Dr. Chris Friesen, Ph.D. is a psychologist who has always been fascinated by what makes people successful.
He is a licensed clinical, forensic, and neuropsychologist that now primarily helps professional, national/Olympic, and up-and-coming elite athletes, as well as other high achievers such as professionals, entrepreneurs, executives, academics, and writers, achieve their personal and professional potential.
He is the author of “Achieve: Find Out Who You Are, What You Really Want, And How To Make It Happen”
“He who has a why can bear almost any how” ~Fredrich Nietzche
1. You Must Have a Strong Why
If you want to succeed in any area of life, you need to have a powerful why to back up your goals.
With a strong enough why, you can push through any challenge, overcome any obstacle, and succeed at any endeavor you set your mind to.
However, if you do not have a strong reason for achieving your goals, your hopes and dreams will be relegated to “someday” and never achieved.
2. You Have to Know Yourself
One of the most important aspects of success is self-knowledge.
If you do not understand what makes you tick and how you can operate at optimal levels, you will constantly be in an internal battle with yourself.
You need to have a deep understanding of your personality and your character so that you can design a lifestyle around yourself and how you work best instead of living a lifestyle designed someone else.
3. You Need to Know What You Value
Once you understand who you are in terms of your personality tendencies, the next step is to understand your values.
You can be highly invested in a career that is perfect for your personality but completely incongruent with your values and you will be miserable.
Take some time and figure out what is truly important to you.
Do you value family, freedom, financial success, happiness, or your social life?
Once you know what you value, your decision making will become automatic and you can easily understand what you need to do to live the most fulfilling life possible.
4. Your Personality is Not Set in Stone
Just because you have a certain personality type does not mean that you cannot make changes to live a life more congruent with your goals.
Your personality is roughly 50% genetic and 50% experiential.
This means that if you expose yourself to the right situations you can change your psychology to work for you instead of against you.
An introvert can become an extrovert, an undisciplined person can become disciplined, someone who does not handle stress well can learn to become calm in intense situations.
You have to approach your personality intentionally and understand that you can make any change you want with enough time and effort.
5. You Need to Expose Yourself to Stress to Succeed
Life can be hard.
Whether you are relentlessly pursuing your goals or sitting back and watching your life fly by, you will still be exposed to stress and challenges.
However, this is a good thing!
The more difficult the life you live, the stronger you will become and the more you will be able to accomplish.
But you have to put yourself in situations that will stretch you and force you to adapt.
Get out of your comfort zone and be willing to face challenges you aren’t sure you can overcome.