Leon F Seltzer PhD

How Do You Define Success?

Meeting personal goals must determine the success of one's life..

Posted July 7, 2021 | Reviewed by Vanessa Lancaster

  • While ideals are subjective, a chosen and fulfilling lifestyle with which others may disagree can be considered a success.
  • Our particular criteria for success will closely relate to our social, political, educational, and religious values—in a word, our ideology.
  • Most writers employ a business model in talking about success—a model that focuses as much on monetary worth as much as anything else.

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Can you call yourself a success if the one thing you feel you’ve accomplished in life is marrying and having children? Or if, despite many failures, at least you avoided ending up on the streets? Or even if you did end up living on the street?

In the homeless instance, it’s unlikely you’d regard yourself as successful, particularly if you were reduced to begging others for loose change to purchase a burger—or beer. Still, it’s crucial to ask yourself who reserves final authority to judge the success of your existence?

And when you ponder this question, you’ll probably grasp that we all have our perspective on what makes a person successful. Further, our criteria will closely relate to our social, political, economic, educational, and religious values—or ideology. And inevitably, such ideals are subjective. Moreover, since people’s assessments of success are tied to their ideals, then it’s the unique experience of the person being evaluated whose “verdict” should be given the most weight.

That said, it must be admitted that the bulk of the popular literature on this subject—I’ve yet to find a single scholarly piece dealing with it—focuses almost exclusively on success criteria as derived from a business model. And this model has mostly to do with the number of one’s earnings or one’s accumulated wealth generally.

Seen more in a family context, success has routinely been estimated along the lines of how good a provider the individual has been for their spouse and children. Still, other writers talk about fame (or admiration) as much as fortune, while comparatively few talk about happiness . And if they do, it’s mostly about how material prosperity eventuates in happiness—a position undoubtedly open to debate.

This post, essentially existential in approach, will make the case that meeting one’s personal goals—whether others approve or not—must determine the (subjective) success of one’s life. At least theoretically, even a person who lives on the street, if consciously their overriding motive was to repudiate the conventions of various societal institutions, would have to be regarded as successful if their chosen lifestyle was somehow fulfilling to them.

Questioning Attempts to Clarify a Topic That Resists Definitive Categorizing

Merriam-Webster’s definition of success is relatively typical of how dictionaries characterize it. It’s indicative of just how subjective the concept is, and I’ll use it as an example of the term’s rich—but unresolvable—complexity.

For many, success means reaching a goal, accomplishing a task, or otherwise accomplishing what they set out to do–Essentially, something is a success when the outcome turns out well, is desirable, or is favorable. Beyond that, the definition of success is personal.

Note Merriam-Webster's hedging through twice employing the word “or.” By stating that “many” people see it in 1 of 3 ways, it extends its definition by talking about its possibly “turning out” in 1 of 3 ways. And then (suggesting it can’t really define it any more specifically) ends its description with the caveat above.

Note, too, that although most writers consider the ethical dimensions of success, Merriam-Webster avoids alluding to this facet, no doubt, because defining what’s meant here by “ethical” is also subjective and personal.

One’s moral system, that is, may not accord with others because they hold themselves to different guidelines and principles. And dictionaries lack the prerogative to make moral pronouncements independent of widespread usage.

Questioning Various Assumptions That Try to “Depersonalize” the Concept

One author , for example, asserts that success is achievable “when you try your best in all aspects of everything you do.” And that’s actually a position several writers take. But logically, why should anyone put maximum effort into doing something not exciting or important to them, or that they don’t care about and in no way are required to?

what makes a person successful essay

Perfectionism is hardly a coveted trait—it’s mostly a burden—and, too, it lacks any inherent relationship to people’s experiencing themselves as successful.

Writers generally have advanced their own biases about success, revealing a lot more about their values than making the abstraction tangible. Here’s but one example in a piece entitled “19 Definitions of Success You Should Never Ignore” (2021) . I won’t list all the 19 examples offered. Just a few will suffice for what I want to illustrate:

  • Success is always doing your best [ the most frequent criterion];
  • Success is having a place to call home;
  • Success is understanding the difference between need and want;
  • Success is believing you can (and this presumably will ensure your success—but I’d add that this position ignores the fact that, realistically, no one can do or be everything they wish);
  • Success is learning that you sometimes have to say no; and
  • Success is knowing your life is filled with abundance (the author’s idealism again, but try convincing someone living in poverty with seriously addicted, abusive parents).

Those who’ve written about success don’t discuss degrees of success. They see it as either present or absent (as they do failure). That orientation also oversimplifies—or overlooks—all involved in how a particular person feels about their achievements or what they believe constitutes those achievements.

Coming Up With Your Definition of Success

It’s vital to emphasize that their genetics and culture heavily influence a person’s notion of success. Consequently, their self-evaluation may not be truly authentic because it may not have resulted from thoughtful self-reflection or soul-searching.

Here’s an excellent example of a writer’s confessing that what she believed defined success was imbibed from messages implicit in our society:

For most of my life, I had a narrow definition of what success meant. It involved people knowing your name, and having enough money—i.e., lots of money—to buy an endless stream of designer handbags and big cars. It wasn’t a definition I had opted-in to, but [was] fed to me from childhood through films, magazines about celebrities, and our education system. And I swallowed it whole.

But to be true to yourself, vs. simply conforming to societal norms, what’s necessary is to discover what—given your inborn predilections, passions, and gifts—you want your life to center on. And then, evaluating how well you’ve accomplished your priorities will verify how successful you’ve been.

To put this somewhat differently, you could view yourself as successful but, in the eyes of the world, be seen as a dismal failure. And this discrepancy could just as quickly go in the opposite direction. Consider, for example, the many instances of distinguished celebrities’ taking their own life.

Yet as one Quora writer encapsulates it: “Living life on your terms and conditions is the most challenging task in the modern world [since] most people spend their entire life living on the terms and conditions of [others]. In his own (admittedly, somewhat exaggerated) words:

In their childhood, they live as their parents decide. In their schools, they live as their teachers decide. In their home, they live as their spouse decides. In their office, they live as their bosses decide. In their old age, they live as their children decide.

To conclude, despite the “terms and conditions” you may have internalized from your environment. Finally, you alone get to decide how successful you’ve been. And if you feel you haven’t lived up to your specified ideals, you also have the freedom (with or without professional help) to make new lifestyle choices that can transform how you see yourself.

© 2021 Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved.

Leon F Seltzer PhD

Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. , is the author of Paradoxical Strategies in Psychotherapy and The Vision of Melville and Conrad . He holds doctorates in English and Psychology. His posts have received over 52 million views.

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College Admissions , College Essays

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The personal statement might just be the hardest part of your college application. Mostly this is because it has the least guidance and is the most open-ended. One way to understand what colleges are looking for when they ask you to write an essay is to check out the essays of students who already got in—college essays that actually worked. After all, they must be among the most successful of this weird literary genre.

In this article, I'll go through general guidelines for what makes great college essays great. I've also compiled an enormous list of 100+ actual sample college essays from 11 different schools. Finally, I'll break down two of these published college essay examples and explain why and how they work. With links to 177 full essays and essay excerpts , this article is a great resource for learning how to craft your own personal college admissions essay!

What Excellent College Essays Have in Common

Even though in many ways these sample college essays are very different from one other, they do share some traits you should try to emulate as you write your own essay.

Visible Signs of Planning

Building out from a narrow, concrete focus. You'll see a similar structure in many of the essays. The author starts with a very detailed story of an event or description of a person or place. After this sense-heavy imagery, the essay expands out to make a broader point about the author, and connects this very memorable experience to the author's present situation, state of mind, newfound understanding, or maturity level.

Knowing how to tell a story. Some of the experiences in these essays are one-of-a-kind. But most deal with the stuff of everyday life. What sets them apart is the way the author approaches the topic: analyzing it for drama and humor, for its moving qualities, for what it says about the author's world, and for how it connects to the author's emotional life.

Stellar Execution

A killer first sentence. You've heard it before, and you'll hear it again: you have to suck the reader in, and the best place to do that is the first sentence. Great first sentences are punchy. They are like cliffhangers, setting up an exciting scene or an unusual situation with an unclear conclusion, in order to make the reader want to know more. Don't take my word for it—check out these 22 first sentences from Stanford applicants and tell me you don't want to read the rest of those essays to find out what happens!

A lively, individual voice. Writing is for readers. In this case, your reader is an admissions officer who has read thousands of essays before yours and will read thousands after. Your goal? Don't bore your reader. Use interesting descriptions, stay away from clichés, include your own offbeat observations—anything that makes this essay sounds like you and not like anyone else.

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Technical correctness. No spelling mistakes, no grammar weirdness, no syntax issues, no punctuation snafus—each of these sample college essays has been formatted and proofread perfectly. If this kind of exactness is not your strong suit, you're in luck! All colleges advise applicants to have their essays looked over several times by parents, teachers, mentors, and anyone else who can spot a comma splice. Your essay must be your own work, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting help polishing it.

And if you need more guidance, connect with PrepScholar's expert admissions consultants . These expert writers know exactly what college admissions committees look for in an admissions essay and chan help you craft an essay that boosts your chances of getting into your dream school.

Check out PrepScholar's Essay Editing and Coaching progra m for more details!

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Links to Full College Essay Examples

Some colleges publish a selection of their favorite accepted college essays that worked, and I've put together a selection of over 100 of these.

Common App Essay Samples

Please note that some of these college essay examples may be responding to prompts that are no longer in use. The current Common App prompts are as follows:

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. 2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? 3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome? 4. Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you? 5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. 6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Now, let's get to the good stuff: the list of 177 college essay examples responding to current and past Common App essay prompts. 

Connecticut college.

  • 12 Common Application essays from the classes of 2022-2025

Hamilton College

  • 7 Common Application essays from the class of 2026
  • 7 Common Application essays from the class of 2022
  • 7 Common Application essays from the class of 2018
  • 8 Common Application essays from the class of 2012
  • 8 Common Application essays from the class of 2007

Johns Hopkins

These essays are answers to past prompts from either the Common Application or the Coalition Application (which Johns Hopkins used to accept).

  • 1 Common Application or Coalition Application essay from the class of 2026
  • 6 Common Application or Coalition Application essays from the class of 2025
  • 6 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2024
  • 6 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2023
  • 7 Common Application of Universal Application essays from the class of 2022
  • 5 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2021
  • 7 Common Application or Universal Application essays from the class of 2020

Essay Examples Published by Other Websites

  • 2 Common Application essays ( 1st essay , 2nd essay ) from applicants admitted to Columbia

Other Sample College Essays

Here is a collection of essays that are college-specific.

Babson College

  • 4 essays (and 1 video response) on "Why Babson" from the class of 2020

Emory University

  • 5 essay examples ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ) from the class of 2020 along with analysis from Emory admissions staff on why the essays were exceptional
  • 5 more recent essay examples ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ) along with analysis from Emory admissions staff on what made these essays stand out

University of Georgia

  • 1 “strong essay” sample from 2019
  • 1 “strong essay” sample from 2018
  • 10 Harvard essays from 2023
  • 10 Harvard essays from 2022
  • 10 Harvard essays from 2021
  • 10 Harvard essays from 2020
  • 10 Harvard essays from 2019
  • 10 Harvard essays from 2018
  • 6 essays from admitted MIT students

Smith College

  • 6 "best gift" essays from the class of 2018

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Books of College Essays

If you're looking for even more sample college essays, consider purchasing a college essay book. The best of these include dozens of essays that worked and feedback from real admissions officers.

College Essays That Made a Difference —This detailed guide from Princeton Review includes not only successful essays, but also interviews with admissions officers and full student profiles.

50 Successful Harvard Application Essays by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson—A must for anyone aspiring to Harvard .

50 Successful Ivy League Application Essays and 50 Successful Stanford Application Essays by Gen and Kelly Tanabe—For essays from other top schools, check out this venerated series, which is regularly updated with new essays.

Heavenly Essays by Janine W. Robinson—This collection from the popular blogger behind Essay Hell includes a wider range of schools, as well as helpful tips on honing your own essay.

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Analyzing Great Common App Essays That Worked

I've picked two essays from the examples collected above to examine in more depth so that you can see exactly what makes a successful college essay work. Full credit for these essays goes to the original authors and the schools that published them.

Example 1: "Breaking Into Cars," by Stephen, Johns Hopkins Class of '19 (Common App Essay, 636 words long)

I had never broken into a car before.

We were in Laredo, having just finished our first day at a Habitat for Humanity work site. The Hotchkiss volunteers had already left, off to enjoy some Texas BBQ, leaving me behind with the college kids to clean up. Not until we were stranded did we realize we were locked out of the van.

Someone picked a coat hanger out of the dumpster, handed it to me, and took a few steps back.

"Can you do that thing with a coat hanger to unlock it?"

"Why me?" I thought.

More out of amusement than optimism, I gave it a try. I slid the hanger into the window's seal like I'd seen on crime shows, and spent a few minutes jiggling the apparatus around the inside of the frame. Suddenly, two things simultaneously clicked. One was the lock on the door. (I actually succeeded in springing it.) The other was the realization that I'd been in this type of situation before. In fact, I'd been born into this type of situation.

My upbringing has numbed me to unpredictability and chaos. With a family of seven, my home was loud, messy, and spottily supervised. My siblings arguing, the dog barking, the phone ringing—all meant my house was functioning normally. My Dad, a retired Navy pilot, was away half the time. When he was home, he had a parenting style something like a drill sergeant. At the age of nine, I learned how to clear burning oil from the surface of water. My Dad considered this a critical life skill—you know, in case my aircraft carrier should ever get torpedoed. "The water's on fire! Clear a hole!" he shouted, tossing me in the lake without warning. While I'm still unconvinced about that particular lesson's practicality, my Dad's overarching message is unequivocally true: much of life is unexpected, and you have to deal with the twists and turns.

Living in my family, days rarely unfolded as planned. A bit overlooked, a little pushed around, I learned to roll with reality, negotiate a quick deal, and give the improbable a try. I don't sweat the small stuff, and I definitely don't expect perfect fairness. So what if our dining room table only has six chairs for seven people? Someone learns the importance of punctuality every night.

But more than punctuality and a special affinity for musical chairs, my family life has taught me to thrive in situations over which I have no power. Growing up, I never controlled my older siblings, but I learned how to thwart their attempts to control me. I forged alliances, and realigned them as necessary. Sometimes, I was the poor, defenseless little brother; sometimes I was the omniscient elder. Different things to different people, as the situation demanded. I learned to adapt.

Back then, these techniques were merely reactions undertaken to ensure my survival. But one day this fall, Dr. Hicks, our Head of School, asked me a question that he hoped all seniors would reflect on throughout the year: "How can I participate in a thing I do not govern, in the company of people I did not choose?"

The question caught me off guard, much like the question posed to me in Laredo. Then, I realized I knew the answer. I knew why the coat hanger had been handed to me.

Growing up as the middle child in my family, I was a vital participant in a thing I did not govern, in the company of people I did not choose. It's family. It's society. And often, it's chaos. You participate by letting go of the small stuff, not expecting order and perfection, and facing the unexpected with confidence, optimism, and preparedness. My family experience taught me to face a serendipitous world with confidence.

What Makes This Essay Tick?

It's very helpful to take writing apart in order to see just how it accomplishes its objectives. Stephen's essay is very effective. Let's find out why!

An Opening Line That Draws You In

In just eight words, we get: scene-setting (he is standing next to a car about to break in), the idea of crossing a boundary (he is maybe about to do an illegal thing for the first time), and a cliffhanger (we are thinking: is he going to get caught? Is he headed for a life of crime? Is he about to be scared straight?).

Great, Detailed Opening Story

More out of amusement than optimism, I gave it a try. I slid the hanger into the window's seal like I'd seen on crime shows, and spent a few minutes jiggling the apparatus around the inside of the frame.

It's the details that really make this small experience come alive. Notice how whenever he can, Stephen uses a more specific, descriptive word in place of a more generic one. The volunteers aren't going to get food or dinner; they're going for "Texas BBQ." The coat hanger comes from "a dumpster." Stephen doesn't just move the coat hanger—he "jiggles" it.

Details also help us visualize the emotions of the people in the scene. The person who hands Stephen the coat hanger isn't just uncomfortable or nervous; he "takes a few steps back"—a description of movement that conveys feelings. Finally, the detail of actual speech makes the scene pop. Instead of writing that the other guy asked him to unlock the van, Stephen has the guy actually say his own words in a way that sounds like a teenager talking.

