When did everyone in Russia want to be successful and is it worth working if you don’t want to? The psychologist tells. "Paper"

About the concept of success, wealth and well-being

First of all, you need to understand what success is. Firstly, this term means achieving a goal, a positive result. It follows from this that the question of what rules help to work successfully is not entirely correct, since this concept refers to the result, not the process.

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Secondly, when it comes to success, people still mean something more than achieving everyday tasks. Some sources indicate that it should include social recognition, well-being and other pleasant moments in life. However, how is success different from well-being, wealth, wealth, recognition and other concepts?

Success and wealth

Is it possible to be successful and not be rich? Can. In the primitive communal system, a person could become a successful hunter, but no money would come from it. Is it possible to be successful and not have well-being (prosperity, security, a calm and sufficient life)? That's possible too. In war, some officers are successful commanders, but it is impossible to talk about a sufficient life in such conditions. So what is success and how does it differ from other concepts?

Success is achieving a goal that exceeds similar results from other people in some important and valuable parameters.

That is, this is when a person does and has something better and more than others. The last few words are the key. In this case, we get rid of any specific parameters and take the average indicators in society as a coordinate system. Indeed, if we are talking about achieving ordinary goals, then even with a positive result, there will be no talk of any success. Is it possible to call a person successful who was able to graduate from technical school and get a job as an electrician at a factory? No.

Imagine a city of billionaires where everyone has $100,000,000 and a golden toilet in their bathroom. But no one’s bathrooms will work, because not a single rich person will agree to work as a plumber. It's the same with success. You cannot call your results successful if they are no different from those of other people. You can be normal, but you can’t be successful.

Is success for everyone a reality or a myth?

Never believe that all people can be successful and rich. Can not. This is why the vast majority of books about success are only good for kindling. Normal businessmen are unlikely to engage in such things. Why do they need competitors?

Most "success gurus" (including Robert Kiyosaki, Napoleon Hill and others) became rich and famous not because of their business or work, but because of their books on success. By the way, many truly talented people, when asked about success, either answer something like “I don’t really know myself,” or limit themselves to a few pieces of advice.

Let's try to find out what determines the success of people's work. But first, let's deal with harmful myths about this phenomenon.

Locus of control - controlled success

"Control. This seemingly insignificant psychological concept has perhaps the most important influence on all human behavior. This is not about a person's ability to control the actions of others, but about the personal power you have over your own life and over the events in it."
Roger R. Hawk

Locus of control is a characteristic of a person that determines how he explains his successes or failures.

- Internal locus of control - all actions are defined by a person as his own efforts, accompanied by a clearly expressed feeling of controllability of the external environment.

- External locus of control - the environment is perceived as uncontrollable, a person feels the passivity of his role and the impossibility of influence.

For example, a student may evaluate success in passing a test as “I prepared well, so I coped with the task” - this is an internal locus; or in a less adaptive form: “the tasks were easy, so I got a good grade”—an external locus.

It is the internal locus of control that is considered by psychology as one of the main factors of increased determination and resistance to failure, which is proven by its 15% correlation with the achievements of children in adulthood and an extremely strong correlation with the level of intelligence - up to a 50% correlation.

That is, a child’s self-confidence has a positive effect on test scores and learning ability, which, through high school performance and a sense of self-competence, leads to a higher level of well-being in the future.

General scheme of dependencies of success factors
Over the past 20 years, in Western achievement psychology, a more holistic concept of perceived control by an individual has been formed - the so-called megatrait core self-evaluation, which in Russian-language works is translated as “core self-evaluative disposition.” Despite the complexity of the name, this megatrait is clear in its design: it is a summary factor of four human characteristics:

locus of control - the feeling of controllability of the external environment;
self-efficacy - a person’s confidence in his own abilities when solving problems;
self-esteem - a sense of self-worth;
neuroticism - the level of emotional sensitivity, that is, the degree of reactions to external stress.

