How To Become More Successful and Achieve your Dreams ?

HOLA!

Straight to the point, I want to discuss about some easy hacks to become more successful in your life.

Before starting, what you need to know is that being more productive in life is directly proportional to having more rate of being successful or creating an environment of success in one’s life.

In this post I would like to cover some few tips which will increase your rate of productivity to insane level and also help to increase your level of creativity.

1. More stress = Less happiness = Less rate of productivity

No doubt this deserves the no. one spot in this post. We all are affected by lots of negativity around us. This may lead to higher stress levels. Taking stress will lead to nothing. The more stress you take, the less productive you become in the long run. So stop being in stress. Stop worrying, start being happy in your present situation, or deal problems in a positive manner.

2. Learn, unlearn and relearn

A very underrated tip, which many won’t even mention. I came to know “Learn, unlearn and relearn” when I switched from “hit and guess typing “ to more faster “touch typing”. There will be several moments in your life where you will have to unlearn what you have learnt and learn something new. Be it a skill in life or switching from one programming language to another.

3. Be focused and extremely concentrated while doing a task

There may be several works you do . Try to focus about what you do at present. For example, while learning anything new; have a focused mind. Human Brain is not great multitasker. Most of us do wrong when we give attention to multiple things at the same time for learning. It is recommended to give more focus towards one task and then jump to another activity.

Don’t be bothered on what is going on social media, or what you are going to eat today! It’s better to not to learn anything new when your mind is not fully focused on the task. Drink lots of water, and take short breaks at least in each 45 minutes.

4. Pay less attention to useless news

There maybe a huge chunk of news which you may hear each day in life. Pay less attention to un-useful information and more to things that matter. For example, if you are in infosec field , pay more attention to news feed related to security and privacy news and things that matter more to your career. Do note that useless news also includes news about what he/she is doing ; where others are chilling out, what others are doing etc. In short, start minding your business.

5. Failures are not failures

There have been several occasions in my personal life where I have failed miserably . But what we must learn from failure is that there is no such thing as failure in real. We must start believing that either you win or gain another experience on how not to fail the next time. Let me tell a true story. I reported around 30 reports to Facebook security team and each one of them got either rejected or was marked informative. But I never gave up and finally the next report got accepted and I got paid $XXXX for it. If I had decided to give up, I would have lost a big amount.

6. Know yourself

Only you know what you like and what you are passionate about. Be it a profession to choose or a decision in life. Only you know your strength and weakness. There was a moment in life where I used to easily get influenced by whatever other’s used to tell me . In the end, I failed in whatever I wanted to do. Because I was busy impressing others and not me!

7. Take short breaks

If you are working or learning , it is highly advisable to take short take breaks. Let me start by recommending to take a short break every 45 minutes. Please do note that the break should be short and not a break from your work! And during this break, don’t switch to smartphone to check messages but drink water and rest your eyes. Breaks are important to allow the brain to process and compile new information.

8. STAR METHOD

Study, Teach, Apply and Research. A very underrated technique, the STAR method helps to grasp concept very fast and retain for a long amount of time.

Study a concept , try to teach it to others or make a youtube video. After this apply what you learnt and conduct further research on similar concepts. Why do you think people like John Hammond, liveoverflow, ippsec have good understanding about security? It is because they teach others by making videos. Making content is not easy job and human mind subconsciously learns everything about a concept before it transfers the knowledge to another person.

9. Control sexual thoughts and save energy

I have no shame in mentioning this. Most youth today are addicted to porn, drugs etc. Respect your body and stop masturbating. Advocates of it will say it is good, healthy etc but trust me it is a big foolishness in the long run and your morale will remain low and you may experience bouts of depression. Respect your body and soul. A sperm has the power to give new life. Conserving it will increase overall mental growth and heightened levels of creativity. If you don’t believe me, try it for two weeks and see the change within you. Do watch this informational video/short movie by Salil Jamdaar (available with english subtitles).

10. Plan tomorrow today.

Some people say, live in your present. To some extend it is right but it is not right for goal-centered life. Have ready made action plan for tomorrow; today itself. Start balancing your time and goals with proper time management. It’s ok not to plan all the time, but if you are a well planner, you will never have late assignments, late night studies or pending work from your daily job.

11. Spend sometime alone and stay in motivated groups

Spending time alone helps to reflect about one’s past , what you are doing right and wrong. Early mornings are good for this and I would also recommend to do light exercises and jogging. Furthermore, when in college, try staying among motivated people. Start ignoring the company of people who badmouth others in front of you; because one day, you will be next. I would also highly recommend you to read lots of books and converse in professional english if you want to have better communication skills.

12. Learn how to make ; then break

A most common mistake in hacking and bug bounty is that most people directly jump to breaking stuff and are more interested in dollars. Trust me; I was once in the same phase. Instead of directly breaking anything or finding bugs, first try to learn the code and working behind it. Learn to code the basic application. A builder always knows and learns faster as to how to break stuff; whereas a breaker may not always know how to develop . I am not asking you to be God in coding or development but asking to have understanding of how stuff works. Most successful bug hunters were first in dev side. Ex edoverflow, Stokes .. and others. Directly going after bugs may make your progress slow and will take more time to understand an application; to how quick a developer understands it. In short, learn how to make and then break.

13. Life is not all fun.

Life is not always fun. You will realise slowly while you age. Always remember, today is the best time to do what you like. Tomorrow never comes. Do what you want today itself. If you ask people on their deathbed, what they cry for the most in the last days; it is not about regret of not making more money, or something materialistic but the regret of not doing things they would have loved to do or what they could have changed when time was right.

14. Centre all your activities aligning with your goals.

If you aspire to be a software engineer, you must ask yourself all the time, every time in what you do. Waking up, before bed, while eating while studying. Always question yourself that what you are doing now will lead you to your path as a software engineer which you like or not ? Quoting Paulo Coelho

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

15. Trust Yourself

There will a moment in life when no one will support your dreams and ideas. No one will believe in your talents. It is at this exact moment that you must raise your hands up and scream that “ I trust myself. ” There are people who go to chronic depression after failing in simple things in life. Always remember that only you can change your life. Expect minimum support like food and a place to sleep from your parents. If you need luxury in life , you must earn it for yourself.

If you follow even 5 of the above tips religiously, trust me when I say this, you have started onto a better life for yourself and will start seeing results very soon.

Hope you share this among your peers! Bye.