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Turning a Specific Incident Into a Deeper Insight

Suddenly, two things simultaneously clicked. One was the lock on the door. (I actually succeeded in springing it.) The other was the realization that I'd been in this type of situation before. In fact, I'd been born into this type of situation.

Stephen makes the locked car experience a meaningful illustration of how he has learned to be resourceful and ready for anything, and he also makes this turn from the specific to the broad through an elegant play on the two meanings of the word "click."

Using Concrete Examples When Making Abstract Claims

My upbringing has numbed me to unpredictability and chaos. With a family of seven, my home was loud, messy, and spottily supervised. My siblings arguing, the dog barking, the phone ringing—all meant my house was functioning normally.

"Unpredictability and chaos" are very abstract, not easily visualized concepts. They could also mean any number of things—violence, abandonment, poverty, mental instability. By instantly following up with highly finite and unambiguous illustrations like "family of seven" and "siblings arguing, the dog barking, the phone ringing," Stephen grounds the abstraction in something that is easy to picture: a large, noisy family.

Using Small Bits of Humor and Casual Word Choice

My Dad, a retired Navy pilot, was away half the time. When he was home, he had a parenting style something like a drill sergeant. At the age of nine, I learned how to clear burning oil from the surface of water. My Dad considered this a critical life skill—you know, in case my aircraft carrier should ever get torpedoed.

Obviously, knowing how to clean burning oil is not high on the list of things every 9-year-old needs to know. To emphasize this, Stephen uses sarcasm by bringing up a situation that is clearly over-the-top: "in case my aircraft carrier should ever get torpedoed."

The humor also feels relaxed. Part of this is because he introduces it with the colloquial phrase "you know," so it sounds like he is talking to us in person. This approach also diffuses the potential discomfort of the reader with his father's strictness—since he is making jokes about it, clearly he is OK. Notice, though, that this doesn't occur very much in the essay. This helps keep the tone meaningful and serious rather than flippant.

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An Ending That Stretches the Insight Into the Future

But one day this fall, Dr. Hicks, our Head of School, asked me a question that he hoped all seniors would reflect on throughout the year: "How can I participate in a thing I do not govern, in the company of people I did not choose?"

The ending of the essay reveals that Stephen's life has been one long preparation for the future. He has emerged from chaos and his dad's approach to parenting as a person who can thrive in a world that he can't control.

This connection of past experience to current maturity and self-knowledge is a key element in all successful personal essays. Colleges are very much looking for mature, self-aware applicants. These are the qualities of successful college students, who will be able to navigate the independence college classes require and the responsibility and quasi-adulthood of college life.

What Could This Essay Do Even Better?

Even the best essays aren't perfect, and even the world's greatest writers will tell you that writing is never "finished"—just "due." So what would we tweak in this essay if we could?

Replace some of the clichéd language. Stephen uses handy phrases like "twists and turns" and "don't sweat the small stuff" as a kind of shorthand for explaining his relationship to chaos and unpredictability. But using too many of these ready-made expressions runs the risk of clouding out your own voice and replacing it with something expected and boring.

Use another example from recent life. Stephen's first example (breaking into the van in Laredo) is a great illustration of being resourceful in an unexpected situation. But his essay also emphasizes that he "learned to adapt" by being "different things to different people." It would be great to see how this plays out outside his family, either in the situation in Laredo or another context.

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Example 2: By Renner Kwittken, Tufts Class of '23 (Common App Essay, 645 words long)

My first dream job was to be a pickle truck driver. I saw it in my favorite book, Richard Scarry's "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go," and for some reason, I was absolutely obsessed with the idea of driving a giant pickle. Much to the discontent of my younger sister, I insisted that my parents read us that book as many nights as possible so we could find goldbug, a small little golden bug, on every page. I would imagine the wonderful life I would have: being a pig driving a giant pickle truck across the country, chasing and finding goldbug. I then moved on to wanting to be a Lego Master. Then an architect. Then a surgeon.

Then I discovered a real goldbug: gold nanoparticles that can reprogram macrophages to assist in killing tumors, produce clear images of them without sacrificing the subject, and heat them to obliteration.

Suddenly the destination of my pickle was clear.

I quickly became enveloped by the world of nanomedicine; I scoured articles about liposomes, polymeric micelles, dendrimers, targeting ligands, and self-assembling nanoparticles, all conquering cancer in some exotic way. Completely absorbed, I set out to find a mentor to dive even deeper into these topics. After several rejections, I was immensely grateful to receive an invitation to work alongside Dr. Sangeeta Ray at Johns Hopkins.

In the lab, Dr. Ray encouraged a great amount of autonomy to design and implement my own procedures. I chose to attack a problem that affects the entire field of nanomedicine: nanoparticles consistently fail to translate from animal studies into clinical trials. Jumping off recent literature, I set out to see if a pre-dose of a common chemotherapeutic could enhance nanoparticle delivery in aggressive prostate cancer, creating three novel constructs based on three different linear polymers, each using fluorescent dye (although no gold, sorry goldbug!). Though using radioactive isotopes like Gallium and Yttrium would have been incredible, as a 17-year-old, I unfortunately wasn't allowed in the same room as these radioactive materials (even though I took a Geiger counter to a pair of shoes and found them to be slightly dangerous).

I hadn't expected my hypothesis to work, as the research project would have ideally been led across two full years. Yet while there are still many optimizations and revisions to be done, I was thrilled to find -- with completely new nanoparticles that may one day mean future trials will use particles with the initials "RK-1" -- thatcyclophosphamide did indeed increase nanoparticle delivery to the tumor in a statistically significant way.

A secondary, unexpected research project was living alone in Baltimore, a new city to me, surrounded by people much older than I. Even with moving frequently between hotels, AirBnB's, and students' apartments, I strangely reveled in the freedom I had to enjoy my surroundings and form new friendships with graduate school students from the lab. We explored The Inner Harbor at night, attended a concert together one weekend, and even got to watch the Orioles lose (to nobody's surprise). Ironically, it's through these new friendships I discovered something unexpected: what I truly love is sharing research. Whether in a presentation or in a casual conversation, making others interested in science is perhaps more exciting to me than the research itself. This solidified a new pursuit to angle my love for writing towards illuminating science in ways people can understand, adding value to a society that can certainly benefit from more scientific literacy.

It seems fitting that my goals are still transforming: in Scarry's book, there is not just one goldbug, there is one on every page. With each new experience, I'm learning that it isn't the goldbug itself, but rather the act of searching for the goldbugs that will encourage, shape, and refine my ever-evolving passions. Regardless of the goldbug I seek -- I know my pickle truck has just begun its journey.

Renner takes a somewhat different approach than Stephen, but their essay is just as detailed and engaging. Let's go through some of the strengths of this essay.

One Clear Governing Metaphor

This essay is ultimately about two things: Renner’s dreams and future career goals, and Renner’s philosophy on goal-setting and achieving one’s dreams.

But instead of listing off all the amazing things they’ve done to pursue their dream of working in nanomedicine, Renner tells a powerful, unique story instead. To set up the narrative, Renner opens the essay by connecting their experiences with goal-setting and dream-chasing all the way back to a memorable childhood experience:

This lighthearted–but relevant!--story about the moment when Renner first developed a passion for a specific career (“finding the goldbug”) provides an anchor point for the rest of the essay. As Renner pivots to describing their current dreams and goals–working in nanomedicine–the metaphor of “finding the goldbug” is reflected in Renner’s experiments, rejections, and new discoveries.

Though Renner tells multiple stories about their quest to “find the goldbug,” or, in other words, pursue their passion, each story is connected by a unifying theme; namely, that as we search and grow over time, our goals will transform…and that’s okay! By the end of the essay, Renner uses the metaphor of “finding the goldbug” to reiterate the relevance of the opening story:

While the earlier parts of the essay convey Renner’s core message by showing, the final, concluding paragraph sums up Renner’s insights by telling. By briefly and clearly stating the relevance of the goldbug metaphor to their own philosophy on goals and dreams, Renner demonstrates their creativity, insight, and eagerness to grow and evolve as the journey continues into college.

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An Engaging, Individual Voice

This essay uses many techniques that make Renner sound genuine and make the reader feel like we already know them.

Technique #1: humor. Notice Renner's gentle and relaxed humor that lightly mocks their younger self's grand ambitions (this is different from the more sarcastic kind of humor used by Stephen in the first essay—you could never mistake one writer for the other).

My first dream job was to be a pickle truck driver.

I would imagine the wonderful life I would have: being a pig driving a giant pickle truck across the country, chasing and finding goldbug. I then moved on to wanting to be a Lego Master. Then an architect. Then a surgeon.

Renner gives a great example of how to use humor to your advantage in college essays. You don’t want to come off as too self-deprecating or sarcastic, but telling a lightheartedly humorous story about your younger self that also showcases how you’ve grown and changed over time can set the right tone for your entire essay.

Technique #2: intentional, eye-catching structure. The second technique is the way Renner uses a unique structure to bolster the tone and themes of their essay . The structure of your essay can have a major impact on how your ideas come across…so it’s important to give it just as much thought as the content of your essay!

For instance, Renner does a great job of using one-line paragraphs to create dramatic emphasis and to make clear transitions from one phase of the story to the next:

Suddenly the destination of my pickle car was clear.

Not only does the one-liner above signal that Renner is moving into a new phase of the narrative (their nanoparticle research experiences), it also tells the reader that this is a big moment in Renner’s story. It’s clear that Renner made a major discovery that changed the course of their goal pursuit and dream-chasing. Through structure, Renner conveys excitement and entices the reader to keep pushing forward to the next part of the story.

Technique #3: playing with syntax. The third technique is to use sentences of varying length, syntax, and structure. Most of the essay's written in standard English and uses grammatically correct sentences. However, at key moments, Renner emphasizes that the reader needs to sit up and pay attention by switching to short, colloquial, differently punctuated, and sometimes fragmented sentences.

Even with moving frequently between hotels, AirBnB's, and students' apartments, I strangely reveled in the freedom I had to enjoy my surroundings and form new friendships with graduate school students from the lab. We explored The Inner Harbor at night, attended a concert together one weekend, and even got to watch the Orioles lose (to nobody's surprise). Ironically, it's through these new friendships I discovered something unexpected: what I truly love is sharing research.

In the examples above, Renner switches adeptly between long, flowing sentences and quippy, telegraphic ones. At the same time, Renner uses these different sentence lengths intentionally. As they describe their experiences in new places, they use longer sentences to immerse the reader in the sights, smells, and sounds of those experiences. And when it’s time to get a big, key idea across, Renner switches to a short, punchy sentence to stop the reader in their tracks.

The varying syntax and sentence lengths pull the reader into the narrative and set up crucial “aha” moments when it’s most important…which is a surefire way to make any college essay stand out.

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Renner's essay is very strong, but there are still a few little things that could be improved.

Connecting the research experiences to the theme of “finding the goldbug.”  The essay begins and ends with Renner’s connection to the idea of “finding the goldbug.” And while this metaphor is deftly tied into the essay’s intro and conclusion, it isn’t entirely clear what Renner’s big findings were during the research experiences that are described in the middle of the essay. It would be great to add a sentence or two stating what Renner’s big takeaways (or “goldbugs”) were from these experiences, which add more cohesion to the essay as a whole.

Give more details about discovering the world of nanomedicine. It makes sense that Renner wants to get into the details of their big research experiences as quickly as possible. After all, these are the details that show Renner’s dedication to nanomedicine! But a smoother transition from the opening pickle car/goldbug story to Renner’s “real goldbug” of nanoparticles would help the reader understand why nanoparticles became Renner’s goldbug. Finding out why Renner is so motivated to study nanomedicine–and perhaps what put them on to this field of study–would help readers fully understand why Renner chose this path in the first place.

4 Essential Tips for Writing Your Own Essay

How can you use this discussion to better your own college essay? Here are some suggestions for ways to use this resource effectively.

#1: Get Help From the Experts

Getting your college applications together takes a lot of work and can be pretty intimidatin g. Essays are even more important than ever now that admissions processes are changing and schools are going test-optional and removing diversity standards thanks to new Supreme Court rulings .  If you want certified expert help that really makes a difference, get started with  PrepScholar’s Essay Editing and Coaching program. Our program can help you put together an incredible essay from idea to completion so that your application stands out from the crowd. We've helped students get into the best colleges in the United States, including Harvard, Stanford, and Yale.  If you're ready to take the next step and boost your odds of getting into your dream school, connect with our experts today .

#2: Read Other Essays to Get Ideas for Your Own

As you go through the essays we've compiled for you above, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Can you explain to yourself (or someone else!) why the opening sentence works well?
  • Look for the essay's detailed personal anecdote. What senses is the author describing? Can you easily picture the scene in your mind's eye?
  • Find the place where this anecdote bridges into a larger insight about the author. How does the essay connect the two? How does the anecdote work as an example of the author's characteristic, trait, or skill?
  • Check out the essay's tone. If it's funny, can you find the places where the humor comes from? If it's sad and moving, can you find the imagery and description of feelings that make you moved? If it's serious, can you see how word choice adds to this tone?

Make a note whenever you find an essay or part of an essay that you think was particularly well-written, and think about what you like about it . Is it funny? Does it help you really get to know the writer? Does it show what makes the writer unique? Once you have your list, keep it next to you while writing your essay to remind yourself to try and use those same techniques in your own essay.

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#3: Find Your "A-Ha!" Moment

All of these essays rely on connecting with the reader through a heartfelt, highly descriptive scene from the author's life. It can either be very dramatic (did you survive a plane crash?) or it can be completely mundane (did you finally beat your dad at Scrabble?). Either way, it should be personal and revealing about you, your personality, and the way you are now that you are entering the adult world.

Check out essays by authors like John Jeremiah Sullivan , Leslie Jamison , Hanif Abdurraqib , and Esmé Weijun Wang to get more examples of how to craft a compelling personal narrative.

#4: Start Early, Revise Often

Let me level with you: the best writing isn't writing at all. It's rewriting. And in order to have time to rewrite, you have to start way before the application deadline. My advice is to write your first draft at least two months before your applications are due.

Let it sit for a few days untouched. Then come back to it with fresh eyes and think critically about what you've written. What's extra? What's missing? What is in the wrong place? What doesn't make sense? Don't be afraid to take it apart and rearrange sections. Do this several times over, and your essay will be much better for it!

For more editing tips, check out a style guide like Dreyer's English or Eats, Shoots & Leaves .

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What's Next?

Still not sure which colleges you want to apply to? Our experts will show you how to make a college list that will help you choose a college that's right for you.

Interested in learning more about college essays? Check out our detailed breakdown of exactly how personal statements work in an application , some suggestions on what to avoid when writing your essay , and our guide to writing about your extracurricular activities .

Working on the rest of your application? Read what admissions officers wish applicants knew before applying .

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Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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A (Very) Simple Way to Improve Your Writing

  • Mark Rennella

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It’s called the “one-idea rule” — and any level of writer can use it.

The “one idea” rule is a simple concept that can help you sharpen your writing, persuade others by presenting your argument in a clear, concise, and engaging way. What exactly does the rule say?

  • Every component of a successful piece of writing should express only one idea.
  • In persuasive writing, your “one idea” is often the argument or belief you are presenting to the reader. Once you identify what that argument is, the “one-idea rule” can help you develop, revise, and connect the various components of your writing.
  • For instance, let’s say you’re writing an essay. There are three components you will be working with throughout your piece: the title, the paragraphs, and the sentences.
  • Each of these parts should be dedicated to just one idea. The ideas are not identical, of course, but they’re all related. If done correctly, the smaller ideas (in sentences) all build (in paragraphs) to support the main point (suggested in the title).

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Most advice about writing looks like a long laundry list of “do’s and don’ts.” These lists can be helpful from time to time, but they’re hard to remember … and, therefore, hard to depend on when you’re having trouble putting your thoughts to paper. During my time in academia, teaching composition at the undergraduate and graduate levels, I saw many people struggle with this.

what makes a person successful essay

  • MR Mark Rennella is Associate Editor at HBP and has published two books, Entrepreneurs, Managers, and Leaders and The Boston Cosmopolitans .  

