This is one major tool for anyone that wishes to reach the peak. Based on my observation, nobody has been able to get to that peak alone; someone must have pulled them up. Note the word “pull”, which is not “push”. This means that people below you can push you up but their help is limited. However, only those up there can help you to the peak. Hence, make the right connections as you move and never feel guilty or ashamed to use them.
e. Grabbing Opportunities: Abilities to identify an opportunity when it walks-by is a skill possessed by these people. Sometimes their opportunities come accidentally; other times they come fully prepared. Like many people, they have also grabbed wrong opportunities at one time or the other but, unlike many others, they do not settle with them. This is to say that if what you hold doesn’t give you what you desired, drop it and seek for another. But keep vigilant because opportunity hardly looks the way it is expected.
f. Moving from Known to the Unknown: Most successful people started their pursuit from the areas they are familiar with. It is after they have settled that they began to plunge into new territories to test the waters. If their adventure does not favour them, they move back to their known territory and continue operating from there until they gain enough grounds to take another leap. Also, these men and women begin their journeys from the simple to the complex. They may not start small, but they don’t always start big and multifaceted. They take their baby steps and gradually grow until their feet are deeply planted. It is only then they begin to take those leaps that land them their big breaks.
In summary, for you to get to that peak, remember to imbibe the following: never settle for less; keep improving on yourself; study what you are plunging into; take chances; make friends wherever you go; and begin with what you know.
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