The Misconception of Success

Success is not about Talent, Luck, Skill or Money.

Let’s take a look at some well-known people and their stories:

• Muhammed Ali began boxing at the age of 12 but became a serious boxer at age 21.
• Albert Einstein started self-teaching himself math also at the age of 12. His first scientific paper was published at the age of 21, with his first major paper being published 5 years later.
• Cristiano Ronaldo started playing football at the age of 7, quitting school at the age of 14 to pursue football full-time.
• Angelina Jolie started to acting classes at the age of 11, committing to it fully at age 16. Her first breakthrough was at the age of 22.
• Elton John started to play the piano at the age of 3 and started to take singing classes at the age of 11. After 7 years more of song-writing his first breakthrough came at the age of 22.

They worked in their profession for yearsThat’s 11 years of practice, grinding, and working on it before they made it big! before becoming successful.

These are very few, but the message here already seeps through; and no, it is not that they started early.

But that is exactly what matters! Understand that if you want to reach success you have to put years of hard effort in first!

If you look at the lives of successful people you will always see one thing in common:

Still don’t believe me? Then look it up.

Just the 5 people mentioned above have an average of over 11 years in their field before reaching success.

In today’s world of instant Internet fame (which isn’t ‘instant’ but only takes 3 years on average, which is far less in comparison) and with the media shoving fame in our faces it always seems like people just instantly reach success.

Success does not come from Talent, Luck, Skill or Money. Success comes from hard, consistent and persistent work.

They just get lucky, just have the talent, or were just in the right place at the right time.

How they really got there is often overlooked.

No one talks about those times before, and even in their biographies this time is often cut incredibly short, described in a couple sentences at best.

Success will not come instantly. It will not be easy. It will not just appear out of nowhere.

There is a reason those with success have reached success and you can reach it too.

There is no trick. There is nothing they knew that you do not know. It is simply hard, consistent work that will get you there.

I dare you to look up your heroes’ biographies and look at their early lives.

Find out when they started and then count the years it took them to reach success in that field.

Originally published at http://quora.com.