A Guide to the Scientific Career. Группа авторов
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Success and failure are not unlike other objects in the universe: they are guided by and subject to the whims of momentum, physical and otherwise. The more you engage in a behavior, the more frequently that behavior occurs – and more quickly. This momentum creates a sense of success being generative and influencing future success. The same applies to failure; since it is predicated on a series of behaviors, the more you engage in them, the more frequent they become.
The danger lies in seeing the momentum as fate or determinism. You are in charge of changing the momentum, of creating new behavioral tendencies that propagate toward a synergy. Do not allow past mistakes to create a self‐fulfilling prophecy that dominates your path to success.
1.2.10 Values and Success Are Not the Same Things
We are governed by values. These values influence nearly every aspect of our lives. And this influence extends to how we set goals and define success. Values are instilled in us, but we can adopt them as well; they can change.
However, values are not targets.
Success is defined by goals, which are targets. We make decisions in our lives on the basis of our values and they color how we understand and process the world around us. This foundational set of rules help you discover your purpose, which is closely tied to ideas of success.
1.2.11 Relativity of Success: Success Is a Self‐Defined Phenomenon
When we think of success, we often turn to financial metrics. This illustrates the relativity of success very clearly. The amount of money that one thinks of as enough is wildly subjective; so, too, is the idea of success relative to that. Material success does not necessarily offer value, but it does reveal that each individual's idea of it can be assessed along a spectrum.
No matter the form of success, each person will have a different definition, level, and metric by which they experience it. The important thing to understand is that it is your definition of success that matters, not anyone else's.
1.2.12 Pareto Principle: The Major Part of Success Comes from a Small Fraction of Our Decisions and Actions
The Pareto principle is colloquially known as the 80/20 rule. Simply put, it states that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This is often extended into marketing as 80% of your income comes from 20% of your clients. It provides an interesting base for how we understand and measure success.
1.2.13 The “Luck” Paradox
Thomas Jefferson once attested, “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” This statement is the key to understanding luck and its relationship to success. Simply put, there is no bad or good luck in effect. It is determination and working hard toward a set goal that create a context in which one can flourish. If there were bad luck, it would be a law of nature. However, were it a law of nature, it would not suffer under the weight of chance and probability. And were there no chance, how could there be any kind of luck at all? We all have an idea of being in the right place at the right time as a quick way of achieving success. The problem with this kind of thinking is that it ignores the importance of goal setting, planning definition, measurement, and the perseverance to continue forward toward your idea of success.
If you depend on luck as a means of achieving success, you are eliminating the possibility of agency in your pursuit of personal success. How can you influence your success if you are at the whim of mere fickle chance?
1.2.14 Opportunities Are Created
This ties in with the difficulty of letting chance guide your thinking. If you believe that opportunities are fated into your path, then you will not follow through on the plan you have set yourself. Unfortunately, many of us believe that things come to those who wait. Nevertheless, it is the interdependency with others that leads to being in the environment where things happen. It is perseverance that creates the situation in which it appears as if manna falls from heaven. Success is about creating, recognizing, and acting on opportunities, not blindly waiting for them to trip into your path.
1.2.15 Failure Is a Key to Success
Failing forward is a concept traded by those who see failure as a stepping stone toward success, the recognition of the ways forward that do not yield success. Failure is only truly failure if you learn nothing from it and abandon your path because you did not achieve what you set out to do on the first try. Success is littered with failures, as success is ever‐changing; you must be willing to understand what has not worked in order to achieve what you have set out to do.
1.2.16 Success Is the Outcome of Struggle for Excellence, Not Struggle for Winning
Winning is short‐sighted as it encompasses only a single instance overcome, a single goal achieved. Success is about excellence. The pursuit of success is predicated on having defined what it is, understanding how to measure it, adapting as it changes, and overcoming and learning from failure along the way. Were you to only be interested in winning, you would stop the moment you won; you would not overcome failure or adapt as circumstances demanded.
1.3 Prerequisites Are Internal Factors Required to Become Successful
1 Sense of purpose. This is the motivation that drives your pursuit of success. It is shaped by what you believe and your values, which are informed by your personal code of behavior.
2 Motivation and enthusiasm. Often talked about rather than acted upon. Enthusiasm mimics motivation at times, but only because it is simpler. Motivation is what drives you, what gets you up in the morning. Motivation is more difficult and requires commitment to a cause or your pursuit of success.
3 Confidence. Belief in your ability to succeed can be difficult, as balancing unmitigated cockiness against doing too little can prove challenging. In terms of being successful, you need at least to be confident that you can follow through on the journey toward your idea of success.
4 Focus. Keeping your eye on the ball and concentrating on the details of your plan are important. Regardless of the subjectivity of your definition, it is important to have a clear and vivid idea of how you will move toward your goals.
5 Courage. Courage is often defined as the willingness to confront difficulty in pursuit of a goal. In regard to success, it is being willing to fail forward and overcome obstacles in your path.
6 Perseverance, persistence, energy, and hard work. Continuing to do what is necessary, no matter how many times you have to do it, is important in order to become successful.
7 Communication skills. The ability to communicate effectively is important to being successful. You need to understand how to communicate with others, and to understand their perspectives, in order to pursue your goals.
8 Preparation. This matters because success requires short‐term and long‐term goals. Without taking precautionary measures, you could find yourself unable to overcome pitfalls to which you might otherwise have been able to adapt.
9 Creativity. The relationship between success and creativity is bidirectional. Wilson (2017) has characterized five different levels of creativity (Table 1.1). Table 1.1 Levels of creativity.Expressive creativitySpontaneous expression of intuition (without the need for conscious reasoning) results in creation of basic and simple concepts.Productive creativityExisting concepts are efficiently and eloquently proliferated through learning skills and technical mastery.Inventive creativityExploring different aspects of existing concepts with materials, methods, and techniques.Innovative creativityThe existing concepts are improved and modified through conceptualizing skills and generating new materials and methods.Imaginative creativity