All these factors have been studied quite well individually. For example, high levels of neuroticism are known to have a negative impact on both future educational and career achievements, and are also more likely to be associated with financial problems and the risk of job loss. Individuals with high self-esteem and confidence in their abilities tend to look more diligently for work during periods of unemployment, and when choosing areas of employment, they give preference to more complex and complex occupations - which leads to a higher level of income in the future.

An interesting observation has been made about people with low self-esteem: they tend to deny their influence on their own achievements, which leads to additional worries about how they will cope in the future and avoidance of further opportunities for growth, and therefore makes future success less likely. probable. This is nothing more than the phenomenon of “imposter syndrome”, known in popular psychology.

It is important to note that all four characteristics - locus of control, self-efficacy, self-esteem and neuroticism - are very strongly correlated with each other - up to 60%, that is, they are interrelated. Therefore, the possibility of combining these factors into one megatrait began to be considered.

The importance of these characteristics when a person evaluates himself is convincingly proven by graphs in the work of one of the leading researchers in this area, Timothy Judge, released in 2007 under the title Capitalizing on One's Advantages: Role of Core Self-Evaluations. ):

We see that for people with the same educational or family background, having different self-esteem dispositions leads to significant differences in expected future income. Moreover, the higher the education and status of the family, the more pronounced this difference in achievements is.

And although self-esteem disposition is not so influential in the case of low starting opportunities (the left part of the graphs), which once again emphasizes the role of family and education in shaping the trajectory of an individual’s well-being, a person’s internal locus of control, self-confidence and adaptive interpretation of external events is a huge advantage , proven by modern research.

System logic errors

Often, when writing a book on success, the next author makes several of the same type of mistakes:

Survivor's mistake. It consists in analyzing information from only one group of people (survivors), while the second remains inaccessible for study (did not survive). When compiling books based on the biographies of successful individuals, many do not take into account those people who did the same thing but failed. Information from them often indicates that a successful person achieved his goal due to luck or other unsightly qualities.
Another mistake is to select subjects based on the participant's own will. This leads to the fact that people with sufficiently high activity and sociability are included in the survey in advance. Not all successful individuals will voluntarily agree to a long and rather personal conversation with a stranger. This means that part of the sample will be eliminated in advance.
Rearranging causes and effects. For example, rich and poor families are taken, and then an analysis is made of the level of determination, confidence and optimism. It is then concluded that these characteristics increase the likelihood of becoming rich. However, it does not take into account the simple fact that the cause-and-effect relationship can be reversed: the amount of money enhances the above qualities.
The last mistake worth mentioning is tracking the process over a short period of time. That is, when we are talking about a successful person, then all people are taken for a survey, interviewed, after which their fate is no longer tracked. Although many of them can change completely, which would tell about personality development (and how it relates to success).

Of course, here we will not touch on outright lies when the authors write that to be successful you do not need education or hard work, but that you need to “attract money” or engage in other similar nonsense.

What will help a person achieve success in any activity?

His own consciousness will be his most reliable assistant and benevolent friend. This comrade will be able to create a new idea for you, some kind of incentive, thanks to which your body will change, strength and internal resources will appear. Such ideas can hover near you like an invisible cloud, and it is consciousness that can find them in space.

Sometimes a person concentrates heavily on his knowledge, habits and skills, tries not to miss anything, and at the same time becomes indecisive and constrained. You need to ensure that the available resources do not turn into some kind of lump in the head, but are used productively by the whole organism.

Only then will you be spared doubt and anxiety, as well as fear of every upcoming step and action.

Motivation helps a lot in achieving success. If you plan to do some work on yourself, you must clearly understand the purpose for which you are doing it. What you want to succeed for is what should be included in your list of tasks in highlighted text. This will allow you to gain strength and be confident in the correctness of the chosen path.

Success in any field will accompany you only if you learn to apply all the acquired knowledge and information in practice. Many people make the unforgivable mistake of simply absorbing a set of facts and memorizing texts that they will never be able to use in their lives. If a cook begins to memorize recipes for new dishes, then this is useful information that will be applied in practice and will give an obvious result.