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✍️Essay on Success in 100,150 and 200 Words: The Power of Positive Mindset

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  • Oct 26, 2023

Essay on Success

The concept of success is very simple; if you invest your time wisely and work hard, you will achieve success in no time. But success is not as simple as it sounds; what might sound like success to one might not be the same for another person. It embodies the realization of one’s goals, aspirations, and desires, often accompanied by a sense of accomplishment and fulfilment.

Success is manifested in different aspects, such as career achievements, personal growth, or even the pursuit of happiness. It is a journey filled with determination, perseverance, and often a willingness to learn from both triumphs and setbacks. Ultimately, success is a subjective pursuit that reflects the unique path and definition of achievement for each person.

This Blog Includes:

What makes a person successful, essay on success in 100 words, essay on success in 150 words, essay on success in 200 words.

Being successful is very subjective and can vary from person to person. Therefore, here are some common factors which contribute to the success of a person.

  • Hard Work and Persistence: Success requires effort and dedication and one has the ability to face challenges.
  • Setting Clear Goals: It is very important for one to have specific and attainable goals which will provide direction and motivation. 
  • Networking: The person should have the capability to build relations and at the same time be open to opportunities which strike. 
  • Time Management: Managing time effectively and priorities is essential for productivity and progress. 
  • Self-Discipline: One should be very focused and maintain self-control which will help them achieve long-term goals. 
  • Management of Finances: Having a basic understanding of finances and managing them wisely is also very important for attaining financial success. 

Also Read: Essay on Water Conservation

Success is the culmination of dedication, hard work, and determination. It is not merely the achievement of material wealth, but the fulfilment of one’s goals and aspirations. Success varies from person to person; for some, it’s a thriving career, while for others, it could be having a harmonious family life. 

To attain success, individuals must set clear objectives, persevere through challenges, and learn from failures. Success often involves learning, adapting, and embracing change. It’s the result of resilience and the willingness to keep pushing forward. Ultimately, success is a personal journey, and its definition is unique to each individual.

Everybody wants to be successful in life, but are they willing to put in all their efforts? Success is not solely measured by wealth or fame but by achieving one’s goals and finding fulfilment. True success is often the result of determination, hard work, and resilience. Setting clear, achievable objectives and being persistent through challenges are crucial components.

Education is a common path to success, providing knowledge and skills that open doors to opportunities. Embracing failure as a stepping stone, learning from mistakes, and adapting to change are essential to achieving success. However, it’s important to recognize that success is subjective and can encompass a broader spectrum of achievements beyond material possessions.

Personal growth, happiness, and a sense of purpose are all part of success. Balancing personal and professional life is key to sustaining it. Ultimately, success is a journey, not a destination, and it’s about realizing your full potential and making a meaningful contribution to the world.

Also Read: Essay on Nature: In 100 Words, 200 Words, 300 Words

Success is a multifaceted concept, often defined by achieving one’s goals and aspirations. It is a subjective and deeply personal notion, as what constitutes success varies from person to person. However, a common thread in success is the continuous pursuit of one’s ambitions, combined with determination and hard work.

Success is not solely measured by material wealth, but rather by the fulfilment and satisfaction that comes from reaching one’s objectives. It is the result of setting clear goals, developing a plan, and facing all the challenges. The road to success is rarely smooth; it is often marked by setbacks and failures. These obstacles are crucial for personal growth, teaching valuable lessons that contribute to success in the long run.

Moreover, success is not an endpoint; it is a continuous journey. It requires adaptability and the willingness to learn and evolve. Success can be found in various aspects of life, from career achievements to personal relationships and self-fulfilment. It is the balance and harmony between these different facets that lead to a truly successful and meaningful life.

In conclusion, success is a complex and individualized concept, rooted in determination, hard work, resilience, and personal growth. It is not defined solely by external markers but by the fulfilment and happiness, one derives from their accomplishments and the journey to achieve them.

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Writing an essay on success requires you to describe this multifaceted concept. Success is achieved when one’s goal and objective is attained. Those who are successful, have fulfilled their highest ambitions in life and work, or are actively striving towards doing so. 

Happiness does not follow success. Contrary to popular belief, living a life that makes you happy can help you achieve your goals and be content. 

You gain from success because it gives you the things you want or need. Setting and achieving attainable goals results in a feeling of well-being. 

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay-writing page and follow Leverage Edu ! 

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Malvika is a content writer cum news freak who comes with a strong background in Journalism and has worked with renowned news websites such as News 9 and The Financial Express to name a few. When not writing, she can be found bringing life to the canvasses by painting on them.

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Last Updated: March 9, 2022 References

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. This article has been viewed 68,714 times.

No matter whether you're working on a college research paper or a middle school essay, you can boost your writing skills and make your essay even more successful. A good essay has a convincing argument, evidence to back up the main points, and clear writing. Ready to take your writing from good to great? We'll give you clear-cut writing tips to create a successful essay.

Writing the introduction

Step 1 Think of a topic.

  • Make sure that your topic relates to the assignment, and that you can support it using various mediums, such as the internet or a book.

Step 2 Write an introduction...

Writing the body of the essay

Step 1 Add your topic sentences.

Finishing the essay

Step 1 Write the conclusion...

  • For your conclusion, state your thesis in a different, unique way. Summarize your whole paper, and leave a lasting impression on your readers.

Essay Template and Sample Essays

what makes a person successful essay

Expert Q&A

Jake Adams

  • Never repeat what you've already said. If you do, it'll sound less interesting. Thanks Helpful 7 Not Helpful 0
  • Remember to use transitions. Transitions connect ideas and establish a flow to your paper. Like the thesis, transitions are a necessary part of all papers. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 0
  • Don't go overboard on the appearances of your essay. It'll look cheesy and plus it'll cost a lot of money. Remember, after your current school year is over, your teacher will just throw it away, so it isn't smart to load up on the pictures and ribbons. Thanks Helpful 4 Not Helpful 1

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  • ↑ https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/writing/how-to-write-an-essay.html
  • ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/07/how-to-write-an-essay
  • ↑ Jake Adams. Academic Tutor & Test Prep Specialist. Expert Interview. 20 May 2020.
  • ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zv7fqp3/articles/znvn92p
  • ↑ https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/ending-essay-conclusions

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Success — Qualities of a Successful Person: Traits and Examples

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Qualities of a Successful Person: Traits and Examples

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Introduction, leadership: a pillar of success, resilience: bouncing back from adversity, adaptability: thriving in change, examples of successful people.

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How to Be Successful in Reaching Your Goals

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Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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what makes a person successful essay

Build a Growth Mindset

Improve your emotional intelligence, develop mental toughness, strengthen your willpower, focus on intrinsic motivations, set achievable goals, nurture traits linked to high potential, cultivate strong social support, avoid burnout.

Success is often defined as the ability to reach your goals in life, whatever those goals may be. In some ways, a better word for success might be attainment, accomplishment, or progress. It is not necessarily a destination but a journey that helps develop the skills and resources you need to thrive.

At a Glance

There are many different tactics for how to be successful in life, but the strategy that works best for you may depend on what success means to you . If you think of success as doing well at work or earning a high salary, your professional goals and accomplishments will take priority.

While professional success can be one piece of the puzzle, it leaves out many other important areas of life. Family, romantic relationships, academics, and athletics are just a few areas where people may strive for success. Your definition of success may vary, but many might define it as being fulfilled, happy, safe, healthy, and loved.

While there is no single right way to be successful, you can improve your chances by building a growth mindset, improving your emotional intelligence, developing mental toughness, and strengthening your willpower, among other strategies.

Because goals are self-created, what people view as success can vary depending on their needs, goals, and situation. There may not be a perfect combination of ingredients that can guarantee success. Still, there are some basic steps you can follow that can improve your chances of being successful in life, love, work, or whatever happens to be important to you.

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Research by psychologist Carol Dweck suggests that there are two basic mindsets that influence how people think about themselves and their abilities: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset .

People who possess a fixed mindset believe that things such as intelligence are static and unchangeable. Those with a fixed mindset believe that success isn't a result of hard work—it's simply a consequence of innate talents.

Because they believe that such talents are something people are either born with or without, they tend to give up more easily in the face of a challenge. They quit when things do not come easily because they believe that they lack the inborn skills needed to excel.

Those who have a growth mindset, on the other hand, feel that they can change, grow, and learn through effort. People who believe that they are capable of growth are more likely to achieve success. When things get tough, they look for ways to improve their skills and keep working toward success.

People with a growth mindset believe that they have control of their life, while those with a fixed mindset believe that things are out of their control.

What can you do to build a growth mindset?

  • Believe that your efforts matter . Rather than thinking their abilities are fixed or stuck, people who have a growth mindset believe that effort and hard work can lead to meaningful growth.
  • Learn new skills . When faced with a challenge, they look for ways to develop the knowledge and skills that they need to overcome and triumph.
  • View failures as learning experiences . People with growth mindsets don't believe that failure is a reflection of their abilities. Instead, they view it as a valuable source of experience from which they can learn and improve. "That didn't work," they might think, "so this time I'll try something a little different."

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Overall intelligence has long been believed to be one factor contributing to success in different areas of life, but some experts suggest that emotional intelligence may actually matter even more.   Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to understand, utilize, and reason with emotions. Emotionally intelligent people are able to understand not only their own emotions, but those of others as well.

To improve your emotional intelligence:

  • Pay attention to your own emotions . Focus on identifying what you are feeling and what is causing those feelings.
  • Manage your emotions . Step back and try to view things with an impartial eye. Avoid bottling up or repressing your feelings, but look for healthy and appropriate ways of dealing with what you are feeling.
  • Listen to others. This not only involves hearing what they are saying, but also paying attention to nonverbal signals and body language.

Mental toughness refers to the resilience to carry on and continue trying even in the face of obstacles. People who possess this mental strength see challenges as opportunities. They also feel that they have control over their own destiny, are confident in their abilities to succeed, and are committed to finishing what they start.

What can you do to improve your mental toughness and increase your chances of being successful in life?

  • Believe in yourself . Cut out negative self-talk and look for ways to stay positive and self-encouraging.
  • Keep trying . Even when things seem impossible or setbacks keep holding you back, focus on ways that you can develop your skills and keep soldiering forward. One of the key habits of successful people is always looking at setbacks or failures as learning opportunities.
  • Care for yourself . Staying strong also means that you treat yourself with kindness. Check in with yourself regularly to ensure you have the things you need to thrive.
  • Look for growth opportunities . Learning more about yourself and challenging yourself to try new things can provide opportunities for self-discovery.

In a long-running longitudinal study, psychologists followed a group of children who were identified by their teachers as highly intelligent. As they compared how these subjects fared throughout childhood and into adulthood, researchers found that those who ultimately were the most successful in life shared some key characteristics, including perseverance and willpower.  

These characteristics tend to be part of an individual's overall personality, but they are also something you can improve. Delayed gratification , learning to persist in the face of challenges, and waiting for the rewards of your hard work can often be the key to success in life.

Strategies you can use to improve your willpower include:

  • Distraction . For example, if you are trying to lose weight but are having a difficult time staying away from your favorite snacks, distracting yourself during your moments of weakness can be an effective way to avoid giving in to temptation.
  • Practice . Willpower is something you can build, but it takes time and effort. Start by making small goals that require will power to achieve, such as avoiding sugary snacks. As you build your ability to use your will power to achieve such small goals, you may find that your willpower is also stronger when working on much larger goals.

What is it that motivates you the most? Do you find that the promise of external rewards keeps you reaching for your goals, or is it the more personal, intrinsic motivators that keep you feeling inspired? While extrinsic rewards such as money, awards, and praise can be helpful, many people find that they are most motivated when they are doing things for personal satisfaction.

If you are doing things because you enjoy them, because you find them meaningful, or because you enjoy seeing the effects of your work, then you are driven by intrinsic motivations. Research has shown that while incentives can be a better predictor of some types of performance, intrinsic motivators tend to be better at predicting performance quality.  

While it is often the external motivators that get people started, it is the internal motivators that kick in and keep people going in order to maintain those new behaviors.

What can you do to boost your sense of intrinsic motivation?

  • Challenge yourself . Pursuing a goal that is achievable but not necessarily easy, is a great way to increase motivation to succeed. Challenges can keep you interested in a task, improve your self-esteem, and offer feedback on areas you can improve on. Choosing a slightly challenging task will help motivate you to get started—it feels exciting!
  • Stay curious . Look for things that grab your attention and that you want to learn more about.
  • Take control . It can be difficult to stay intrinsically motivated to pursue a goal if you don't feel that you have any real influence over the outcome. Look for ways that you can take an active role.
  • Don't fear competition . There might be other people trying to reach the same goals as you, but this doesn't mean you should give up. Don't compare your progress or journey to anyone else's. You can look to others for motivation and inspiration, but remember that we all have different paths.

Successful people know that they need to start by having attainable goals to achieve. These goals are not necessarily easy to reach, but by having something to aim for, you will be better able to move forward and overcome obstacles.

When setting goals :

  • Be as specific as possible : Choosing a goal like "I'm going to spend 20 minutes a day learning a new language" is more achievable than setting a general goal like "I'm going to learn French."
  • Break your goal into smaller steps : Even if you select a specific goal, it can often seem difficult to achieve. Try breaking it into smaller steps that allow you to focus on moving forward without becoming overwhelmed.
  • Reward progress : Recognize your successes along the way and allow yourself to enjoy your accomplishments.

One of the biggest reasons people don't follow through on their goals [is] because they aren't what THEY want to do. Make sure your goals align with your personal values and needs, not what you 'think' you should do.

Psychologists have long attempted to link specific traits or personality characteristics to success in life and work. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one widely used assessment that is often utilized by businesses to screen job candidates. However, research often fails to show that the MBTI actually correlates to performance.  

According to some more recent research, there are certain traits that tend to be consistently tied to success.   Researchers Ian MacRae and Adrian Furnham have identified six key traits that can play a role in how well people do at work.   However, they note that there are optimal levels of these traits. Too little of these characteristics can hinder success, but so can having too much.

If you are trying to learn how to be successful in life, consider what you can do to nurture these key traits:

Conscientiousness

Conscientious people consider the effects of their actions. They also consider how other people will react and feel. You can nurture this trait by:

  • Thinking about the consequences of actions
  • Considering other people's perspectives

Accepting of Ambiguity

Life is full of situations that are not always clear. People with a great deal of potential for success are better able to accept this ambiguity. Rather than being rigid and inflexible, they are ready to adapt when the unexpected comes their way. You can learn to embrace ambiguity by:

  • Challenging your perspectives and considering opinions and ideas other than your own
  • Not fearing the unfamiliar
  • Being willing to change
  • Valuing diversity

Capable of Adjustment

In addition to being able to accept ambiguity, success often hinges on the ability to quickly adjust to change. You can nurture this ability to adjust by:

  • Reframing difficult situations, to see them as opportunities to learn and grow rather than simply obstacles to live through
  • Being open to change; when plans or situations change, step back and look at ways to cope

The world's most successful people often exemplify great courage. They are willing to take risks, even in the face of potential failure. Research suggests that courageous people utilize positive emotions to overcome fear.   You can improve your tolerance of risk by:

  • Quelling negative emotions and focusing on more positive feelings
  • Balancing risk with common sense; being cautious and pragmatic can also pay off, depending upon the situation

People who are successful tend to be curious about the world around them. They are always eager to learn more, including new knowledge and skills. You can cultivate your sense of curiosity by:

  • Relating tasks to your interests: If you find filing boring, for example, look for a more efficient way to categorize the information to play to your strengths as an organizer.
  • Learning new things

Competitiveness

Successful people are able to utilize competition to motivate, but avoid falling prey to jealousy. You can nurture a healthy sense of competition by:

  • Focusing on your own improvements; rather than worry about being the best at something, pay attention to your progress
  • Being happy when others succeed

Some personality traits and types may be better suited for certain jobs than others. However, no specific personality trait can guarantee success, nor can being low in that trait doom someone to failure.

While there are differences in opinion on just how much personality can be altered , nurturing some of these high potential traits might help you develop skills that can serve you well in many different aspects of your life.

Doing things alone can be difficult, but having a strong social support system can make things easier. Different types of social support can be important for success.

  • Emotional support can provide the comfort, security, and empathy you need as you face challenges.
  • Esteem support can boost your confidence and encourage you to keep going.
  • Informational support can provide mentorship, advice, and other necessary resources to reach your goals.
  • Tangible support can help you in active and practical ways. This might involve someone helping you perform a task or taking care of the task for you.

