ARTICLE ENTRY 1: HOW TO REACH THE WAY TO SUCCESS?

• Reflection to the article “How to Get the Most out of Yourself” by Alan Loy McGinnis

 “Why are some persons successful and productive while others struggle along unhappily?”. Who does not want to read an article starting with such a question? I have my own key to success in my mind, yet I wanted to learn what the writer was going to tell about this issue. I could not help being curious about his answer to this question.

I think this article is a great work because after you read it, you will feel good and want to do something to succeed. The writer’s tone is very friendly and encouraging. In addition, the examples that he gave are really nice stories.

According to the writer success comes with confidence. Believing yourself and accepting yourself as you are is very important to be successful and happy. However, if you are always complaining about yourself, you can neither achieve anything nor be happy. So, the thing to do is to increase your self-perception or self-image. The writer lists five ways to gain your self-confidence.

Focusing on your potential is the first step. You should forget everybody that seems more successful, happier or wittier to you because it harms your self-worth. Instead, you should learn to be yourself. This is the most crucial way to succeed because without knowing your capacity, you cannot improve yourself, which means that you cannot go further.

Secondly, you should develop one of your skills because saying that you are doing something well is not enough. You should work on it hard so that when you see people who are more skilled in some areas than you, you do not lose your confidence. You just need to devote yourself to the thing that you do best and you should never give up.

Thirdly, picturing yourself as successful in your mind makes everything easier. The writer calls it imaging or visualization. If you do this simple exercise every day, you can strengthen your self-confidence. It helps you think in a positive way. So, you start feeling perfect enough to succeed.

The rule of leading a joyful life is to live your life with your own decisions. Here comes the fourth step for being successful: Stop minding other people’s expectations! As you go on working for a job that you do not like but others wanted you to do, you cannot be happy. This feeling diminishes your success at work. Finally, you find yourself in a depressive situation and your confidence disappears.

The last step is to feed yourself emotionally from your relationships. You should spend some of your time with your friends or relatives. They find a way to make you smile. You feel safe and more self-confident around them because you know that they will always support you whatever you do.

I think the writer is totally right about the connection between self-confidence and success. All the ways he offers make sense to me. However, I do not use the last step much because sometimes I need silence and I want to stay away from everybody, even from my family and my best friends. When I am alone, I think properly. I can easily find who I am and who I want to be. The idea of standing on my own legs makes me stronger and happier. It is the first step for me to feel confident. Nobody can truly know me or help me. So, I have nobody but myself to rely on.

All in all, this article may enlarge your perspective about being happy and successful. Nonetheless, you do not have to follow every step explained by the writer. I think following your instincts and finding the most appropriate way for you to succeed are superior to the steps above.