It's another matter if you read one book, memorize some quotes, and move on to another without drawing any necessary conclusions. You will make a note in your self-development plan that you have read certain works, but you will not be one step closer to success in any field.

What determines the success of people's work?

It is clear that to quickly move up, you need knowledge and skills, leadership, courage and optimism, as well as love for your work, talent and +100500 other outstanding personality qualities.

The question of what the success of people’s work depends on is rather how to develop all this, and if everything is impossible, then what characteristics are the most important:

One of the most important factors is knowledge. At a minimum, you need to get a higher education. However, if we are talking about success (achieving more than others), then even red crusts are only one of the steps. It is necessary to obtain good qualifications and engage in self-education. At the same time, pay attention not only to the area of your professional activity, but also to other areas of knowledge.
Confidence and self-love are the most important resource from which a person draws strength to achieve goals. It helps you to take criticism simply, enter into dialogue easily, and not be afraid of life’s failures. Another important factor is that there are very few truly confident people. So if you develop this quality in yourself, you can increase your chances.
It's unpleasant to say, but success often depends on luck. This is especially true in highly competitive areas.
Connections The wider your social circle, the greater the likelihood of receiving a rare opportunity. Try to maintain good relationships with all people. How can the situation be improved artificially? Nowadays, all people have a page on social networks, where friends are often listed. Try to reach the right person through his circle of acquaintances.
Money. The segregation of people according to property qualifications is gaining momentum in all countries of the world. Now private lyceums and elite universities have appeared, so wealthy people have a much greater chance of getting an education and becoming successful.
Experience. Practice shows that for a person to become a specialist, he needs about 10 years of work experience. However, when it comes to success, it will take 20 or more years (sometimes up to 40). Not all people are able to work for so long in one specialty, so if you have so much experience, your chances will increase.
Love for business. Constant diligent self-study and vast years of experience cannot be obtained when a person hates his job. Therefore, one of the main conditions is passion for your business. Enthusiasm will help you overcome troubles and give you strength to cram new material and study in the evenings.
Common sense. On the path to success there will be a lot of stupid advice and stories, on which the success of work in the economy depends. To see the grains of truth requires not only academic knowledge, but also the ability to think logically and some understanding of life. Critical thinking is developed through criticism (of work, ideas, films). Special books on logic, dialectics, and historical materialism will help you develop logic. Fiction books (preferably classics) can improve your understanding of life.
Responsibility. Nobody wants to work with unreliable people. It is better to have problems because of your own mistake than to deceive or put the responsibility on someone else. If you act differently, then here and now there will be benefits. But in the long term there will be extremely serious troubles.
One must strive for leadership and leadership. Serious results are always at the top. Of course, this is not true for all areas of activity. But many industries require responsible managers with leadership skills.
Some will be offended, but success is seriously influenced by appearance (including skin color). This is especially pronounced in girls. But even among men it is noticeable that well-groomed, athletic guys enjoy increased attention and respect. Therefore, the rule is simple - take care of yourself, lead a healthy lifestyle.

Self-development: success in any field of activity

To reach the goal, you must first go. © Honore Balzac

Many people envy the success of rich people and regret that they do not have that kind of money, fame and popularity. Here I would like to dwell in more detail and consider what the path to material well-being might be.

Some successful people are, one might say, lucky. There are millionaires who became rich as a result of an idea that suddenly struck them. For example, a twenty-year-old boy, Raymond Lee, came up with the idea of giving a person the opportunity to independently choose the design of his T-shirt and place an order from his small company. It turned out to be so successful that at such a young age the guy became a millionaire, one of the youngest in the world.

Another young man, Daniel Gomez Iniguez, got rich in a completely different way. While still in high school, the guy became interested in energy. He firmly decided that this direction would become the meaning of his life. The young man did the following. He drew up his own program of work on a topic that interested him.

The future inventor set himself the key task of improving the energy sector. He formulated his goals, wrote them down in his plan for implementing the idea, and began to implement it. The young man developed a device for producing fuel from plants, and became famous throughout the world.

