How to Succeed In Your Life: Lessons From Arnold Schwarzenegger

Bodybuilder, actor, businessman, politician and millionaire – with so much greatness in one package, Schwarzenegger is one of the greatest of all time. Arnold Schwarzenegger came from a small village in Austria and soon became the highest paid Hollywood actor.

But his journey wasn’t smooth. Here are his six rules for becoming great and successful:

1. Trust Yourself.

You must dig deep down and find who you want to be. Not what your teachers or parents want you to be, but you!

Schwarzenegger says that you must be honest with yourself and find what makes you happy. Even if others don’t approve of your desires, you need to have faith that you’ll make it.

Arnold’s father wanted him to be a soccer player, but he wanted to become the greatest bodybuilder of all time. So you must be willing to defy others’ expectations and become who you really want to be. Life is too short to live for others. One day when you’re old, you’ll lose the freedom and opportunities you have now. Don’t take it for granted.

How to succeed in your life: Believe in yourself. Tell yourself that you can do it.

2. Break Some Rules

What is the point of being on this earth if all you want to do is be liked by everyone and avoid trouble?

If you want to do something original, you will have to break some rules. People will pull you down and try to scare you off. Because they’re scared to leave the herd themselves.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates dropped out of college. When Arnold tried his hand in acting, producers told him that his name was weird and his body was too large. But it didn’t stop him. As a result, when he did Conan, the Barbarian the director said, “If we wouldn’t have Schwarzenegger, we would have to build one.”

How to succeed in your life: Don’t care about rules, care about originality.

3. Don’t be Afraid to Fail

You can’t be paralyzed by fear of failure or you’ll never push yourself.

Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest directors of all time and he was rejected from his dream college, UCLA, because of his ‘low grades’ in school.

When you’re starting out, you won’t get 100 percent of the opportunities you try to get. But you WILL get some if you are consistent. You should see lost opportunities as lessons. Find what you did wrong. How could you have improved? Take feedback from experienced people and find areas of improvement. Don’t stop learning until you succeed.

How to succeed in your life: Seeing failures as opportunities for improvement.

4. Ignore The Naysayers

As you embark on your journey to your dreams, you’ll meet people who will dislike you. They will say you can’t do it, don’t have the skills or the brains. But you need to keep believing in yourself regardless.

When Arnold went on to become a movie star, people told him that he’s too huge, has a weird accent and a weird name. Later when he ran for the Governor of California, people told him “You have to first run for mayor, city council, state senator, and then maybe for governor.”

If he had listened to those people, we wouldn’t have the great leader we have in him today and you won’t be reading this article. So if you want to succeed in your life, ignore the haters.

How to succeed in your life: Ignore the people who don’t believe in you.

5. Work Like Hell

“You never want to fail because you didn’t work hard enough.”

This one’s a no-brainer. You need to grind. There’s no way around that. You need to work harder than the average people if you want to become great. It’s the basic principle of greatness.

Arnold says, “It’s important to have fun in life. But when you’re out there, partying, horsing around; someone out there at the same time is working hard. Someone is getting smarter and someone is winning. Just remember that.”

Michael Phelps, the greatest swimmer ever, never took off weekends. Taking weekends off means taking 104 days off per year. Do you really want to take three and a half months off per year? Is that your level of commitment to greatness?

How to succeed in your life: Work harder than everyone else.

6. Give Something Back

Arnold’s father-in-law who started the Peace Corps said in his commencement speech at Yale University, “Tear down that mirror. Tear down that mirror that makes you always look at yourself, and you will be able to look beyond that mirror and you will see the millions of people that need your help.”

You must realize that there are millions of people who can’t even drink clean water. For them, their body has become a burden and their capacity to live happily is compromised. So you must find a way to help people. The purpose of this all humans is to be of service, albeit in different ways.

Because when your life ends, you’ll realize that money is just an illusion created by people. As Jim Carrey said, “The most valuable currency is the impact you have on other people.”

How to succeed in your life: Be of service to others.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Motivational Video by Absolute Motivation: