5 Things You DON’T Need in Order to Succeed in Life

We all dream about achieving some kind of success. But when we think about the ways to succeed in life, we also think of self-imposed obstacles.

I have a great business idea, but I don’t have money to bring it to life.

My dream is to become a yoga instructor, but I’m not flexible enough.

I’d love to get an MA degree, but I’m too old now.

Do you recognize yourself somewhere in those statements? Are you undermining your own chances to succeed in life? Stop it! No one starts their journey towards success under the perfect circumstances. There are always obstacles to overcome.

We’ll list a few things you don’t need to succeed in life. If you lack any of them, you can still aim for the stars.

1. The Right Age

You’re too young? You think it’s too early to start a business? Well, think again! Have you heard of Whateverlife.com? It’s an alternative magazine for Millennials. Ashley Qualls started that business when she was only 14.

If your business idea is cool and you have support to pursue it, then you’re not too young. Mark Zuckerberg was only 20 years old when he launched Facebook, which soon became a multimillion business.

2. Youth

If you’re 40 or 50 years old and you still haven’t had your breakthrough success, you’re probably disappointed. You feel like you spent your whole life on a boring job and you have no chances to improve that lifestyle.

Well, you’re wrong. An international team of researchers examined how age was related to the impact a scientist makes. Do you know what the results showed? Breakthrough success doesn’t depend on age. It depends on productivity.

That notion is not limited to scientists only. We can translate it to any other business. Vera Wang entered the world of fashion design at 40 years old. Arianna Huffington started Huffington post at 55 years old.

Instead of thinking “If only I was younger,” you should be thinking “If only I was more productive.” Productivity is something you can change.

What kind of success do you want to achieve? Do you want to learn a new skill? Well, start working! Do you want to start a business? Find out what you need and do it! You’re never too old to take your life in a better direction.

3. Writing Skills

Okay, how many times have you heard the claim that every single profession benefits from writing skills? That’s true, but only to a certain extent. If you want to own a successful business, you’ll have to promote it via social media content and blog posts.

If you want to work in an office, you’ll have to write emails and reports. If you want to get a Ph.D. degree, you’ll have to write a doctoral research project.

Yes, writing skills are beneficial. If you don’t have them, however, you can always work on them.

4. Money

Did you know that Larry Page and Sergey Brin didn’t start Google with their own money? They raised $1 million from investors, friends and family. Now, think about the massive success that Google is. We can’t even label it as success; it’s much more. It’s a giant!

And no, giant companies are not started by the rich and famous. They usually come from people who don’t have the money but have the X factor. Now, the X factor, that’s something you definitely need for success.

If your idea is good enough, it will definitely attract business angels as soon as you present it. You can also fund a business through crowdsourcing. There are many nice examples of successful businesses funded through a Kickstarter campaign.

5. Education

We’re not saying you shouldn’t graduate from college and proceed with university studies if you want to succeed in life. However, it’s still possible to achieve success without getting high education.

Let’s face it: not everyone has thousands of dollars to spend for a single year at college. That doesn’t mean you’ll spend the rest of your life as a mediocre worker (not that there’s anything bad in that, but we’re talking about people who want to achieve great success).

First of all, you can always learn the things you want to learn without investing huge amounts of money. There are websites that offer free courses on any topic you can think of. You want to learn how to lead a business but don’t want to attend college for that? Just sign up for a course.

Do you need proof? Steve Jobs dropped college. He did that so he could drop into the classes that looked more interesting. He wanted to gain practical knowledge and he didn’t actually leave college. He just gave up on the degree and learned the things he knew he could use.

Soon, he started feeling guilty about spending his parents’ money and he dropped out for good. He felt like college was useless in helping him figure out what he wanted to do with his life, so he left and trusted that it would all work out one day. It did work out for him, didn’t it?

Age, money, and education are not determining points of success. You can succeed in life even if you don’t have the skills that everyone tells you to develop.

The list of things you don’t necessarily need for success was supposed to inspire you. Are you ready to stop making excuses and make your first steps towards personal and professional accomplishment?