His example is a story about how you can achieve success thanks not only to your abilities, but also to your personal qualities:

perseverance;
hard work;
self-confidence;
ability to fight.

It cannot be said, as we see, that success can only be achieved through hard work. After all, there are situations where just one good idea can change the rest of your life. But such cases can be compared to winning the lottery. After all, no sane person would live solely on the hope of a sudden jackpot. The main thing is to treat such examples wisely and not stop working on yourself.

The source of success in any field should be solely self-development, and not dreams and dreams of some miracle. To be the best in everything, you need to make a plan and firmly and strictly implement every point of it.

Be smart!

The work was added to the website samzan.ru: 2016-01-17

BLOCK 2.

Psychology of professional activity. Basics of business communication.

Module 5. “Psychology of professional activity”

Topic 5.7: “Technology for success in professional activities”

Questions:

The concept of success in professional activity.
Dynamics of professional success.
Employee motivation level and professional success.
The efficient pace of professional success.
Forecasting and professional success.
Goal setting factor and professional success.
Successful strategies for building a professional career.

The concept of success in professional activity.

Success in professional activity is manifested primarily in the employee achieving a significant goal and overcoming or transforming the conditions that impede the achievement of this goal.

In achieving professional success and a significant goal, the most effective is the principle of balance and balance, which can be formulated as follows: “choose from the objective possibilities what suits you and act. But stop in time if there is resistance.”

The decoding of this principle is as follows:

It is necessary to accurately formulate your own goal, achievable in the conditions of professional activity.
It is important to analyze the professional situation and identify two groups of conditions – those that facilitate and those that hinder the achievement of the goal.
From the conditions that contribute to achieving the goal, you need to choose those that significantly reduce time and make it possible to save energy.
From the conditions that hinder the achievement of the goal, select those that can be changed and those that cannot be changed. Think about which ones predominate.
If conditions prevail that prevent the achievement of a goal, but which can be changed with some effort, one must act.
Conditions that hinder the achievement of a goal and which cannot be changed must be tried to be “bypassed” from one side or another.
If the obstacles are so great that there is no way to get around them, you should temporarily abandon the goal and switch to another goal, which can also be achievable in the context of professional activity. It is quite possible that the situation will change in such a way that achieving the goal will become easier or the goal itself will cease to be significant.

Dynamics of professional success.

Many have encountered what is usually called success or luck. But few were able to feel that this was an important and, perhaps, the only chance to change themselves and their status in the profession. It may seem that everything is still ahead and there will be many more such moments of luck or luck. However, this is not entirely true: years pass, and the employee begins to regret that he did not take advantage of certain chances. I lost time and was unable to concentrate on achieving a significant goal in time.

Success comes to an employee in different ways.

In professional activities, it happens that something doesn’t work out for a long time, you make incredible efforts, work to the limit of your capabilities, try – and suddenly it works out! In this case, success is perceived as the result of long and hard work.

But success can come even when you didn’t expect it at all. You did something carelessly, without giving it much importance or just for fun. But unexpectedly for you, those around you become delighted and admiring. Gradually, you yourself begin to believe that your random activity “for the soul” can become the meaning of your life.

It may be that for many years you have been working “by the sweat of your brow”, but you are persistently unlucky. Your peers have long overtaken you. But when many of them have already “fizzled out”, you, on the contrary, are just beginning to “gain momentum” and in just two or three years you get ahead. In short, everyone has their own pace and time. The main thing is to be attentive to the beginning of professional success and not to miss the moment when professional luck arises.

The rule for effective action and achieving professional success is that in a moment of good fortune and luck you should give your all. In any case, what has been gained will not be wasted. A person develops professional skills, endurance, hard work, and perseverance. As a rule, in the future these qualities turn out to be very useful in professional activities.

Employee motivation level and professional success.

Let's remember the Russian fairy tale about Ivanushka, who lay on the stove and then caught a magical pike from the river, which fulfilled his wishes. We often mock this fairy tale: “Lucky Ivan the Fools!” But we forget that fairy tales contain folk wisdom: “Lucky is the one who is not too zealous in the desire to succeed. Moreover, the luck factor arises in those who act free from desires and goals.”

Indeed, many of us have noticed that if we want something too much, some obstacles suddenly arise, as if life itself begins to resist us. The more energy and effort we put into achieving a significant goal, the more objective and subjective factors arise that interfere with our desires and disrupt our plans.

Here it is important to find your optimal level of activity at which everything works out. A little less activity - nothing happens, life and affairs “stand still.” A little more effort and resistance begins.

It is also important to remember that too strong a desire to achieve a goal and success is always associated with the fear of failure. Fear blocks an employee's internal capabilities and reduces his creative potential. As a result, he may miss the conditions that could lead to professional success. To see them, one should only look a little at the situation from the outside, from the outside, and this cannot be done if one is afraid of making a mistake.

Success in professional activity occurs precisely when the employee is internally free, liberated and, oddly enough, does not feel too strong a desire to achieve something. He begins to be lucky if he is guided by the following rule: “It’s good if I succeed, but there won’t be a big tragedy if I don’t succeed,” “For me this is not so significant, there are more important things to do.”

If a person knows how to say these words to himself, he is protected from the mistake of attaching too much value and significance to events that are not so important in real life, i.e. mistakes of excessively high motivation to achieve professional success.

Reducing excessively high motivation is associated with analyzing all the consequences that arise as a result of achieving success. Usually these consequences have not only positive, but also negative meaning. For example, a person wanted to buy a car, it seemed to him that only then would he become happy and find joy in life. Finally bought the car. The state of satisfaction lasted for some time, but soon normal life with its worries and difficulties returned.

The efficient pace of professional success.

“It will happen when it’s supposed to happen” - this law of success works almost always. Consequences: “Nothing will happen before the due date” and “Nothing will happen later.”

By accelerating an event, a person begins to rush and makes mistakes. The criterion for correctly assessing one’s internal state is as follows: if a person feels calm, balanced and is able to make informed decisions, he has remained active and highly effective in his actions. If an employee feels an internal tremor, increased anxiety, pays too much attention to trifles and details, begins to fuss, speak and move too quickly, he is in a hurry and may make an irreparable mistake.

Forecasting and professional success.

By accelerating an event, a person begins to clearly dream in every detail about what will happen when an important event for him occurs or he achieves a significant goal and professional success. In his imagination, he imagines specific events, sees specific people and hears specific words.

As a result, the desired event seems to be already happening - but only in a person’s dreams and imagination and may not happen in real life. It’s as if the energy released to accomplish the event is completely spent in dreams and fantasies, and it is not enough for the real embodiment of this event in professional activity.

Or maybe the person himself, without noticing it, reduces his desire to “zero level” and stops doing anything? Perhaps, having received satisfaction in his dreams and fantasies, he unconsciously begins to live a different life and move in a different direction?

One way or another, the rule that you should follow when directing your energy to achieve a significant goal can be formulated as follows: “Don’t dream about anything in advance. Gradually, step by step, move in the right direction.”

Goal setting factor and professional success.

Another rule that makes up the art of achieving professional success says: “Stop for a while if there is resistance. But don’t give up on your goal if it remains meaningful.”

In the process of goal setting, the parameter of a person’s individual activity is important. Psychologists often say that in a stressful situation, you first need to reduce your activity, relax and calm down. And only then think and make a decision. This is correct, but not always. For an active and energetic person in many situations, to reduce your activity in the process of achieving success means to find yourself in conditions of professional stress.

There are no identical rules of life and behavior for all people. For some, relaxation and stopping to calm down are important conditions for making the right decision. But for active people there is only one way: to increase their activity. If the problem that has arisen in front of an active person is currently objectively unsolvable, it is necessary to choose another goal and switch to achieving it.

