5 Common Threads in Every Success Story

It's easy to look at someone who's done what you want to do — someone already successful —and think they must have talent, money, opportunity, luck, or some kind of crazy connection that normal people like us just don't have access to.

How nice for them that their stars aligned, but yours didn't, so why even bother?

But the thing is that those things aren't actually common to all successful people. There are plenty of people who are successful despite lacking one or more of those — or even all of them.

I'm a little obsessed lately by the things that successful people actually do have in common. Let's call them the success common denominators. I have a little list: a work ethic, a growth mindset, continued learning, grit, and failure.

Every successful person has these things in common. And the best thing is that they're totally under the control of the person exercising them.

A Work Ethic

"If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy." 

― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

Okay. So Terry Pratchett is a comedian, but there's some truth to what he wrote.

Here's what I think that truth is: There are some people who spend all their energy believing and affirming and trying to attract success to them. And then there are people who believe, and then act on that belief.

They work.

A strong work ethic is the thread that runs through all successful people. They show up. They do the grunt work. While everyone else is trying to figure out a short cut or a hack, they're busy doing the thing.

Even the people who are wildly successful at teaching other people how to have 'passive income' or make a ton of money with ridiculously short work weeks - are, themselves, working hard.

Successful people show up and do the work. They keep doing it, through the learning curve, through the failures, and long before they know that the work will actually pay off.

A Growth Mindset

"Becoming is better than being" 

― Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

Doing the work is good. It's essential. But doing the same thing over and over, without learning and adapting and growing is never going to get you where you want to go. It's like taking a 2,000 mile trip, but instead of going somewhere, you just drive around your block over and over.

You're diligent. You've developed a strong habit. But it doesn't get you anywhere, if you don't make some vertical progress along with the horizontal. In other words, successful people don't just drive around the block over and over.

Successful people are problem solvers. They look at what they're doing and figure out if it's working and experiment and try new things and (I think this is especially key) they relish the effort.

Continued Learning

"Forget talent. If you have it, fine. Use it. If you don't have it, it doesn't matter. As habit is more dependable than inspiration, continued learning is more dependable than talent."

 - Octavia Butler, Blood Child: and Other Stories

Successful people don't rest on their laurels. They keep learning and applying what they learn.

Successful people aren't always the most talented. They aren't always inspired. But they are dedicated to learning. They seek out mentors, resources, whatever can teach them the next new thing.

Curiosity is a driving force for successful people. They aren't satisfied with what they already know. They constantly look for ways to know more, to stay ahead of the curve, and to be innovative.

Grit

"The difference in winning & losing is most often, not quitting."

― Walt Disney

Grit is strength of character. It's sticking and persistence.

If successful people have any one thing in common it's this: They didn't quit. I mean, that's obvious, right? They're successful because they're still doing the thing, whatever the thing is.

Sometimes, all it takes to be successful is to keep going when everyone around you quits. They keep persevere, even when it's not clear that they'll get what they want. And they have the nerve to switch gears and try new things and figure out what 'not quitting' really looks like.

There's more to grit than that, though. Grit means not falling apart when things are hard. It means being resilient and able to adjust.

Failure

"We are all failures- at least the best of us are." 

― J.M. Barrie

Someone asked this question in a writer-focused Facebook group that I belong to: How do you deal with rejection?

The comments were filled with people talking about hiding under their covers, throwing tantrums, binge eating, giving up. Dozens of comments like that. I hope that for the most part, the responses were tongue-in-cheek - but there was definitely a core kernel of truth in them.

What struck me about that Facebook thread was that most of the people who were leaving comments about basically curling up into the fetal position after rejection weren't 'successful' writers.

By 'successful' I mean that they weren't getting the results they wanted from their work.

The few that responded who were seeing the kind of results they wanted had a different kind of response. They put in their whine, it was just that kind of thread, but they ended with and then I try again.

The point of life isn't success. The point is failure. Try this thought exercise.

Think of someone seems like they have it all -—someone who is projecting an aura of absolute success, as if the light of sun just shines a little brighter on them than the rest of us.

Now look a little deeper. Do some research if you have to. How have they failed?

The failure is there. Maybe it's not as sexy as the success, so they are't talking about it much, but if they are truly successful, the failure is there.

They went all in on something that didn't pan out. They were rejected. They put their heart and soul and resources into a plan that crashed and burned.

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Here's my secret weapon for sticking with whatever your thing is.

Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, two dementia patients, a good friend, Alfred the cat, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. She's on Twitter @shauntagrimes and is the original Ninja Writer.