Having even one close person in your life that you feel you can go to in any circumstance is more helpful for your relational well-being than having 10 friends who are surface level. It's about quality, not quantity.

Mentors, friends, co-workers, and family members can cheer you on when things get tough and even offer advice and assistance that can help you improve your chances for success.

Burnout can happen when you are exposed to chronic stress . It can seriously impede success and lead to exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced performance.  

Reduced motivation makes it harder to stick to your goals and can make you feel apathetic and uninterested.

Self-care strategies, such as getting enough sleep and engaging in healthy eating, can relieve some stress. But addressing burnout often requires getting to the bottom of the issue that is causing the problem.

Sometimes, this might mean reassessing your goals. If your goals are creating too much stress or if you are trying to achieve too much too fast, it can be a recipe for burnout. Look for ways to reduce stress, whether that involves shifting your goals, changing your plans, or even doing something more significant like moving somewhere else or changing jobs.

Keep in Mind

There is no single measure of success, and certainly no single answer for how to be successful in life. Yet by looking at some of the habits of successful people, you can learn new tactics and strategies to implement in your own daily life. Cultivate and nurture these abilities, and over time you may find that you are better able to reach your goals and achieve the success you want in life.

Dweck CS, Yeager DS. Mindsets: A view from two eras . Perspect Psychol Sci. 2019;14(3):481-496. doi:10.1177/1745691618804166

Urquijo I, Extremera N, Azanza G. The contribution of emotional intelligence to career success: Beyond personality traits . Int J Environ Res Public Health . 2019;16(23). doi:10.3390/ijerph16234809

Giles B, Goods PSR, Warner DR, et al. Mental toughness and behavioural perseverance: A conceptual replication and extension . J Sci Med Sport . 2018;21(6):640-645. doi:10.1016/j.jsams.2017.10.036

Shoda Y, Mischel W, Peake PK. Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions .  Developmental Psychology. 1990;26(6):978-986. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.26.6.978  

Cerasoli CP, Nicklin JM, Ford MT. Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives jointly predict performance: A 40-year meta-analysis . Psychol Bull . 2014;140(4):980-1008. doi:10.1037/a0035661

Pittenger DJ. Cautionary comments regarding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator .  Consult Psychol J Pract Res. 2005;57(3):210-221. doi:10.1037/1065-9293.57.3.210 

Komarraju M, Karau SJ, Schmeck RR, Avdic A. The big five personality traits, learning styles, and academic achievement . Pers Indiv Differ . 2011;51(4):472-477. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.04.019

MacRae I, Furnham A, Reed M. High Potential: How to Spot, Manage, and Develop Talented People at Work . Bloomsbury; 2018.

Eagleson C, Hayes S, Matthews A, Perman G, Hirsch CR. The power of positive thinking: Pathological worry is reduced by thought replacement in generalized anxiety disorder . Behav Res Ther . 2016;78:13-18. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2015.12.017

Maslach C, Leiter MP.  Understanding the burnout experience: recent research and its implications for psychiatry.   World Psychiatry . 2016;15(2):103–111. doi:10.1002/wps.20311

Crum AJ, Salovey P, Achor S. Rethinking stress: The role of mindsets in determining the stress response. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2013;104(4):716-733. doi:10.1037/a0031201

McLain DL, Kefallonitis E, Armani K. Ambiguity tolerance in organizations: Definitional clarification and perspectives on future research . Front Psychol . 2015;6:344. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00344

Mussel P. Introducing the construct curiosity for predicting job performance . J Organ Behav . 2012;34(4):453-472. doi:10.1002/job.1809  

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Success Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on success.

Success Essay- In today’s world everyone wants to be successful but what is a success. The perspective of success varies from person to person. For the record, the people before us have a different view on success and the person after us will have a different view on success.

Moreover, people compare different people performance to evaluate their success. But success is not something that you can copy from others. You have to make your own path to achieving success. In modern-day, people are obsessed with success because of the glamour and lifestyle of successful people .

Success Essay

What formulates a person successful?

There are many ways in the world to be successful. But most people think of celebrities, artist, politicians, and businessmen whenever they heard the word success.

Moreover, they think doing what they will make you successful but that not the case. They forget the most basic thing that makes a person successful that is their hard work, dedication, and the desire to achieve their dream. More importantly, they what they like to do not what that others told them to do. Successful people do what they like to do also they do what they feel correct for their business.

If you look in the dictionary for the meaning of the word success then you will find that it means the achievement of one’s goal or aim . So, basically, anyone can achieve success by simply achieving their aim or goal.

What is the harm of success?

We all knew that we can’t achieve something without sacrificing something. Success also demands various things from you. But these sacrifices will not go in vain if you achieve your goal.

Certainly, many people achieve professional success but in doing so they fail in achieving mental, social and physical success. The tension of lacking behind in other things pulls them apart.

Also, there are cases where people became so obsessed with success that the people around them start to feel uncomfortable around them. In some cases, they have gone mad. Apart from that, people also get depressed if they can’t achieve success like others. So, we can say that there is much harm to success.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Success and hard work

It may sound unfit to some peoples but success depends a lot of hard work. Without it, you can’t become successful. Hard work does not mean that you do laborious work or the work that make you sweat. Hard work means having a healthy body, strong mind, willpower and positive attitude towards things. And for all those things you need energy. So, be attentive to your body and soul.

Besides, do not just work on your program, push your limit, take charge of other things, improve your skills and most importantly keep learning. Apart from that, be with positive peoples, develop positive habits, and do exercise not only for the body but also for your mind.

To sum it up, we can say that success is like a seed that needs a balanced proportion of all the elements of life. And no one can achieve success in a day they have to go through and face different conditions in life for being successful. Above all, success is the feeling of fulfillment that you feel when you achieve your goal.

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Guide to Essay Writing: 5 Steps to Write an Outstanding Essay

Matt Ellis

Feel passionately about something and want to share it? Write an essay! Disagree with a popular opinion and wish to convince others to join you? Write an essay! Need to write something because the college you dream of attending is making you? Write an essay! 

“Essay” is a loose term for writing that asserts the author’s opinion on a topic, whether academic, editorial, or even humorous. There are a thousand different approaches to essay writing and a million different topics to choose from, but what we’ve found is that good essay writing tends to follow the same framework. 

Give your essays extra polish Grammarly helps you write with confidence Write with Grammarly

Below we discuss that framework and how you can apply it to your essays, whatever types they may be. But first, let’s start with a basic overview of how to write an essay.

Table of contents

How to write an essay.

Your essay needs a thesis statement

The essay-writing process

Essay structure, know your essay’s audience, 6 types of essays, essay writing tips.

The basic steps for how to write an essay are: 

  • Generate ideas and pick a type of essay to write. 
  • Outline your essay paragraph by paragraph. 
  • Write a rough first draft without worrying about details like word choice or grammar.
  • Edit your rough draft, and revise and fix the details.
  • Review your essay for typos, mistakes, and any other problems. 

Want to know more? We cover the specifics below, but for now let’s talk about the nucleus of any good essay: the topic.

Your essay needs a thesis statement 

Three things to consider before writing your essay:

Of these, the most important by far is your thesis, or the crux of what your essay is about.

Your thesis, encapsulated in your thesis statement , is the central point you’re trying to make. The thesis of Bertrand Russell’s essay “ In Praise of Idleness ,” for example, is that people focus too much on work and don’t value time spent idly. Essays can occasionally stray and go into related tangents, but they always come back to that one core idea in the thesis. 

You should always pinpoint your thesis before writing. If you’re having trouble nailing it down, ask yourself, “What’s the one thing I want my reader to remember when they’re done reading my essay?”

The best practice is to include your thesis as soon as possible, even in your topic sentence if it’s appropriate. You’ll want to reiterate it throughout the essay as well, especially when wrapping up everything in the conclusion. 

The rest of your essay, then, supports your thesis. You can include empirical evidence, testimonials, logical deductions, or even persuasive rhetoric —whatever gets the job done. The point is that you’re building upon your initial thesis, not switching to completely different topics. 

If you’re writing an essay, research paper , term paper, novel, short story, poem , screenplay, blog article about essay writing—when writing just about anything , really—it’s crucial to follow an efficient writing process. Even if you prefer the stream-of-consciousness style for writing your rough draft, you still need to have an orderly system that allows you to revise and hone. 

For essay writing, we recommend this  five-step writing process :

1 Brainstorming

It always helps to collect your thoughts before you begin writing by brainstorming . Based on your prompt or thesis, try to generate as many ideas as possible to include in your essay. Think of as many as time allows, knowing that you’ll be able to set aside the ideas that don’t work later. 

2 Preparing

The preparation phase consists of both outlining your essay and collecting resources for evidence. Take a look at the results of your brainstorming session. First, isolate the ideas that are essential to support your thesis and then organize them in a logical and progressive order. In this stage you’ll incorporate your essay structure, which we explain below.

If you want empirical evidence or complementary citations, track them down now.  The way you write citations depends on the style guide you’re using. The three most common style guides for academics are MLA , APA , and Chicago , and each has its own particular rules and requirements for citing just about  any  kind of source, including newspaper articles ,  websites ,  speeches , and  YouTube videos .

This is the main stage of essay writing where you roll up your sleeves and actually write your first draft . Remember that everything doesn’t have to be perfect; this is your first draft, not your final draft, so give yourself the freedom to make errors. If you’re focusing on getting every single word right, you’ll miss the big picture. 

The revisions stage involves your second draft, your third draft, or even your twelfth draft if necessary. Address all the nuances and subtleties you glossed over in the first draft. 

Pay attention to both word choice and clarity , as well as sophisticated writing techniques like avoiding the passive voice . If you’re not confident in your writing skills yet, the Grammarly Editor ensures your writing is readable, clear, and concise by offering sentence structure and word choice suggestions, plus clarity revisions as you write. Grammarly helps catch common mistakes with sentence structure—like run-on sentences, sentence fragments, passive voice, and more.  

5 Proofreading

When all the heavy-duty revisions are finished, it’s time for the final polish. Go through your essay and correct misspellings , formatting issues, or grammatical errors. This is also where you can turn to Grammarly’s AI-powered writing assistant, which helps catch these common mistakes for you. Or  copy and paste your writing to check your grammar and get instant feedback on grammar, spelling, punctuation, and other mistakes you might have missed.

Essay structure almost always follows a simple beginning-middle-end format, or in this case, an introduction-body-conclusion format. However, it’s what’s contained within those sections that makes all the difference. 

Introduction

Essays follow the same guidelines for introductions as any other piece of writing, with an extra emphasis on presenting the thesis prominently, ideally in the topic sentence. By the end of your introduction paragraph, your reader should know without a doubt what your essay is about. From there, follow the conventional best practices on how to write an introduction . 

Body paragraphs

The majority of your essay is body paragraphs , all of which support your thesis and present evidence. 

Pay close attention to how you organize your body paragraphs. Some arguments benefit from a logical progression, where one point leads to a second, and that second point leads to a third. Remember that the reader doesn’t understand the topic like you do (that’s why you’re writing the essay), so structure your paragraphs in the way that’s best for their comprehension. 

What if you’re writing an argumentative essay where you compare and contrast two or more points of view? Do you present your argument first and then share opposing points of view, or do you open with your opposition’s argument and then refute it? 

Serious writers can get pretty technical about how to organize an argumentative essay. There are three approaches in particular used often: Aristotlian (classical), Rogerian , and Toulmin . However, these can get exceedingly complicated, so for a simple essay, a basic structure will do just fine:

  • Counterpoint
  • Evidence supporting your point and/or disproving counterpoint 

Essay conclusions wrap up or summarize your thesis in a way that’s easy for the reader to digest. If you get the chance, you can add a new perspective or context for understanding your thesis, but in general the conclusion should not present any new evidence or supporting data. Rather, it’s more of a recap. For more specific tips, read about how to write a conclusion for an essay here . 

Five-paragraph essay

For quick and simple essays, you don’t need to get too technical with your essay structure. The five-paragraph essay structure works well in a pinch. This contains:

  • One introduction paragraph
  • Three body paragraphs
  • One conclusion paragraph

While this essay structure might not be flexible enough for more advanced topics, it comes in handy when speed is a factor, like during timed tests. 

Your final consideration is who will read your essay—a teacher, an admissions counselor, your peers, the internet at large, etc. 

No matter what you’re writing, your audience should influence your language. For one thing, your readers determine whether the essay is formal or casual , which has an enormous impact on language, word choice, and style . Take emojis for example: In a casual essay they might be welcome, but for formal writing they’re not the most appropriate choice. 😓

Your audience also affects the essay’s tone, or how you sound on an emotional level (enthusiastic, cautious, confident, etc.). If you’d like to know more, you can read about the 10 common types of tone here . 

Like any form of writing, essays come in many different types . Sometimes the assignment dictates the type, as with admissions essays, and other times the thesis will determine it. Regardless, it helps to know what your options are, so here are some of the most common essay types: 

1 Argumentative essay

Argumentative essays assert or defend a position. This is the most common type of school paper, so keep that in mind when writing your first college essay . 

2 Admissions essay

Most colleges request an admissions essay in applications, which typically revolve around why you’re interested in their school. 

3 Persuasive essay

A persuasive essay is just as it sounds: an essay to persuade or convince the reader of a certain point. It’s similar to an argumentative essay— they both strongly favor a particular point of view, but the difference is the end goal: Argumentative essays just have to present their case, while persuasive essays have to present their case and win over the reader. 

4 Compare-and-contrast essay

When you want to devote equal attention to two opposing things, a compare-and-contrast essay works better than argumentative or persuasive essays, which lean to one side over the other.

5 Personal essay

Personal essays are often anecdotal or real-life stories of the authors, like the works of David Sedaris . Because they tend to follow narrative structures, the thesis can be flexible or interpretive. 

6 Expository essay

An expository essay thoroughly explains a certain topic to expand the reader’s knowledge. It is similar to an argumentative and persuasive essay in format, but with one key difference: expository essays don’t have a bias. 

Master the five fundamentals

Especially for school essays, your reader will scrutinize how well you handle the fundamentals. Knowing about essay structure and the writing process is one thing, but can you demonstrate an understanding of language style? Can you develop your thesis logically and coherently? Are your references and citations trustworthy?

When you’re ready for the next step of essay writing, take a look at the five concepts you must master to write better essays . The tips there pick up where this guide leaves off. 

Seek out another pair of eyes

This tip is not just for essays; it’s always advisable to have someone else read over your writing before finalizing it. All too often we miss the forest for the trees, and thinking long and hard on the same topic can give you tunnel vision. The solution is to get a fresh take from someone who’s seeing it for the first time. 

Typically you can swap with a friend and edit each others’ works. If that’s not an option, however, you can also use a writing center or join a writing group online. At the very least, you should sleep on it and take another look when you’re refreshed. 

Remember: Grammar and form are essential 

It’s not always about what you say, but how you say it. You could have the most obvious, objectively agreeable thesis in the world, but if your writing is incoherent, confusing, and full of mistakes, it’s tough to engage with your reader. 

For when your writing needs to make the right impact, Grammarly Premium offers full-sentence rewrites for confusing sentences—from splitting long sentences, cutting extra words, or rearranging key phrases—in addition to catching common grammar mistakes. It also gives you readability-focused formatting suggestions, so you know your writing is clear. It also helps those who are looking to improve their writing skill level in English, with suggestions for commonly misused words and phrases. 

Honing your writing with these elements in mind is key to relaying your point to your reader—and asserting your thesis as effectively as possible.

what makes a person successful essay

How to Be a Good Person Essay

What does it mean to be a good person? The essay below aims to answer this question. It focuses on the qualities of a good person.

Introduction

What does it mean to be a good person, qualities of good person, works cited.

The term “good” has relative meanings depending on the person who is defining it. Several qualities can be used to define what constitutes a good person. However, there are certain basic qualities that are used to define a good person. They include honesty, trust, generosity, compassion, empathy, humility, and forgiveness (Gelven 24).

These qualities are important because they promote peaceful coexistence among people because they prevent misunderstandings and conflicts. A good person is fair and just to all and does not judge people. He or she is nice to everyone regardless of religion, race, social and economic class, health status, or physical state (Gelven 25).

