The Psychology of Success

Defining success and how to achieve it

Woodbridge corporate and securities lawyer, Joseph Chiummiento, of Core Lawyers, provides his thoughts on the psychology of success.

Over the past year or so I have written blogs on corporate law topics designed to help protect business owners looking to take advantage of an opportunity or worried about protecting their businesses in specific situations. What about success on a personal, financial or professional level?

How to be Successful?

What is your definition of success? Once you have determined where you are today and where you want to go for tomorrow and now have a target established – what’s next?

What stops us from taking action, from driving for our vision of an ideal existence? Ever wanted to start a business, grow your business to the next revenue threshold, grab that next promotion in your organization? What is stopping you?

Psychology of Success

While I am no clinical psychologist (ie. like Jordan Peterson) I have seen many businesses grow and some fail, or manage their share of challenges. From a very early age, we learn how to work with others through our family interactions. We learn about decision making, power, control, interpersonal communications, emotions, and beliefs at a very early age in our family life. The family unit gives us our first glimpse at how to “run a business” and we define ourselves, and our successes (positive and negative reinforcements) at home through our family life (and sometimes at the dinner table).

What has your family taught you or instilled in you about how to be successful? What beliefs did you adopt or develop about money? Acceptable career choices? Acceptable decision making?

How can I be more successful?

While there is no secret formula for success, taking actions to enhance personal growth is a good start. Understanding what makes you tick and why (which some of us enjoy more than others) will provide the clarity you need to know why you are making the same mistakes over and over, drawn to the same people, run to the rescue of others.

Some other actions that could help kickstart you are:

• Identify your routine: the comfort of a routine will often be a safe haven to retreat from the fears, stresses and difficult actions you need take to make change happen. Doing the same thing over and over an expecting a different result is not realistic. What habits have you developed?
• Read a book or two: ask other business owners what they are reading, get past the superficial discussions and dig deeper, or go to a bookstore or online and see what’s trending.
• Find a coach or a therapist or a group you can join that helps you identify what makes you tick and can give you the confidence you need to make some small incremental changes.

While we are just scratching the surface here the point is making a decision to challenge your routine, question your learning, and take actions to avoid the “I should have” regrets. All great stuff we already know. Which one action will you do today (not Monday) that can get you started?

Working closely with clients as a lawyer, I see these challenges daily in the mechanics of any types of decisions and the decision making business owners are faced with.