Free Reflective Essay about Success

What is success? Success is something that many people may believe they have a definition for. In general, society defines success as being rich and powerful and having a good education and job. The idea of success is something that is different for everyone but society creates one uniform idea that may or may not align with your view of it. Although society comes up with this definition of success, it may not be the same for you and it is important that you understand your own idea on success and how to achieve it. Once you know your own idea of success you will be able to strive towards it and be happy and content with your life.

Throughout my many years of school my ideas of success have generally stayed the same. I had always believed that success was all about getting good grades in school.  I had also believed that a major part of success was your intelligence.  I believed that the path to success was built upon test scores, IQ, and general knowledge. Although these traits play a factor in success, I now believe that these are not the most important parts on the path to success. During my eighth  grade success unit I have learned many things that have drastically changed my idea of success and how to achieve success. From topics such as, embracing the new win to John Wooden’s pyramid of success, I have learned about and been impacted by many topics that have changed my view of success and how to achieve it.

John Wooden’s pyramid of success was a major influence to my idea of success. In John Wooden's pyramid of success he shows the necessary building blocks of success. Alone these building blocks are helpful but to get the most out of them you need to understand your own idea of success. John Wooden defines success as being the best you can be and achieving your full potential. In John Wooden’s pyramid of success the bottom blocks support the blocks above it and those blocks support the blocks above that. Personally I believe that the bottom two rows are the most important on your path to success.  I especially agree with the blocks initiative, self control, and industriousness. These blocks are all about your drive and want to achieve success and goals. Initiative is going to get you started on your work towards your goal. Industriousness will have you work hard whilst you do your work, Last but not least, self control. Self control is extremely important for it is what stops you from burning out. Not only will it stop you from burning out, it will help keep you motivated and stop you from procrastinating so you can take initiative and stay industrious.  John Wooden’s pyramid of success was only one of the topics that heavily affected my view of success and there are many more topics that have influenced me. One of the topics covered was embracing the near win.

The topic of embracing the near win was very important to me and impacted me the most out of all of these. The topic of embracing the near win was all about how a near win is just as impactful, if not more, than actually winning. This is because a near win can inspire you to work harder next time and it can teach you in the process. Achieving a goal is not the same as achieving mastery.  A near win will keep you chasing after mastery and keep you chasing to improve. This chase is what propels you towards mastery.  In the ted talk we watched about embracing the near win the speaker, Sarah Lewis, states, “Mastery is not a commitment to a goal but a constant pursuit.” Many people will believe that a near win is a negative but instead it is actually a positive and will inspire you to do better. Overall a near win is what will drive you towards mastery and success and that is why I believe it is the most important topic.

Another very important step towards success is your body language. The topic of your body language is something that many people may look over but it is extremely important. Many people may believe that your body language may change the way that people see and think of you but it will change the way you think and see yourself.  In the ted talk we watched about how a study was performed on people detecting how power poses can affect you. The study had shown that people performing power poses seemed more confident. This is because the way you pose and your body language can affect you and how you feel. Most people would never think that something so small could affect you so much and I was one of those people.  

Overall, there are many factors on the path to success. From big things such as building your initiative to small things like your body language, almost everything effects your success and your path to it. Many of these things would be disregarded and I used to disregard these things to, but now, noticing how these things affect people, I realize that these small things should be incorporated into everyday life so you can achieve success.