A good person treats other people with respect, care, and compassion. Respect shows that an individual values and views the other person as a worthy human being who deserves respect. Compassion is a quality that enables people to identify with other people’s suffering (Gelven 27). It motivates people to offer help in order to alleviate the suffering of others. A good person has compassion for others and finds ways to help people who are suffering. Showing compassion for the suffering makes them happy.

It promotes empathy, understanding, and support. In addition, good people are forgiving. They do not hold grudges and let go of anger that might lead them to hurt others. They think positively and focus their thoughts on things that improve their relationships (Needleman 33). They avoid thinking about past mistakes or wrongs done by others. Instead, they think of how they can forgive and move on.

A good person is honest and trustworthy. This implies that they avoid all situations that might hurt the other person, such as telling lies, revealing secrets, and gossiping (Needleman 34). As such, their character or personality cannot be doubted because they do not harbor hidden intentions.

They act in open ways that reveal their true characters and personalities. On the other hand, good people are kind and respectful. They offer help voluntarily and work hard to improve the well-being of other people. In addition, they treat all people equally despite their social, physical, or sexual orientations. Good people do not discriminate, hate, deny people their rights, steal, lie, or engage in corrupt practices (Tuan 53).

Good people behave courageously and view the world as a fair and beautiful place to live in (Needleman 40). They view the world as a beautiful place that offers equal opportunities to everyone. Good people believe that humans have the freedom to either make the world a better or worse place to live in. They act and behave in ways that improve and make the world a better place.

For example, they conserve the environment by keeping it clean for future generations. A popular belief holds that people who conserve the environment are not good but just environmental enthusiasts. However, that notion is incorrect and untrue. People conserve the environment because of their goodness. They think not only about themselves but also about future generations (Tuan 53). They are not self-centered and mean but generous and caring.

Good people are characterized by certain qualities that include trust, honesty, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, respect, courage, and goodwill. They do not steal, lie, discriminate, or deny people their rights. They think about others’ welfare and advocate for actions that make the world a better place. They promote justice and fairness because they view everyone as a deserving and worthy human being.

Gelven, Michael. The Risk of Being: What it Means to be Good and Bad . New York: Penn State Press, 1997. Print.

Needleman, Jacob. Why Can’t We be good? New York: Penguin Group US, 2007. Print.

Tuan, Yi-Fu. Human Goodness . New York: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. Print.

  • Chicago (A-D)
  • Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, October 28). How to Be a Good Person Essay. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-it-means-to-be-a-good-person/

"How to Be a Good Person Essay." IvyPanda , 28 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/what-it-means-to-be-a-good-person/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'How to Be a Good Person Essay'. 28 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "How to Be a Good Person Essay." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-it-means-to-be-a-good-person/.

1. IvyPanda . "How to Be a Good Person Essay." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-it-means-to-be-a-good-person/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "How to Be a Good Person Essay." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-it-means-to-be-a-good-person/.

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  • Example of a great essay | Explanations, tips & tricks

Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks

Published on February 9, 2015 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023 by Shona McCombes.

This example guides you through the structure of an essay. It shows how to build an effective introduction , focused paragraphs , clear transitions between ideas, and a strong conclusion .

Each paragraph addresses a single central point, introduced by a topic sentence , and each point is directly related to the thesis statement .

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Other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay, an appeal to the senses: the development of the braille system in nineteenth-century france.

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

In France, debates about how to deal with disability led to the adoption of different strategies over time. While people with temporary difficulties were able to access public welfare, the most common response to people with long-term disabilities, such as hearing or vision loss, was to group them together in institutions (Tombs, 1996). At first, a joint institute for the blind and deaf was created, and although the partnership was motivated more by financial considerations than by the well-being of the residents, the institute aimed to help people develop skills valuable to society (Weygand, 2009). Eventually blind institutions were separated from deaf institutions, and the focus shifted towards education of the blind, as was the case for the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, which Louis Braille attended (Jimenez et al, 2009). The growing acknowledgement of the uniqueness of different disabilities led to more targeted education strategies, fostering an environment in which the benefits of a specifically blind education could be more widely recognized.

Several different systems of tactile reading can be seen as forerunners to the method Louis Braille developed, but these systems were all developed based on the sighted system. The Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris taught the students to read embossed roman letters, a method created by the school’s founder, Valentin Hauy (Jimenez et al., 2009). Reading this way proved to be a rather arduous task, as the letters were difficult to distinguish by touch. The embossed letter method was based on the reading system of sighted people, with minimal adaptation for those with vision loss. As a result, this method did not gain significant success among blind students.

Louis Braille was bound to be influenced by his school’s founder, but the most influential pre-Braille tactile reading system was Charles Barbier’s night writing. A soldier in Napoleon’s army, Barbier developed a system in 1819 that used 12 dots with a five line musical staff (Kersten, 1997). His intention was to develop a system that would allow the military to communicate at night without the need for light (Herron, 2009). The code developed by Barbier was phonetic (Jimenez et al., 2009); in other words, the code was designed for sighted people and was based on the sounds of words, not on an actual alphabet. Barbier discovered that variants of raised dots within a square were the easiest method of reading by touch (Jimenez et al., 2009). This system proved effective for the transmission of short messages between military personnel, but the symbols were too large for the fingertip, greatly reducing the speed at which a message could be read (Herron, 2009). For this reason, it was unsuitable for daily use and was not widely adopted in the blind community.

Nevertheless, Barbier’s military dot system was more efficient than Hauy’s embossed letters, and it provided the framework within which Louis Braille developed his method. Barbier’s system, with its dashes and dots, could form over 4000 combinations (Jimenez et al., 2009). Compared to the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, this was an absurdly high number. Braille kept the raised dot form, but developed a more manageable system that would reflect the sighted alphabet. He replaced Barbier’s dashes and dots with just six dots in a rectangular configuration (Jimenez et al., 2009). The result was that the blind population in France had a tactile reading system using dots (like Barbier’s) that was based on the structure of the sighted alphabet (like Hauy’s); crucially, this system was the first developed specifically for the purposes of the blind.

While the Braille system gained immediate popularity with the blind students at the Institute in Paris, it had to gain acceptance among the sighted before its adoption throughout France. This support was necessary because sighted teachers and leaders had ultimate control over the propagation of Braille resources. Many of the teachers at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth resisted learning Braille’s system because they found the tactile method of reading difficult to learn (Bullock & Galst, 2009). This resistance was symptomatic of the prevalent attitude that the blind population had to adapt to the sighted world rather than develop their own tools and methods. Over time, however, with the increasing impetus to make social contribution possible for all, teachers began to appreciate the usefulness of Braille’s system (Bullock & Galst, 2009), realizing that access to reading could help improve the productivity and integration of people with vision loss. It took approximately 30 years, but the French government eventually approved the Braille system, and it was established throughout the country (Bullock & Galst, 2009).

Although Blind people remained marginalized throughout the nineteenth century, the Braille system granted them growing opportunities for social participation. Most obviously, Braille allowed people with vision loss to read the same alphabet used by sighted people (Bullock & Galst, 2009), allowing them to participate in certain cultural experiences previously unavailable to them. Written works, such as books and poetry, had previously been inaccessible to the blind population without the aid of a reader, limiting their autonomy. As books began to be distributed in Braille, this barrier was reduced, enabling people with vision loss to access information autonomously. The closing of the gap between the abilities of blind and the sighted contributed to a gradual shift in blind people’s status, lessening the cultural perception of the blind as essentially different and facilitating greater social integration.

The Braille system also had important cultural effects beyond the sphere of written culture. Its invention later led to the development of a music notation system for the blind, although Louis Braille did not develop this system himself (Jimenez, et al., 2009). This development helped remove a cultural obstacle that had been introduced by the popularization of written musical notation in the early 1500s. While music had previously been an arena in which the blind could participate on equal footing, the transition from memory-based performance to notation-based performance meant that blind musicians were no longer able to compete with sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997). As a result, a tactile musical notation system became necessary for professional equality between blind and sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997).

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Bullock, J. D., & Galst, J. M. (2009). The Story of Louis Braille. Archives of Ophthalmology , 127(11), 1532. https://​doi.org/10.1001/​archophthalmol.2009.286.

Herron, M. (2009, May 6). Blind visionary. Retrieved from https://​eandt.theiet.org/​content/​articles/2009/05/​blind-visionary/.

Jiménez, J., Olea, J., Torres, J., Alonso, I., Harder, D., & Fischer, K. (2009). Biography of Louis Braille and Invention of the Braille Alphabet. Survey of Ophthalmology , 54(1), 142–149. https://​doi.org/10.1016/​j.survophthal.2008.10.006.

Kersten, F.G. (1997). The history and development of Braille music methodology. The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education , 18(2). Retrieved from https://​www.jstor.org/​stable/40214926.

Mellor, C.M. (2006). Louis Braille: A touch of genius . Boston: National Braille Press.

Tombs, R. (1996). France: 1814-1914 . London: Pearson Education Ltd.

Weygand, Z. (2009). The blind in French society from the Middle Ages to the century of Louis Braille . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

  • An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
  • Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
  • A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

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If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Bryson, S. (2023, July 23). Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks. Scribbr. Retrieved February 22, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/example-essay-structure/

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Shane finished his master's degree in English literature in 2013 and has been working as a writing tutor and editor since 2009. He began proofreading and editing essays with Scribbr in early summer, 2014.

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Success is Often Measured by Wealth and Material Belongings – IELTS Writing Task 2

Janice Thompson

Updated On Oct 19, 2021

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Success is Often Measured by Wealth and Material Belongings – IELTS Writing Task 2

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Success is often measured by wealth and material belongings. Do you think wealth is the best measure of success? What makes a successful person?

Direct question essay

Introduction

sentence 1: introduce the topic sentence 2&3 : ideas to be discussed

Body Paragraph

paragraph 1: Wealth is not the measure of success paragraph 2: key facts of a successful person.

Sum up and state the final opinion.

Sample Essay

“Success is the sum of small efforts – repeated day in and day out.” A famed quote by Robert Collier. Capital and valuables are used as a measurement of victory consistently. In my opinion , a person’s success cannot be determined by possessions or credits. Money will always be life satisfying but never be soul satisfying. I will be explaining this in the forthcoming paragraphs.

Folks who have wealth may not be delighted. They will be crying hard because of the unsatisfactory life. Conventional societal standards see finances as a measure of status. A perfect blend of a supportive family, a promising career and sound health is what makes a successful person. A student who doesn’t study for an exam might fail. Money can’t make him pass the exam. Hard work is more valuable than money.

If one has capital, it doesn’t mean that the person has gained. If success were free, everyone would have it. The truth is that only a few people are determined and diligent. If people are more productive and satisfied with what they do, they derive positive self-worth, pride, and contentment. The nectar of success does not depend upon money. It depends upon the hard work and satisfaction that we get from that. The story of Thomas Edison is a classic example. He conducted thousands of failed experiments with the filament until the most famous light bulb was invented. His strive and brilliance made him successful rather than his wealth

In conclusion, for all the reasons I have mentioned above, I believe that to become a successful person, people must be hardworking and determined to work on their dream rather than money. If an individual finds success from their life experience and creates a depiction of victory out of it, then this approach will lead him to avoid wasting energy and pursue a modern and higher crest. Achievement obtained by an individual is different, but happiness and contentment are the real metrics of success.

  • possessions

meaning : The state of owning something. Example : A rare silver coin came into her possession.

meaning : Feeling or showing great pleasure Example : She was delighted to see her friend.

meaning : Having or showing care or conscientiousness in work.. Example: Success always smiles upon people who are diligent..

meaning : The action of depicting something. Example : The painting’s horrific depiction of war scared me.

  • contentment

Meaning : state of happiness and satisfaction Example : He found contentment in living life in a simple way

Meaning : famous or renowned. Example : Shakespeare’s books are famed.

  • consistently

Meaning : in every occasion Example : She won the first rank badge consistently for 5 years.

Meaning : relating to society Example : A societal change is vital.

Meaning : working hard to achieve something. Example : The students must strive to pass the final exams

Meaning : making strong decisions and finding success without changing. Example : The girl was so determined

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Janice Thompson

Janice Thompson

Soon after graduating with a Master’s in Literature from Southern Arkansas University, she joined an institute as an English language trainer. She has had innumerous student interactions and has produced a couple of research papers on English language teaching. She soon found that non-native speakers struggled to meet the English language requirements set by foreign universities. It was when she decided to jump ship into IELTS training. From then on, she has been mentoring IELTS aspirants. She joined IELTSMaterial about a year ago, and her contributions have been exceptional. Her essay ideas and vocabulary have taken many students to a band 9.

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What Makes a Good Essay?

By stephanie whetstone.

The deadline for this year’s Princeton Writes Prize Staff Essay Contest has been set (March 1, 2020)! We hope you are already hard at work polishing your prose, but in case you are struggling to get started, let’s consider what makes a “good” essay.

Dictionary.com defines the essay as “a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative.” This leaves a lot of room for creativity. For a personal essay, focus on the personal part. Why are you writing about this subject? Why now? How does your experience connect with your audience’s? A personal essay is not self-indulgent; rather, it is a means of connecting with others through the common experience of being human.

what makes a person successful essay

The winners of the Princeton Writes Prize have written about New South, travels in Japan, a timeworn stone step, and a dining room table. None of these subjects is inherently gripping, but they became so when connected to the writer’s thoughtful, heartfelt experience.

Write as specifically as you can about what is important to you, what excites you, what connects you to the world, or what you can’t seem to get off your mind. So how do you start? Think about your purpose: is it to entertain, to explain, to argue, to compare, or to reveal? It can also be a combination of these things.

At Princeton, we are lucky to have one of the great essay writers of our time, John McPhee, on faculty. In his wonderful essay, “Searching for Marvin Gardens,” McPhee has a few stories going at once: the “real time” experience of playing monopoly with a friend, his walk through the streets of Atlantic City, the history of the creation of the game of Monopoly, and a commentary about the economic and social realities of the time in which the essay was written. It begins:

“Go. I roll the dice—a six and a two. Through the air I move my token, the flatiron, to Vermont Avenue, where dog packs range.

“The dogs are moving (some are limping) through ruins, rubble, fire dam­age, open garbage. Doorways are gone. Lath is visible in the crumbling walls of the buildings. The street sparkles with shattered glass. I have never seen, anywhere, so many broken windows. A sign—”Slow, Children at Play”—has been bent backward by an automobile. At the farmhouse, the dogs turn up Pacific and disappear.”

The primary action puts the reader immediately into the world the writer has created and follows “characters” through a plot. The connecting paragraphs provide context and place the experience in the broader world. You may want to tell your story straight through or, like McPhee, stray from a linear structure—not just beginning, middle, end—moving back and forth in time.

Begin your story at the last possible moment you can without losing important information. If you are writing about the birth of a child, for example, you might want to start in the hospital in the midst of labor, rather than months before.

To shift in time, make sure you have an object or experience to “trigger” the shift, such as McPhee’s dogs. You need not be as accomplished as he to write your own essay, but reading his work and the work of other writers can provide guidance and inspiration.

Remember that an essay is a story, so even though it is nonfiction, it will benefit from the elements of a story: characters, plot, setting, dialogue, point of view, and tone. Is your story funny, sad, contemplative, nostalgic, magical, or a combination of these?

Your job as a writer is to help the reader imagine what you see in your mind’s eye. That requires sensory detail. Be sure to write about sounds, sights, smells, textures, and tastes. Remember, too, that your work will be read by a wide audience, so you need to determine how much of yourself and your intimate experience you are comfortable sharing.

Another great Princeton writer, Joyce Carol Oates, writes with exquisite sensory detail in her essay, “They All Just Went Away.”

“To push open a door into such silence: the absolute emptiness of a house whose occupants have departed. Often, the crack of broken glass underfoot. A startled buzzing of flies, hornets. The slithering, ticklish sensation of a garter snake crawling across floorboards.

“Left behind, as if in haste, were remnants of a lost household. A broken toy on the floor, a baby’s bottle. A rain-soaked sofa, looking as if it had been gutted with a hunter’s skilled knife. Strips of wallpaper like shredded skin. Smashed crockery, piles of tin cans; soda, beer, whiskey bottles. An icebox, its door yawning open. Once, on a counter, a dirt-stiffened rag that, unfolded like precious cloth, revealed itself to be a woman’s cheaply glamorous “see-through” blouse, threaded with glitter-strips of gold.”

