What if we told you the most successful people in the world religiously follow these 15 rules to win at life?
Life is a complicated game, filled with moving pieces, changing environments, changing rules & unfortunately it don’t come with a rule book, so we asked ourselves what would be the common traits and patterns shared by hundreds of people who we believe are successful, so we made this list of 15 rules to win at life.
The list ranges from innovators like Elon Musk, to artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat to champions like Michael Phelps, to monks who dedicate their lives to finding inner peace and more.
It turns out there are several actions or rules that guide their behaviors and in this article we’ll be sharing them with you.
While studying them, we realized it’s going to be hard to fit all these practices into a single story so we broke it down into at least 2 parts.
This is the first one and will cover the essentials, without these you’re unlikely to win the game of life. Next sunday, we’ll share the part 2 for this, with some interesting tactics which give you an edge over everyone else.
If you don’t feel like reading the long post, we created this amazing video which contains all the info:
With that said, let’s take a look at 15 rules to with at life!
Number 1: Have a vision for your life
You can not achieve the life of your dreams if you never dream about it!
The first thing you need to do in order to win at the game of life is establish for yourself what winning is. Without a proper vision of what life should be you have no idea what are you supposed to achieve and when you’ve made it.
Many believe they know the general area of what they want from life, but so very few take the time to make it clear.
Here are a couple of questions to help you establish a Vision for your life:
- Where are you? What is your environment like in this dream life?
- How are you? Who are you as a person, what kind of memories to do you have, how healthy are you, how do you feel alive?
- Who are you surrounded by? What kind of people do you have around you, do you have someone special who you share that success with?
- What is a successful life for you? What do you do for a living, how do you spend your time, what kind of goals would this new you have?
These are just a few of the core questions you could ask yourself in order to determine the vision for what your dream life should be.
Once you have this figured out, at least now you know what you’re shooting for! It’s time to make it a reality!
Number 2: Know who you are and what you stand for
The more you know who you are the less control the world has over you!
Making it and losing yourself in the process sounds like a bad deal to us. What’s the point of achieving financial success, if you can’t sleep well at night, see your loved ones or be surrounded only by superficiality.
If you want to win at life you should know who you are, what are your values, what do you stand for as an individual.
These are clear lines defined by someone who understands the importance of living a fine life, one without regrets. Small actions can have regrets which will last a life-time, so be sure to give it enough proper thought.
Number 3: Compare only to your yesterday’s self
Who cares if others are winning or losing if you’re standing on the sidelines?
We share the world with almost 8 billion people know, but each of us has his own story to live. You are responsible for yourself, for your growth & for the way you go through your life.
Stop comparing yourself to others and start comparing yourself with your past self.
If you focus on your own growth at some point you’ll find yourself a lot happier, you’ll realize that everyone is fighting a struggle of their own, with their personal expectations of what their life should be like.
It’s ok to find people that inspire you, people you can learn from, but do not compare your first chapter of the book with someone’s final chapter.
Number 4: Set clear and empowering goals
There is no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs! And every goal you hit is a new step!
Goals are like milestones or like interesting quests you can have in life. Achieving your goals is like leveling up and improving your own stats.
Smart goals are precisely defined and make the journey a lot more interesting. Find goals that inspire you which reside at the edge of your comfort zone. These will empower you and help you move the needle forward.
Number 5: Discipline your mind and your actions
The more disciplined you become, the easier your life gets!
Very few people master discipline, this happens because it’s a hard thing to do and not everyone deserves the benefits of such a valuable skill. It’s life’s way of thinning the herd of the wanna-be’s, only those who really want it put in the time to acquire discipline as a tool in their portfolio.
Mastering discipline is probably the most valuable thing one can do if he wants to win at life, afterwards it’s just a matter of time until whatever goal one sets becomes reality.
If you’ve always struggled with this, we put together a step-by-step guide on how to master discipline. You can watch the video below:
Number 6: All growth happens outside your comfort zone
The sooner you step away from your comfort zone you’ll realize it wasn’t all that comfortable!
Growth comes from trying new things, comes from failure, comes from success and from uncomfortable conversations.
If you’re just starting out the best way to learn more about yourself and the world is by throwing yourself in it.
How sad would it be to live your life in a small bubble without getting to learn who you really are, to find out that there are millions of other things you find fascinating, that once you leave your comfort zone other dots – you haven’t even considered before – now connect in your favor and now you’re evolving.
Risk it, the reward is worth it.
Number 7: You only need to get it right once
It doesn’t matter how many time you fail, because at the end of the day, a single Win could last you a lifetime.
Many good ideas can slowly push you forward, but a single great idea can make you rich or give you the life you’re dreaming about.
The best thing is, ideas are free!
It’s free to come up with interesting concepts which could potentially change your life. Failure is irrelevant as long as you can try again and again.
