Components of success

Attention!

This post contains a few psychological terms. Do not compare yourself to any of these. Remember that only a small part of general population may be classified as manifesting extreme level of a specific trait or temperament dimension! The rest of society is characterized by average intensity of these features. Experiencing anxiety doesn’t have to mean that you are neurotic!

COMPONENTS OF SUCCESS

We all strive for success driven by the self-actualization needs – needs most of us are not able to satisfy. From many years a group of great people has been trying to find out why is only the small part of the society capable of achieving the mentioned success. After many research done we are now wise enough to distinguish the components that correlate with the raised subject.

ABILITY TO DEFER GRATIFICATION

First of the components that helps in achieving success is an ability to defer gratification. Successful people are usually the ones who can take care of their duties and concentrate on goals instead of wasting time doing unnecessary things.

Ability to defer gratification is shaped by three dimensions: genetics, self-control and influence of surroundings. Genetics is about impulsiveness and temperament. Impulsive people have difficulties with resigning from rewards – they expect their gratification to appear immediately. They usually shift their attention to the new things showing up in their surroundings and do not focus on important matters.

The second dimension is the influence of surroundings. In self-development process we usually learn from environment. It’s called social learning. We shape our behavior basing on observations, duplicating tendencies from the others. So if our closest surrounding teaches us that deferring gratification is a better way to gain rewards and achieve success, we adopt such behaviors as ours.

Fortunately the ability to defer gratification ability can be also learned with a use of self-control mechanisms such as cold emotional system (CES) – a system responsible for making rational decisions. Unlike the hot emotional system (HES), this one helps in analyzing the situation and finding best solutions, not just reacting emotionally to the stimulus. However, HES is usually the most basic and often used mechanism. That’s why to defer gratification we need to make a cold emotional system the priority by working on our emotional arousal level and forming decent cognitive structures. To be more precise, using cold emotional system comes down to preparing all the possible ways of reacting to the distractors and problems keeping us away from the things we want to focus on. For example, if we want to watch a movie or surf the Internet instead of playing poker, we need to create mind structures that will help us to defer these gratifications – we need to be prepared for blocking the websites (getting rid of distractors) or just making calculations of what is more beneficial – wasting time or earning money in poker.

In conclusion, we may assume that the ability of deferring gratification bases on self-regulation process. People observe their own behavior and correct them by creating appropriate mind structures and ways of solving problems.

PERSEVERANCE

Perseverance doesn’t mean just keeping on reaching goals. What it really means is keeping on striving for success even if none of the goals are being reached, regardless of the effort that’s been devoted. That’s why it’s the most important component that makes people successful.

Are any of the bad beats the reason to stop playing?  Should downswing be the cause for giving up poker? If so, Victor “Isildur1” Blom should’ve changed his job long time ago. Huge loses don’t make the things different – he’s still one of the greatest players with a perspective for many titles and winnings.

So what is the recipe for being perseverant? The answer should be searched for in a cognitive psychology. Accepting how the things are seems to be very helpful. People need to acknowledge that nothing will always go as they thought it would. “Shit happens” as the well-known proverb says. And it is the truth. There will always be downswings, bad beats and suck-outs. Chill out, focus on the game and making good decisions. Someday EV+ will surely give every dollar back.

MOODS & EMOTIONS

Affections seem to be significantly correlated with motivational processes. Positive moods and emotions keep people undertaking necessary actions. Seeing a purpose in what we do requires a dose of hope and optimism – emotions that raise energy level and tune in proper functioning.

Negative affections, however, have an unfavorable influence on motivations and behaviors. Emotions like anxiety may not only be a sign of exceeded cortex stimulation level, but also a cause of avoidant attitude. Under stress or emotional pressure people use to reorganize their concentration – they pay attention to the potential threats instead of sticking to important matters – for example, poker players may be afraid of losing money so they set session aside in favor of doing “shit”.  By the way, this kind of behavior may be classified as a specific type of tilt – earning no money is technically losing money.

Unfortunately, in every aspect of our life, genetics is the priority. Some temperament’s dimensions are deeply attached to experiencing affections. These dimensions are neuroticism and extraversion – personality components correlated with basic emotional level. For example, the more neurotic the person the higher is his anxiety. However, cognitive processes are also useful in this matter. People can learn how to cope with stress and control their emotional arousal. One of the following posts will treat precisely of this subject.

 
Edited by: Moon