No matter what you choose to write about, forgive your first draft if it’s terrible. You will improve it in the editing. And finally, read each draft aloud: tell the story first to yourself.

Happy writing!

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Essay on Qualities of a Successful Person

Students are often asked to write an essay on Qualities of a Successful Person in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Qualities of a Successful Person

Introduction.

A successful person is not defined by wealth alone. Success is about achieving personal goals, being happy, and contributing to society. Let’s explore some qualities of a successful person.

Hard work is crucial. Successful people understand that effort is required to achieve goals. They are not afraid of challenges or failures.

Resilience is another key. Success often comes after numerous failures. Successful people learn from their mistakes and keep trying.

Positive Attitude

A positive attitude helps in overcoming obstacles. Successful people are optimistic and believe in their abilities.

These qualities are essential for success. Cultivate them to achieve your life goals.

250 Words Essay on Qualities of a Successful Person

Success is a subjective term, varying from person to person. However, certain qualities are universally recognized as key indicators of a successful individual. These include resilience, self-awareness, and adaptability among others.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from failures and setbacks. Successful people are not immune to failures, but they possess the mental fortitude to learn from these experiences and continue forward. They view obstacles not as insurmountable barriers, but as opportunities for growth and learning.

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is another hallmark of success. It involves understanding one’s strengths, weaknesses, emotions, and motivations. Successful people are introspective, continually examining their actions and decisions. This self-awareness allows them to make informed choices, align their actions with their values, and continuously improve themselves.

Adaptability

In a rapidly changing world, adaptability is a crucial trait for success. Successful people are open to new ideas and are able to adjust their strategies and plans to suit changing circumstances. They are not rigid in their thinking or approach, but rather, they embrace change and innovation.

While there are many qualities that can contribute to a person’s success, resilience, self-awareness, and adaptability stand out as particularly important. These qualities enable individuals to navigate the challenges of life, learn from their experiences, and continually adapt to new circumstances. Therefore, cultivating these qualities is a worthwhile endeavor for anyone seeking to achieve success.

500 Words Essay on Qualities of a Successful Person

Success is a multifaceted concept, often defined differently by different people. Some perceive it as financial prosperity, while others view it as achieving personal goals or attaining inner peace. Regardless of the definition, there are certain qualities that successful people universally share. This essay will delve into some of these qualities.

Self-Discipline

One of the most important qualities of a successful person is self-discipline. It is the ability to control one’s impulses, emotions, desires, and behavior. It is what separates the successful from the unsuccessful. Successful people understand the importance of consistency and persistence in their actions. They do not let immediate gratification distract them from their long-term goals.

Resilience is another critical quality. Success is not always a smooth journey; it is often fraught with failures and setbacks. Successful people are those who can withstand these challenges and bounce back stronger. They view failures not as the end but as stepping stones towards success. They learn from their mistakes and use them to improve and grow.

Successful people are invariably passionate about what they do. This passion fuels their drive and determination to succeed. It gives them the energy to put in the hard work and the patience to wait for the results. They love what they do, and this love propels them towards their goals.

Curiosity and Continuous Learning

Successful individuals are inherently curious. They have an insatiable desire to learn and grow. They understand that the world is constantly evolving, and to stay ahead, they must continually update their knowledge and skills. They are open to new ideas and perspectives, and they actively seek opportunities for learning and development.

Integrity is a fundamental quality of successful people. They are honest and ethical in their dealings. They believe in fairness and justice. They uphold their values and principles, even when it is difficult or inconvenient. Their actions are guided by a strong moral compass, and they earn respect and trust through their integrity.

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence

Successful people have high emotional intelligence. They are aware of their emotions and those of others. They can manage their emotions effectively and use them to guide their actions. They are empathetic and understanding, which helps them build strong relationships and networks.

In conclusion, success is not merely about wealth or fame. It is about fulfilling one’s potential and making a positive impact. The qualities of self-discipline, resilience, passion, curiosity, integrity, and emotional intelligence are key to achieving this success. They are not innate but can be developed and nurtured over time. As we strive for success, we should endeavor to cultivate these qualities within ourselves.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

  • Essay on Qualities of a Good Person
  • Essay on My Ideal Person
  • Essay on How to Help Physically Challenged Persons

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Success Consciousness

What Makes Successful People Successful? The 5 Common Traits

What makes successful people successful? What are the common traits?

When it comes to living a successful life, everyone seems to want a piece of it. Nobody wants to live a mediocre life, everyone wants to be successful.

Unfortunately, those who have truly accomplished remarkable results in life are rare. And this is what makes being successful something even more precious.

If you want to be successful, no matter whether it is in your career, in your business, investment, financially, spiritually or in as a family member, you must first make the decision that you want it.

Most people are not committed and they did not dare to make the decision to strive for what they want in life.

Manifest and Achieve

The Guide for Making Your Dreams Come True

Success will come to you only when you are fully committed and decided that you will go for it no matter what.

So what makes successful people successful? What do they do differently than ordinary people that lead them to live an amazing life?

5 Common Traits that Separate the Extraordinary from the Normal

1. Successful People Have Big Dreams

Yes, I know you have heard this at least a million times. However, I just wanted to remind you once more, successful people dream big.

Most people who are not living their dreams because they do not dare to dream big. In fact, most people dream small. They aim for paying the bills, they just want to get by, they just want to be happy, etc, etc.

When you aim for the stars, you will at least hit the moon. Sadly, most people are not even aiming for the ceiling, no wonder why they are not producing remarkable results in life.

If you are serious about living a successful life, the first step you need to do is to get yourself out of ordinary and get into the extraordinary. And the only way to do this is to start by thinking big.

You have to start from your thought. Your thinking will shape your life. If you think about success all the time, you will achieve it. However, if you think about failure and defeat all the time, you will live in mediocrity. You will live your thoughts.

2. Successful People Are Always On The Move

Do know that besides thinking big , successful people are also always on the move? They are proactive people who go and make things happen rather than waiting for things to happen.

You have to be the same. Take action and make your dreams a reality. A lot of people want to be successful but they are not willing to take the action to make their dreams come true.

They will tell you that they want to be rich, they want to build a successful business, they want to own the big house and drive the luxury car, but they are not willing to work hard on their goals.

Never let that happen to you. We all know that it is not easy to live an extraordinary life, but that is what separates the successful from the normal.

So commit to taking at least 5 small actions that will move you toward your goals each day. If you can take only 5 small actions a day, within a year, you will be achieving 1825 small victories.

And this will definitely bring you result you want. Success requires consistency. So be consistent and take action every day.

3. Successful People Will Never Give Up

When you study successful people who have created amazing result in life, people such as Walt Disney, Colonel Sanders, Richard Branson, Michael Jordan, Jack Ma, etc, you will see that they simply refuse to quit.

The journey to success is tough and you will go through a lot of failures and setbacks. However, never let them get you down.

You need to have the confidence to move on and to turn failures into learning lessons.

Walt Disney has been fired by a newspaper editor saying that he has no creative imagination, but Disney never gave up and continued on to pursue his dreams. This is how we have Disneyland today.

When Jack Ma started Alibaba, nobody believed that he can succeed and everyone said that he was crazy and refuse to venture along with him. And because he never gave up, he went to build one of the biggest e-commerce websites in the world.

The same goes for Michael Jordan and the rest. Michael Jordan was not born with outstanding basketball skill; he trained himself to be talented with it!

Great people will never quit and they will never give up on their dreams. They will hold on and continue to work hard even when every other people tell them it is impossible.

4. Successful People Always Expect Positive Things

After reading success stories from great people around the world, I found that successful people are always positive and they expect positive things to happen in the future.

Think about it, do you think Steve Jobs will go on and launched iPhone or iPad if he did not have any confidence that his products can sell?

Do you think Richard Branson will start an airline if he is always negative and thinks that the market and the economy are bad?

Of course not, they expect that their business and their services can sell and they have high confident with what they do. This is what makes them go on and put in extraordinary effort into their business.

You have to be the same. Always think positive and always expect the best. It does not matter even if you are not successful right now, what matters most is where you would want to go and are you willing to work for it.

5. Successful People Believe In Their Dreams

Do you believe in yourself and your dreams? If you don’t believe in your dreams, who else would?

It is your dream and you have to protect it. Never let anyone says that it is impossible or it cannot be done. The Wright Brothers invented the airplanes when people told them that it was impossible.

Arnold Schwarzenegger works hard and ended up being a movie star when people told him that it was not possible for him to act because his body was too big and his name was difficult to pronounce. Can you imagine that?

You have to believe in your dreams and yourself. You have to trust that somehow things will work out for you. And you must always prepare yourself and work on your dreams.

Always dream big, take consistent action, never give up, think positively and most importantly, believe in yourself and your dreams.

If you are serious about achieving outstanding success in life, read, study and learn from successful people. Learn from both their failures and their successes.

Do what they do that make them successful and avoid making the same mistakes they have made. Take massive action and never quit until you reached your goals.

So do you know what you need to do to be successful right now?

About the Author Shawn Lim is the founder of Stunning Motivation . He has the experience in the personal development industry for more than 7 years and has helped countless hungry seekers to achieve outstanding success in life. Learn more about him on StunningMotivation.com or follow him on Facebook .

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How to Make Better Friends at Work

Friendships in the workplace can enrich our lives and make us better leaders and workers if we make the effort to cultivate truly healthy relationships.

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what makes a person successful essay

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I don’t remember the moment that Francesco and I started referring to our friendship as a place. But in the grind of medical school rotations nearly 30 years ago, a flower bed between a parking lot and the building that hosted the internal medicine wards became “the friendship.” That’s what our friendship felt like then: A scruffy patch of nature wedged between the workplace and the comings and goings of daily life. “Come to the friendship!” one of us would say when the other was agitated or idle. We would walk out, sit there for a while, and then get back to work a little sharper, braver, and, some would say, more obnoxious for it.

Research has long established that friendship blossoms where people with similar interests spend time together, share meaningful and intense tasks, face uncertainty, and need each other’s help. 1 Francesco’s and my workplace ticked all those boxes, and soon our friendship wasn’t confined to it. In the friendship, we jumped between reviewing a procedure we had just seen and dissecting failed romances, sharing career dreams and making plans for the weekend. It was the first of a handful of work friendships without which I would not be writing this essay, do the work I do, or be who I am. It was also the beginning of a quest to understand friendship at work and what it takes to make those friendships work.

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The workplace can be fertile ground for budding friendships because of the proximity that forming friendships requires. But growing friendships at work can be problematic. The philosopher George Santayana wrote that friends are the people “with which one can be human” — that is, a complex and conflicted person, not just the competent occupant of a role. By definition, friendship challenges the norms of instrumentality and impersonality in force at many workplaces. For that same reason, if nurtured properly, friendship can be a potent humanizing influence for ourselves and our colleagues.

It’s no wonder that as work becomes more technological and workplaces more remote, there has been renewed interest in friendship. Hybrid work might make us more productive, but it also risks making us less connected. 2 It deprives us of the serendipitous encounters and idle time with coworkers that could turn into life-changing friendships. Most exhortations to return to the office focus on its sociality. 3 They cast it as a place to forge deeper bonds than we can create on Slack or Zoom. Those bonds, scholars have argued, foster the resilience and creativity that we need to thrive in a turbulent world of work. 4

People’s experiences, however, are more mixed. 5 Not everyone trusts that befriending coworkers is wise. Some worry that friendship will interfere with professional judgment. Others prefer to keep their personal and work lives distinct. Likewise, research highlights both benefits and drawbacks of work friendships. It shows that they can help us feel safer, braver, and freer at work — but they can also make us feel conflicted, cautious, and constrained. (See “Understanding the Three Elements of Friendship at Work.”)

Gaining those benefits and avoiding those burdens depends on our capacity to forge healthy friendships. To do that, it helps to view work friendships as a welcome patch of nature, as my old friend and I once did. But the best ones grow beyond an unkempt secret garden that we take refuge in. They become carefully cultivated grounds that sustain our selves at work.

What Friends Are (For)

Francesco and I are still friends, even though our careers no longer intersect. Once we took different paths for our specializations, I found it harder to enjoy work. I missed the comfort, the camaraderie, and even the competition. I also found it easier to begin a transition from medicine to management academia. These days, he helps people survive physical illness; I, the intangible malaise of the workplace. Friendship, it turns out, will protect you against both.

Having friends keeps you healthier. In a densely referenced 2023 advisory about an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation,” U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy estimated that its health consequences cost American companies $154 billion annually. Friendship lowers the risk of fatal diseases and prolongs life expectancy. In all species that form similar bonds — humans are not the only ones — friendship confers advantage. Individuals who have friends are more likely to live longer and reproduce.

If you have friends at work, “you are going to be less likely to want to leave; you are going to want to show up. You will probably accomplish more,” Julianna Pillemer, a New York University professor who studies work friendships, told me. Close relationships are crucial to well-being and success, she noted, and yet she has found that “people have polarized views. They really want to make friends at work or they say, ‘I don’t go there.’”

The reason, Pillemer explained, is that “going there” requires crossing a line or, more precisely, erasing the line between personal and professional. Concerns for mutual gain, goal achievement, and return on investment must be put aside, and so must power differences. At best, friendship is voluntary and reciprocal without being transactional.

Work connects you to what you do. Friends connect you to who you are.

The healthiest work friendships can be critical ballast for leaders, keeping them grounded when their position threatens to isolate them, and flattery or ego to blind them. “My friends are a stabilizer,” tech entrepreneur Fred Mazzella told me, explaining how friends helped him through his journey from anonymous start-upper to successful tech leader to highly visible entrepreneurship advocate. The cofounder of BlaBlaCar, a mobility platform and one of only 25 “unicorns” founded in France, recalled the days in which he was building the company. “I was in the media as much as I could because I needed our platform to be known. And at some point, I realized that I had created two things: I had created a company and an image of myself, or at least an image of what I do.”

Mazzella had seen many entrepreneurs lose themselves in that reflection. “Since they work a lot — all the time, really — and maybe have a young family, they don’t have time to see their friends anymore. And they begin to think they are who the media say they are,” he explained. If he wanted to preserve his authenticity, Mazzella realized, he needed friends. “Work connects you to what you do. Friends connect you to who you are,” he remarked.

Friends help us stay true to our roots — our history, values, and idiosyncrasies — as we reach for professional goals. It was friends, after all, that Aristotle first described as holding up a mirror to ourselves. And they provide an anchor for those selves too. In my research on mobile managers and independent workers, I found that those who had friends felt better equipped to navigate the anxieties of nomadic careers and solitary work. 6 Others have observed that friendships can provide a foundation of solidarity to resist indignity at work.

In short, good friends give us confidence, comfort, and courage. They shape our working lives and career dreams as much as, if not more than, our managers do. They help us show up as we are and imagine who we can become. 7 Those benefits, however, come at a price.

Friends Without Benefits

“Work friendships are wonderful, and they are hard work,” Pillemer told me. Her research with Wharton professor Nancy Rothbard has shown that the demands of friendship regularly conflict with the demands of our work roles. 8

Neglect a friend, and you might lose them. But attending to a friend might not always be the best way to use your time and energy at work. Furthermore, friendships can silence us. Many involve what scholars call “navigating to commonality” — smoothing differences and avoiding disagreement. That tendency can deprive us of feedback we need to hear, erode the quality of group decisions, and bring our fairness into question.

Spending time with our friends to the exclusion of others, or depending solely on them for support, can isolate us. Cliques are almost always detrimental and can be particularly counterproductive when we need a nudge in a new direction. Research shows that new ideas and career opportunities are most likely to come from weak ties — relationships outside our closest circles. Similarly, the cocoon of friendship might protect us too much. In unreliable institutions, people often turn to friends as a buffer against factors that harm their well-being and performance. In that way, friends can make us more tolerant of workplace cultures that we should try to change or leave, such as cultures of overwork. With friends around, our life at work becomes more comfortable. And comfortable people, at times, make poor change agents.

Precisely because it blurs the boundary between the personal and the professional, friendship can breed confusion, caution, and conformity. If those make friendship hard for corporate coworkers, some argue that they make it fatal for entrepreneurs. One study found that companies started by friends were more likely to fail because their cofounders were too cautious to exchange critical feedback and too comfortable to seek help outside.

