The Basis of Success

Rationality and consistency are the keys to success.

Football legend Vince Lombardi said, “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while … you don’t do things right once in a while … you do them right all the time. Winning is habit.”

What’s Required for Success?

The same can be said of success. Successfully achieving your goals, in any area of endeavor, requires a family of virtues.

But not all of the virtues required by success are equally fundamental.

Half measures will not yield success.

Rationality is the most fundamental virtue needed for success, with life in general and with any particular goal.

• Success requires problem solving and the commitment to put facts before feelings.
• It requires that you think about how to achieve your values and which values are going to imbue your life with the most meaning.

But this rationality must be married to consistency.

The Power of Commitment

As Lombardi said about winning, success requires that you be consistent in your pursuit of it.

“We are what we repeatedly do.”

— Will Durant

Success requires a set of behaviors and commitments that are habitually pointed at its attainment.

Half measures will not yield success. There are no short cuts.

To end with another quote, this one from Will Durant, summarizing Aristotle: “[W]e are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit.”

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Illustration of mountain by MicroOne via Adobe license