If you’re serious about this, it becomes more like a numbers game and it’s all a matter of time before one of them works out.
Number 8: Be a traveler not a tourist
The world is meant to be discovered not just checked off a list!
This is one of our favorite rules in life and whenever we do something exciting we repeat it to ourselves. There’s a dramatic difference between being a traveler and being a tourist.
Tourism is a product that’s being sold to you, where you are not in control of the experience, so you’re not in control of your life.
Travel is when you venture out into the unknown and take the world in, in its raw format.
Do not mistake this for just going to different places because it’s deeper that this. Look at different parts of your life and see if you’re a traveler or a tourist, you’ll be shocked when you realize how little of your life is currently put in, in certain lanes by someone else.
Number 9: Be grateful for what you have & Thirsty for More
Gratitude makes sense of the past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow!
Be grateful for even the little you have. If you have more, be grateful for that, but be grateful!
Life is a blessing and you could’ve had it a lot worse, so shake off this feeling that life somehow treated you unfairly and buckle up.
Once you make peace with your current reality and realize it’s actually enough, you break free and can finally go after having more.
There’s nothing worse than being a prisoner in the “life has been unfair to me” trap.
Number 10: Reading Books can be your competitive advantage
The man who reads, lives hundreds of lives while those who don’t, live only one.
Books are still heavily underrated because most people don’t understand what the real value is. They look at books as forms of entertainment, instead of seeing books for what they are, litteral Knowledge vaults.
Someone’s life experiences, mistakes, failures, successes, everything someone learned in 50 or 60 years can be downloaded into your brain in a couple of days. How amazing is that?!
It’s time you start reading self-help books!
Books are not about entertainment, but provide you with access to some of the greatest minds that ever lived. Remember what we said at number 7: A single idea can make you rich! – and books are filled with them. A single book can change your life forever.
This is the reason we’ve made our 15 books everyone should read video which you can check out below. We specifically mention in that video when is the best time to read each of them so you can pick a couple of them which fit to your current reality!
Number 11: Listen much more than you speak
Nobody learned anything by hearing themselves speak!
If you want to win the game of life, it’s time you focused on real growth, the type that comes from actively paying attention to the world around you.
It’s time you became a sponge of knowledge and quality information, there isn’t one person around you from which you can not learn something and the brain has this weird problem where it doesn’t allow information to go in as you’re talking, so shut it and pay attention.
There’s a good reason you have two ears and a single mouth.
Number 12: Forgive but do not forget
Those who do not forgive are prisoners of their own hatred and those who do forget are poised to repeat the same mistakes!
If there’s a common theme throughout this article, is that of growth from all perspectives.
Forgiveness is not about you making peace with someone else, it’s about you making peace with yourself and allowing you to move forward.
The dangerous part is that events in life has some sort of cyclical nature, which means they have a tendency to repeat themselves.
The “Forgive but not forget” rule sounds aggressive but it’s more of a defense mechanism which will protect you as you evolve into a different person which can not be hurt by the same bullshit.
Number 13: Never Quit the Game
You may lose battles, you may struggle, but the game is lost only when you give up!
The only moment the game is over is when you completely give up! In order to win the game of life you need to be persistent, it’s not going to happen over night, you might need to make changes, you will need to pivot, innovate, rewrite, in order to make sure you get it.
The challenge is maintaining this level of adaptability long enough until you get it. You may quit a particular challenge, but never quit the main goal, because without it you’ll have to face a life deprived of the very thing that makes it worth living.
If times get hard, remember to rest not to give up!
Number 14: Respect others playing the game
Everyone is the centerpiece of their own story, with their own struggles and hardships, show them the respect you show yourself!
Respect is such an interesting topic, it’s one of those things where people understand it’s value and importance too late in life.
There’s a certain elegance of going through life as a respectful individual and you’ll find that by living that way the world will show respect towards you. It’s a tradeoff you make with the world and we need more of it.
Understand that everyone is trying to play their own version of the game, a version about which you know nothing about, treat the janitor with the same respect you treat the CEO.
Number 15: Do not play it safe
Only those who risk going too far can find out how far they can really go!
Hey, you get one life so why not make it EPIC?
At some point in your journey you’ll realize that playing it safe will not get you to the promised land you’ve dreamt of at the beginning of this piece.
Be bold about life, take calculated risks where the reward is worth it. There’s no other way of getting it without pushing your chances.
And if you fail, who cares, you can try again… and again.. And again.
The last thing you want is to be on your deathbed filled with the regret of a life you haven’t lived, places you’ve never seen, people you’ve never kissed, experiences you’ve never had but wish you would’ve.
These were the essential 15 rules to win at life; we’re curious to know Aluxers, Do you have a clear vision for your life? Let us know in the comments!