“Mentors advised me to never start a business with a friend,” Mazzella told me. That warning did not suit him. A Stanford computer science graduate and aspiring founder, Mazzella decided to leave Silicon Valley and return to Paris, where he and his best friend started the company that would become BlaBlaCar. But soon, the friends faced an impasse. Their unequal commitment to the startup was fostering resentment and ineffective leadership. Eventually, Mazzella took the lead and a larger share of the company, but their friendship endured.

Their story reminded me of Pillemer and Rothbard’s observation that not all friendships hold people back, harm organizations, or fray under the pressure of work. Only fragile ones do. Some friendships do begin and end at work, but others grow beyond it. The best work friendships eventually lose the qualification and become just … friendships.

The admonition should not be to avoid forming friendships at work but to make stronger ones. The question is how to turn a friendly coworker into a good work friend. To begin, it helps to recognize friendship as an organic process that we can assist but can’t force.

How to Cultivate Friendship

Friendship is a natural product of our species’ fundamental need and desire to belong. And friendship is an accomplishment, too: a product of our choices and efforts. Both aspects of friendship remind me of the olive trees of my ancestral countryside that grow in sunstruck soil, take years to bear fruit, and, when mature, provide shade and joy to children who climb them. You can’t build one of those. But you can cultivate one, if you care.

What follows is a blueprint for how to care for and grow work friendships over three stages. Use it to reflect on your own friendships, if you wish, and then go and discuss it with your friends. The sooner and more frequently you do it, the better. Until you can be honest about how your relationship affects your work and vice versa, your friendship will remain fragile and might cause conflict, demand caution, and isolate you. Discussing how to nourish it, make space for it, and share it, conversely, will make your friendship stronger.

Helping the seed of friendship sprout. Sometimes we find the seedling of a friendship at work, like when we notice a coworker who seems to share our outlook on life. Other times, we plant it there — say, when we hire a friend. Some budding friends are peers at work, whereas others are not. In any case, you must prepare the soil.

The composition of fertile ground for friendship is shared activities, common interests, and comparable challenges. It’s not enough to do something together, like working on the same project or for the same client, if you do not share similar views on, and similar struggles in, that work. Furthermore, friendship grows best on egalitarian ground, hence a degree of equality needs to be established alongside commonality.

Those were the circumstances under which Christina Anagnostopoulou, an executive in the pharma industry, found a close friend in the workplace. “We met working on the same team. We were peers,” she told me. “My friend is an expert, detail-oriented, serious, and focused. I am a generalist, easygoing, always doing 10 things at once. We were executives in a formal, competitive, complex environment. We both loved work and felt a need for lightness, for laughter. We shared, without judgment, the pain and failures that were never discussed in the office.”

High-pressure work environments might incline us to seek friends as well. “Ours can be a dreary industry,” a banker told me, “but having friends around when you are pulling all-nighters, dealing with a difficult boss, or working on something you have no idea about makes it much easier and more fun.”

In her book on the evolution and functions of friendship, Lydia Denworth describes how gifts are a hallmark of friendship across many cultures. 9 When we approach a potential friend in the workplace, we might offer a croissant, a word of advice, or some gossip. These gifts represent the nutrients that the seeds of friendship need to grow: attention, candor, and, most importantly, time. The more uptight and pressured your workplace is, the more likely it is that you will see as a potential friend someone who treats you as an equal, gives you their time and attention, and seems to want nothing other than yours in return. Lack of time, conversely, makes friendships wither.

A budding work friendship also needs protective boundaries that acknowledge its intersection with work as well as its differentiation from it. You need to speak up when you need space, are disappointed, or have critical feedback. You need to be clear about when and how to put the friendship or the work aside deliberately.

A senior manager at a global consumer goods company learned that when he hired his best friend. After a difficult six months, they realized that they had to cultivate new relational boundaries. “I insisted on trying different ways to have a transparent discussion and exchange feedback about work and our relationship, and the more we opened up, the more the barrier disappeared,” the manager told me. The two also agreed not to speak about work when they met outside of it, and they stuck to that deal.

Openness makes it easier to set boundaries, and boundaries make it easier to be open, minimizing conflict if not preventing it entirely, which allows your friendship to set roots and unfurl its first leaves.

Making space for friendship to grow. Once your friendship has sprouted, it needs enough space and support to grow, flower, and bear fruit. Time matters at this stage, too — not just as a signal of interest but as an expression of commitment.

Few friendships survive asymmetry in how much time each person expects to spend with the other. One study showed that remote coworkers develop friendships only if their contact is frequent enough to let them feel connected beyond the requirements of work. The virtual contact, however, must be synchronous. A phone conversation is better than a text, unless we are texting back and forth at the same time. We need friends to be there with us, even online.

Entrepreneur Mazzella took time to stay connected with friends despite years of 80-hour workweeks. “I would often call a friend, inviting them to dinner around 9 p.m., when I took a break,” he told me. “If they were available, we would connect over a meal. If not, at least it was an occasion to discuss for a few minutes on the phone.” Those dinners and conversations were a physical expression of the friends’ commitment to each other.

Temporal and physical space — spending time somewhere you enjoy, such as on a hiking trail — makes friendship viable. Psychological space makes it stronger. Making that space involves committing to getting to know each other well and helping each other grow. Like a stake that supports a young tree, those commitments are friends’ stakes in mutual development.

Sadaf Hosseini, a senior manager at an international organization, told me that her work friends are “truer friends than those I have found in other contexts,” and she pointed to their honest feedback as one of the ways in which good friends help each other grow. “They have the capability of calling me on my bulls**t. That’s hard to find, as friends usually close their eyes on your weaknesses and sometimes even lie, just not to hurt you,” she said. This observation captures a crucial difference between fragile and stronger friendships: The former just reassure you; the latter challenge you, too. They keep you focused on your dreams and accountable for doing your best.

We build stronger work friendships by helping each other see how a personal issue might get in the way of work or how work can stifle who we are, and helping each other do something about it. The trunk of friendship has become strong enough when it lets us stay grounded and reach out freely. This is the point at which a friendship begins to bear fruit that nourishes two selves.

Letting others share its shade and fruits. Large trees are often visible features of a landscape, and so are strong friendships in the workplace. Once your friendship has grown deep roots and used the space to flourish, you will need to attend to its impact at work and avoid exclusivity and cliquishness. At this stage, you must ensure that your friendship is hospitable and does not become a hideout that stops you from engaging others.

I have witnessed hospitable friendships frequently among independent workers. Those professionals often rely on friends in their line of work for emotional and practical support. And yet they are mindful that they need to help each other tap into the weak ties that can help improve their work or find new work: the writer friends who set up a group to critique each other’s work, inviting peers from outside their circle; the consultants who asked one or two colleagues they did not know well to join them on a project; or the trainers who brought their respective clients together for a retreat to share best practices. They were all doing the same thing: opening up the protection and resources of their work friendship to others who might bring them new insight, a sense of community, and value.

Opening your friendship up is even more important in an organization, where the temptation might be the opposite — to seclude the friendship and keep it aside. “Sometimes you want to show that you are not offering preferential treatment to your friends, so you end up treating them worse than a stranger,” a corporate lawyer told me. That strategy, however, often backfires, creating suspicions that something inappropriate is afoot, even when it is not.

To counter the concerns about favoritism or cliquishness that friendship can create in work groups, it is not enough to be discreet. You must find ways to share the fruits of your friendship with the group. The same lawyer told me that discussing how to stay close yet professional with her friend made her question the need for so much distance with other coworkers. “Most of the time at work, we treat each other like robots. We fail to see the individual behind an email or a phone call,” she said. Her friendship made her resolve to treat everyone with the same care.

Friends who have done the work I’m describing here can become role models of openness. Declan, one of my closest work friends, is a master at this. I love to have him on my side on delicate projects and in mundane meetings. He is fierce and funny. He will have my back, and he won’t let me hide. He will be sensitive to my concerns and challenging with my shortcomings, and I with his. And we will be all that in public: letting everyone else know that care and honesty are what we expect and cherish in our line of work, and that they can join in.

Seen as a source of vitality to generously share, friendship becomes more than a way to survive a demanding workplace. It is a way to reject and challenge its norms of distance and instrumentality and begin humanizing it, making it more inclusive and engaging.

Don’t Fear Making Friends

We are all better off for having access to the grounded freedom that friendship provides. That we so often fear it or try to hide it at work says more about workplace norms than it says about our friends. People in circumstances in which work is personal and close relationships are vital often remind me that not having friends at work is potentially disastrous.

Organizations desperately need to bring humanity back into their cultures. Friendship is a way to do that.

Strong friendships are developmental for those involved and for those around them. They help everyone grow more than they could have alone. They make us feel that someone cares for our self and for our learning — rather than just for our skills and performance. Being dedicated to cultivating them will help you realize the true value of friendship: making us more secure, free, and generous.

Seen that way, friendship is not the antithesis of work relations but its expansion. It provides a template for the kinds of relationships that make a workplace a community. Reflecting on a career in professional services, an executive told me: “I have done my best work, my most creative work, my most impactful work with friends. Organizations desperately need to bring humanity back into their cultures. Friendship is a way to do that.”

Related Articles

Fragile work friendships will fade once a hard project ends or a friend leaves the company. Strong friendships born in the workplace often outlast those transitions. We take them with us because they become, as philosophers have argued and neuroscientists have shown, a part of us. And they keep us human and growing at work and beyond.

My friend Francesco and I have done a decent job at that. We have shared the moments that friends are meant to be there for — breakups and weddings, funerals and births, rejections and promotions. We have kept each other’s secrets and our conversation running. “Did you bring the friendship?” one of us will ask every time we meet. “It’s there!” The other will answer, pointing to a flowerpot. (There must be dirt.) More confined yet just as green, the friendship is still there — to witness who we once were, who we have chosen to be, and who we might still become. 

About the Author

Gianpiero Petriglieri is an associate professor of organizational behavior and the academic director of the Initiative for Learning Innovation and Teaching Excellence at Insead.

1. T.M. Newcomb, “The Acquaintance Process” (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1961).

2. C.N. Hadley and M. Mortensen, “ Are Your Team Members Lonely? ” MIT Sloan Management Review 62, no. 2 (winter 2021): 36-40.

3. G. Petriglieri, “ In Praise of the Office ,” Harvard Business Review, July 15, 2020, https://hbr.org.

4. G.R. Kellerman and M. Seligman, “Tomorrowmind: Thriving at Work With Resilience, Creativity, and Connection — Now and in an Uncertain Future” (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023).

5. L. Gratton, “ Why You Should Make Friends at Work ,” MIT Sloan Management Review, Oct. 13, 2022, https://sloanreview.mit.edu.

6. G. Petriglieri, J.L. Petriglieri, and J.D. Wood, “ Fast Tracks and Inner Journeys: Crafting Portable Selves for Contemporary Careers ,” Administrative Science Quarterly 63, no. 3 (September 2018): 479-525.

7. M.G. Franco, “Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — and Keep — Friends” (New York: Penguin Random House, 2022).

8. J. Pillemer and N.P. Rothbard, “ Friends Without Benefits: Understanding the Dark Sides of Workplace Friendship ,” Academy of Management Review 43, no. 4. (October 2018): 635-660.

9. L. Denworth, “Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond” (New York: W.W. Norton, 2020).

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What Makes a Successful Person essay

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Success will never come when one gives up trying to reach it. Success is primarily a result of the effort one puts in. The one who has the greatest amount of hardwork, dedication, and skill, will be the one who becomes most successful. Hard work, dedication, and skill are all three difficult goals to be the best at. Once one meets success they must keep working hard, dedicate themselves, and keep a high skill level to stay in the category of success.

If one thinks positive and works hard to meet their full potential, the chances of them reaching success are much greater. A hard worker may not be the best at everything because of the lack of talent, but they will definitely be one of the best. The effort and time a hard worker puts in gets the job done better than any other. A writer Skip Peterson was told that he couldn’t do things and it made him work harder. So think positive through all the difficult issues.

Being dedicated plays a huge role in reaching success. How can someone ever get the job done without success? Having dedication will help in long and short term goals. If one is dedicated to their work they will not leave it out when other obstacles get in the way. Be dedicated to every single goal and reaching the majority of them will make the chance of success even greater.

Having the skills to meet goals is extremely important. Getting to ones maximum potential involves a great amount of skill. Hard work and dedication alone will make a person successful but adding skill into the combination will make the person more successful than one could ever imagine.

The Essay on Hard Skills Vs. Soft Skills

Introduction One million dollar question, which project and human resource management have asked for several years while doing recruitment, is whether do recruit individual endowed with hard skills or soft skills. This leads to asking the quest that between the two is the most important for an organization. Hard skills can be defined as technical know how or specific abilities that relate to the ...

Hard work, dedication, and skill leads to a tremendously successful person. Being successful will make you a happier person in the long run. So keep that in mind when you feel like giving up. Keep striving for the goal, work hard, don├втВмтДвt give up and success will come on its own.

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what makes a person successful essay

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Essay on How to be Successful in Life

what makes a person successful essay

Every person in this world wants to attain something in life. It might be that somebody wants to become a dancer, singer, environmentalist, banker, etc. The choices vary according to the individual. It is easy to dream and imagine being successful in our life but the journey of this victory is really a challenging one. There are many successful people in the world but every one of them has infinite effort and dedication in becoming successful.

Short and Long Essay on How to be Successful in Life in English

The most important question that arises in our minds is how we can be successful in our life. This is a commonly asked topic in exams for writing an essay on it. Many students find it difficult in writing essays on this topic. In the same reference, I have provided essays on this topic. I think it might benefit the students in getting an idea about writing an essay, project, or assignment on this topic.

10 Lines Essay on How to be Successful in Life (100 – 120 Words)

1) Success is something everyone strives for to get a good life.

2) Hard work will help you to achieve success in life.

3) Confidence is another factor that will help you to be successful.

4) To be successful in life, you should not fear failure.

5) Determination and dedication are required to be successful.

6) You will achieve success if you don’t lose sight of your goal.

7) Keep trying and never quit to reach success.

8) You will be successful in life if you believe in yourself.

9) Continuous practice and patience will help you to become successful.

10) Motivation is required at every step to reach the peak of success.

How to be Successful Essay – 250 Words

Introduction

We all have some goals in our life. Success is the ultimate thing that we require in any work that we do in our life. This can be achieved only with hard work and determination. Success gives us immense pleasure and satisfaction in our life.

Success requires sacrifice

We all want to be successful in any work that we do in our life. Success gives great pleasure and contentment to us. The process of being successful is not as easy as it is to say. It requires great sacrifice and hard work. We need to reduce our comforts and work with greater determination to attain success in our life. The most important thing that we need to inculcate in our lives is time management that helps us in doing our work on time. It is always said in order to gain something in life we have to lose something. The desire for success becomes more interesting when it starts giving challenges to us. Later when we become successful we feel that the struggle that we have done earlier is now fruitful. Being successful is one of the most beautiful experiences of life.

Failures should never be treated as hindrances in the path of success

We all make effort to be successful in accomplishing our goals in life. This makes us happy and provides encouragement to move forward in our life. Many times it happens that people face failure in their first step of success. It does not mean that we should stop doing efforts and become hopeless. The act of being hopeless and depressed takes us far away from success. Failure always states that there is a mistake in our effort and therefore we must learn from our failure instead of making it a hindrance in the path of success.

Success requires patience as it is not attained in a short period of time. We must believe in doing an effort and results will surely be fruitful.

How to be Successful Person – Long Essay (1100 Words)

We all are attracted by people achieving success in different fields. Many of the successful people are also the role models for many people and students in the society. The act of being successful is not as easy as it is in saying or seeing others. It is only we who can make our way towards becoming successful in our life.

What is Meant by Success?

Success is something that is can be achieved by making the best use of our abilities and the resources that we have. Success isn’t very easy as spelled but requires greater patience. It totally depends upon us that how we want to shape of life and carrier. Every person in this world has a different opinion regarding the word success in his/her life. It is the real satisfaction and happiness that one gets after achieving the goal of life. Success brings happiness to our lives and motivates us to do our best. We all dream of becoming successful in life, but success is only achieved by people who are really concerned about it.

Few Ways of becoming Successful in Life

We all are born with some purpose in our life. It is because life without a significant goal is meaningless. We all understand ourselves and our abilities in a better way than anyone else. The utilization of our own ability in getting our goals accomplished makes us successful in our life. Here are some tips that can help you in becoming successful in your life.

Recognize your passion or goal – Everybody in this world is born with a unique talent. It is most essential for you to recognize your passion. Passion in doing any work gives you inner happiness and satisfaction. If you identify your passion and work accordingly the path of your success becomes clear. For example, if you have a talent for dancing and want to make it your carrier then you need to focus on polishing your dancing skill. This can only make you a successful dancer in your life. In other words, it can be said that it is essential to recognize the goal of your life and work upon it till it makes you shine.

Have the courage to accept failure – There are many challenges in the way of success. The people who are really serious about their passion or dreams make their way by facing challenges. It may happen that you might face failure in life while proceeding towards being successful. You must not lose hope but try to find out your mistakes that had been behind getting failure. According to our former President Dr. Abdul Kalam, the word FAIL means First Attempt in Learning. Failure is always accompanied by success. It makes you realize and learn from your mistakes. It is necessary that you must never panic about failure and have the courage to accept it. Success is a long process and therefore you need to have patience in you. This will surely make you successful in your life.

Hard work – It is always said that there is no substitute for hard work in getting success. People who are talented from birth also need to work hard in their life to become successful. Hard work helps you sharpening your passion and skill. You really have to become extraordinary for becoming successful in your life.

Stay motivated – In no condition, you must forget about your goal in life. As you have seen a spider even after the destruction of its web it again starts weaving a new one without losing hope. There must be something in your life that might remind you about your goal every time. This will make you more motivated for doing hard work for achieving your goal. The picture of your goal must be in front of your eyes every time either you are slept or awake. You may write some quotations or draw and paste them on your room wall so that whenever you enter your room you must get energized once again. Motivation is a very essential key factor for becoming successful in our life.

Be disciplined and time-bounded – Discipline and time management is most important for attaining success in life. Living a disciplined life helps you to concentrate towards the goal of your life. After deciding on your goal you need to do proper planning for accomplishing it. You have to make time management for everything you do in your life. It is because time is most precious and if lost can never be regained. Opportunity only knocks once and you must not let it go in vain. Therefore the right decision at right time can only make the journey of life a successful one.

Does being Successful mean being Able to Earn a Lot of Money?

Money and success both are important for an individual. We all have some goals in our life and after accomplishing them we get a good carrier and earn a good amount of money. It is true that money is necessary for everything in your life but only money can never provide you happiness. In my opinion, every highly earning person is not really a successful one. The real meaning of being successful is getting happiness and satisfaction in life after being able to do that what you love to do in life.

A child getting good marks in the examination is a success, getting your dream job is a success, being able to fulfill your dreams is a success. The act of fulfilling your dreams makes you very happy and is the real meaning of success. There are many people in this world who earn money by wrong means and therefore they are rich enough. It does not mean that they are successful. Thus there is a great difference between being able to earn a lot of money and being successful. Richness is not the right way of measuring success. Successful people can earn good money along with respect in society.

Success is aspired by everyone in this world but only a few people become capable of tasting real success. Everything is possible in this world and people are making it happen. In the same way, becoming successful is difficult but not impossible. It requires several sacrifices, hard work, dedication, time management. The people who are focused and have a keen desire to make their dream come true can surely become successful in their life.

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

Ans . Real success means fulfilling your dream goal of your life that you love doing.

Ans . The habit of being honest with oneself is most important for becoming successful.

Ans . We have to leave our comforts and concentrate on our aim for being successful in life.

Ans . Success is important because it gives us self-confidence and hopes to move to the next level in life.

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Social media harms teens’ mental health, mounting evidence shows. what now.

Understanding what is going on in teens’ minds is necessary for targeted policy suggestions

A teen scrolls through social media alone on her phone.

Most teens use social media, often for hours on end. Some social scientists are confident that such use is harming their mental health. Now they want to pinpoint what explains the link.

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By Sujata Gupta

February 20, 2024 at 7:30 am

In January, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook’s parent company Meta, appeared at a congressional hearing to answer questions about how social media potentially harms children. Zuckerberg opened by saying: “The existing body of scientific work has not shown a causal link between using social media and young people having worse mental health.”

But many social scientists would disagree with that statement. In recent years, studies have started to show a causal link between teen social media use and reduced well-being or mood disorders, chiefly depression and anxiety.

Ironically, one of the most cited studies into this link focused on Facebook.

Researchers delved into whether the platform’s introduction across college campuses in the mid 2000s increased symptoms associated with depression and anxiety. The answer was a clear yes , says MIT economist Alexey Makarin, a coauthor of the study, which appeared in the November 2022 American Economic Review . “There is still a lot to be explored,” Makarin says, but “[to say] there is no causal evidence that social media causes mental health issues, to that I definitely object.”

The concern, and the studies, come from statistics showing that social media use in teens ages 13 to 17 is now almost ubiquitous. Two-thirds of teens report using TikTok, and some 60 percent of teens report using Instagram or Snapchat, a 2022 survey found. (Only 30 percent said they used Facebook.) Another survey showed that girls, on average, allot roughly 3.4 hours per day to TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, compared with roughly 2.1 hours among boys. At the same time, more teens are showing signs of depression than ever, especially girls ( SN: 6/30/23 ).

As more studies show a strong link between these phenomena, some researchers are starting to shift their attention to possible mechanisms. Why does social media use seem to trigger mental health problems? Why are those effects unevenly distributed among different groups, such as girls or young adults? And can the positives of social media be teased out from the negatives to provide more targeted guidance to teens, their caregivers and policymakers?

“You can’t design good public policy if you don’t know why things are happening,” says Scott Cunningham, an economist at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

Increasing rigor

Concerns over the effects of social media use in children have been circulating for years, resulting in a massive body of scientific literature. But those mostly correlational studies could not show if teen social media use was harming mental health or if teens with mental health problems were using more social media.

Moreover, the findings from such studies were often inconclusive, or the effects on mental health so small as to be inconsequential. In one study that received considerable media attention, psychologists Amy Orben and Andrew Przybylski combined data from three surveys to see if they could find a link between technology use, including social media, and reduced well-being. The duo gauged the well-being of over 355,000 teenagers by focusing on questions around depression, suicidal thinking and self-esteem.

Digital technology use was associated with a slight decrease in adolescent well-being , Orben, now of the University of Cambridge, and Przybylski, of the University of Oxford, reported in 2019 in Nature Human Behaviour . But the duo downplayed that finding, noting that researchers have observed similar drops in adolescent well-being associated with drinking milk, going to the movies or eating potatoes.

Holes have begun to appear in that narrative thanks to newer, more rigorous studies.

In one longitudinal study, researchers — including Orben and Przybylski — used survey data on social media use and well-being from over 17,400 teens and young adults to look at how individuals’ responses to a question gauging life satisfaction changed between 2011 and 2018. And they dug into how the responses varied by gender, age and time spent on social media.

Social media use was associated with a drop in well-being among teens during certain developmental periods, chiefly puberty and young adulthood, the team reported in 2022 in Nature Communications . That translated to lower well-being scores around ages 11 to 13 for girls and ages 14 to 15 for boys. Both groups also reported a drop in well-being around age 19. Moreover, among the older teens, the team found evidence for the Goldilocks Hypothesis: the idea that both too much and too little time spent on social media can harm mental health.

“There’s hardly any effect if you look over everybody. But if you look at specific age groups, at particularly what [Orben] calls ‘windows of sensitivity’ … you see these clear effects,” says L.J. Shrum, a consumer psychologist at HEC Paris who was not involved with this research. His review of studies related to teen social media use and mental health is forthcoming in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.

Cause and effect

That longitudinal study hints at causation, researchers say. But one of the clearest ways to pin down cause and effect is through natural or quasi-experiments. For these in-the-wild experiments, researchers must identify situations where the rollout of a societal “treatment” is staggered across space and time. They can then compare outcomes among members of the group who received the treatment to those still in the queue — the control group.

That was the approach Makarin and his team used in their study of Facebook. The researchers homed in on the staggered rollout of Facebook across 775 college campuses from 2004 to 2006. They combined that rollout data with student responses to the National College Health Assessment, a widely used survey of college students’ mental and physical health.

The team then sought to understand if those survey questions captured diagnosable mental health problems. Specifically, they had roughly 500 undergraduate students respond to questions both in the National College Health Assessment and in validated screening tools for depression and anxiety. They found that mental health scores on the assessment predicted scores on the screenings. That suggested that a drop in well-being on the college survey was a good proxy for a corresponding increase in diagnosable mental health disorders. 

Compared with campuses that had not yet gained access to Facebook, college campuses with Facebook experienced a 2 percentage point increase in the number of students who met the diagnostic criteria for anxiety or depression, the team found.

When it comes to showing a causal link between social media use in teens and worse mental health, “that study really is the crown jewel right now,” says Cunningham, who was not involved in that research.

A need for nuance

The social media landscape today is vastly different than the landscape of 20 years ago. Facebook is now optimized for maximum addiction, Shrum says, and other newer platforms, such as Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok, have since copied and built on those features. Paired with the ubiquity of social media in general, the negative effects on mental health may well be larger now.

Moreover, social media research tends to focus on young adults — an easier cohort to study than minors. That needs to change, Cunningham says. “Most of us are worried about our high school kids and younger.” 

And so, researchers must pivot accordingly. Crucially, simple comparisons of social media users and nonusers no longer make sense. As Orben and Przybylski’s 2022 work suggested, a teen not on social media might well feel worse than one who briefly logs on. 

Researchers must also dig into why, and under what circumstances, social media use can harm mental health, Cunningham says. Explanations for this link abound. For instance, social media is thought to crowd out other activities or increase people’s likelihood of comparing themselves unfavorably with others. But big data studies, with their reliance on existing surveys and statistical analyses, cannot address those deeper questions. “These kinds of papers, there’s nothing you can really ask … to find these plausible mechanisms,” Cunningham says.

One ongoing effort to understand social media use from this more nuanced vantage point is the SMART Schools project out of the University of Birmingham in England. Pedagogical expert Victoria Goodyear and her team are comparing mental and physical health outcomes among children who attend schools that have restricted cell phone use to those attending schools without such a policy. The researchers described the protocol of that study of 30 schools and over 1,000 students in the July BMJ Open.

Goodyear and colleagues are also combining that natural experiment with qualitative research. They met with 36 five-person focus groups each consisting of all students, all parents or all educators at six of those schools. The team hopes to learn how students use their phones during the day, how usage practices make students feel, and what the various parties think of restrictions on cell phone use during the school day.

Talking to teens and those in their orbit is the best way to get at the mechanisms by which social media influences well-being — for better or worse, Goodyear says. Moving beyond big data to this more personal approach, however, takes considerable time and effort. “Social media has increased in pace and momentum very, very quickly,” she says. “And research takes a long time to catch up with that process.”

Until that catch-up occurs, though, researchers cannot dole out much advice. “What guidance could we provide to young people, parents and schools to help maintain the positives of social media use?” Goodyear asks. “There’s not concrete evidence yet.”

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Your First Step Toward a Better Mood

Poor sleep can make anxiety, depression and other mental health issues worse. Here’s what to do about it.

An illustration of a person lying on their back in a bed with eyes open. The bedroom walls and floor tiles are deteriorating, breaking off and floating away.

By Christina Caron

It started with mild anxiety.

Emily, who asked to be identified only by her first name because she was discussing her mental health, had just moved to New York City after graduate school, to start a marketing job at a big law firm.

She knew it was normal to feel a little on edge. But she wasn’t prepared for what came next: chronic insomnia.

Operating on only three or four hours of sleep, it didn’t take long for her anxiety to ramp up: At 25, she was “freaking nervous all the time. A wreck.”

When a lawyer at her firm yelled at her one day, she experienced the first of many panic attacks. At a doctor’s suggestion, she tried taking a sleeping pill, in the hopes that it might “reset” her sleep cycle and improve her mood. It didn’t work.

Americans are chronically sleep deprived: one-third of adults in the United States say they get less than 7 hours a night. Teenagers fare even worse: About 70 percent of high school students don’t get enough sleep on school nights.

And it is having a profound effect on mental health.

An analysis of 19 studies found that while sleep deprivation worsened a person’s ability to think clearly or perform certain tasks, it had a greater negative effect on mood. And when the National Sleep Foundation conducted a survey in 2022, half of those who said they slept less than 7 hours each weekday also reported having depressive symptoms. Some research even indicates that addressing insomnia may help prevent postpartum depression and anxiety .

Clearly, sleep is important. But despite the evidence, there continues to be a shortage of psychiatrists or other doctors trained in sleep medicine, leaving many to educate themselves. So what happens to our mental health if we aren’t getting enough sleep, and what can be done about it?

How does poor sleep affect your mood?

When people have trouble sleeping, it changes how they experience stress and negative emotions, said Aric Prather, a sleep researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who treats patients with insomnia. “And for some, this can have a feed-forward effect — feeling bad, ruminating, feeling stressed can bleed into our nights,” he said.

Carly Demler, 40, a stay-at-home mother in North Carolina, said she went to bed one night and never fell asleep . From that point onward, she would be up at least once a week until 3 or 4 a.m. It continued for more than a year.

She became irritable, less patient and far more anxious.

Hormone blood work and a sleep study in a university lab offered her no answers. Even after taking Ambien, she stayed up most of the night. “It was like my anxiety was a fire that somehow jumped the fence and somehow ended up expanding into my nights,” she said. “I just felt I had no control.”

In the end, it was cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia , or C.B.T.-I., that brought Ms. Demler the most relief. Studies have found that C.B.T.-I. is more effective than sleep medications are over the long term: As many as 80 percent of the people who try it see improvements in their sleep.

Ms. Demler learned not to “lay in bed and freak out.” Instead, she gets up and reads so as not to associate her bedroom with anxiety, then returns to bed when she’s tired.

“The feeling of gratitude that I have every morning, when I wake up and feel well rested, I don’t think will ever go away,” she said. “That’s been an unexpected silver lining.”

Adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep a night, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . Teenagers and young children need even more.

It’s not just about quantity. The quality of your sleep is also important. If it takes more than 30 minutes to fall asleep, for example, or if you regularly wake up in the middle of the night, it is harder to feel rested, regardless of the number of hours you spend in bed.

But some people “have a tendency to think they’re functioning well even if they’re sleepy during the day or having a harder time focusing,” said Lynn Bufka, a clinical psychologist and spokeswoman for the American Psychological Association.

Ask yourself how you feel during the day: Do you find that you’re more impatient or quick to anger? Are you having more negative thoughts or do you feel more anxious or depressed? Do you find it harder to cope with stress? Do you find it difficult to do your work efficiently?

If so, it’s time to take action.

How to stop the cycle.

We’ve all heard how important it is to practice good sleep hygiene , employing the daily habits that promote healthy sleep. And it’s important to speak with your doctor, in order to rule out any physical problems that need to be addressed, like a thyroid disorder or restless legs syndrome.

But this is only part of the solution.

Conditions like anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder can make it harder to sleep, which can then exacerbate the symptoms of mental illness, which in turn makes it harder to sleep well.

“It becomes this very difficult to break cycle,” Dr. Bufka said.

Certain medications, including psychiatric drugs like antidepressants, can also cause insomnia. If a medication is to blame, talk to your doctor about switching to a different one, taking it earlier in the day or lowering the dose, said Dr. Ramaswamy Viswanathan, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University and the incoming president of the American Psychiatric Association.

The cycle can afflict those without mental health disorders too, when worries worsen sleep and a lack of sleep worsens mood.

Emily, who worked in the big law firm, would become so concerned about her inability to sleep that she didn’t even want to get into bed.

“You really start to believe ‘I’m never going to sleep,’” she said. “The adrenaline is running so high that you can’t possibly do it.”

Eventually she came across “Say Goodnight to Insomnia” by Gregg D. Jacobs. The book, which uses C.B.T.-I. techniques, helped Emily to reframe the way she thought about sleep. She began writing down her negative thoughts in a journal and then changing them to positive ones. For example: “What if I’m never able to fall asleep again?” would become “Your body is made to sleep. If you don’t get enough rest one night, you will eventually.” These exercises helped her stop catastrophizing.

Once she started sleeping again, she felt “way happier.”

Now, at 43, nearly 20 years after she moved to New York, she is still relying on the techniques she learned, and brings the book along whenever she travels. If she doesn’t sleep well away from home, “I catch up on sleep for a few days if necessary,” she said. “I’m way more relaxed about it.”

Christina Caron is a Times reporter covering mental health. More about Christina Caron

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