Strengthening your own activity during a problem period has two positive aspects. Firstly, if an active person makes efforts to resolve the problem that has arisen in front of him, he becomes self-confident, if only because he believes that he will achieve his goal no matter what. And in the process of active actions, the situation changes either on its own or as a result of human efforts.

Secondly, even if the problem, in principle, is now unsolvable, achieving any other goal for an active person is not only an opportunity to switch, but also to receive satisfaction and joy from the fact that he has achieved something.

Successful strategies for building a professional career.

"Entering the office." As a rule, professional success is achieved by people who build a career not only by accumulating special knowledge, but also by joining the circle of the leader’s inner circle. Such a leader can be the president of the company or the head of the sector. The main thing is that it is accessible, and the employee can achieve a positive recommendation and introduction, and subsequently develop an active business relationship.

Of course, you need to be loyal to your boss, ready for services and support, and not conflict. But after several years of such service and compliance with the rules of the game, the newcomer is included in the system of business connections. He adopts the lifestyle of the people around him, their style of behavior and communication. From his patron he receives timely help and invaluable experience in moving upward. In any conditions - and in crisis ones too - upon reaching a certain proper position, he is invited or he independently moves to another organization or professional field. In a new place, he begins by creating his own “cabinet” of associates and like-minded people.

People who adhere to this strategy usually have such qualities as goodwill and openness to any communication, the ability to maintain long-term business contacts without conflicts in various spheres and social strata, from workers to ministers. He is tolerant of people and has personal charm. He subtly senses the situation and at the same time knows how to be loyal and reliable.

Be able to take a punch. When you strive to the top, no one will sit you down and pat you on the head. If you survived everything, it’s good; if you broke, no one will regret it. You have to be able to take a punch.

Making a career is a test of strength. You must have the courage to calmly experience both ups and downs, withstand the resistance of competitors, and prove your superiority. As experience shows, such superiority concerns not only the level of professionalism, but above all strength of character, perseverance, and the ability to achieve one’s goal. Overcoming obstacles.

People who have successful careers perceive resistance from competitors as normal. They don't complain or panic. This is how they live, this is their way of life. Moreover, they love their busy life; with the help of career activity they “escape” boredom and monotony. They value the excitement of struggle and achievement.

Be able to start from scratch. It just seems to us that perestroika forces us to start everything from scratch more than once in our lives. Looking through the career biographies of many famous people who have achieved high social and official positions, you will definitely come across the fact that two or three times in their lives they had to fail and lose everything. However, they found the strength to rise again and strive forward and upward.

Do not depend on status and position. In their upward striving, successful people still do not show overdependence on their position. On the one hand, they are very confident in themselves and their capabilities. It is assertiveness and confidence, even in the absence of great talent, that are the main reasons for success if the competitor is a talented person, but shy and insecure. On the other hand, they easily decline, moving to another area and organization, quickly outpace their competitors and rise up again.

Such internal flexibility in the desire to make a career and at the same time a willingness to take a step down, if circumstances arise, is often demonstrated by women in our country. This is why quite often women become more successful than men.

Those who managed to find positive aspects in the loss of a high official position remain calm, which means they avoid shocks:

Time was freed up;
Responsibility has decreased;
You can take up your profession, which was once loved and brought satisfaction.

Coordinate your actions with the general laws of success. The general laws of success are to know and feel your Destiny and Purpose, as well as to be able to read Signs and Hints. Knowing your destiny and feeling it means having a correct understanding of your Mission or Meaning of life. If a person has determined for himself the Mission and Meaning of his life, he becomes calm, confident and stable in relation to various unfavorable environmental factors: failures, criticism, unpleasant surprises, etc. With a correct, positive definition of the Mission and Meaning of life, a person is determined to help other people, strives to bring with his existence some important result, necessary not only for himself, but also for others - close people or work colleagues. In this case, conditions arise that, as a rule, help a person achieve his goals and objectives. And, conversely, we can talk about an incorrect definition of one’s mission if the conditions of the external situation fatally resist achieving the goals and objectives set by a person.

Control questions: