11 signs youre going to be successful, even if it doesnt feel like it

11 signs youre going to be successful, even if it doesnt feel like it11 signs youre going to be successful, even if it doesnt feel like itIf youre pursuing your passions, if youre learning, and if youre forging solid relationships, youre probably on track to do great things - even if you arent extraordinarily famous or wealthy.Below, weve listed a series of signs - based on research and expert opinion - that youre doing better at this thing called life than youd be inclined to believe.Youre always looking for a better way to do thingsAre you stuck in the past - or hurtling toward the future?On an episode of Business Insiders podcast, Success How I Did It, John Sculley, a former Apple CEO and president of Pepsi, said throughout his career hes always asked questions like, Why is it done this way? He said success is largely about to the willingness to solve a problem in a way thats never been solved before.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Hap piness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreThe opposite trait - resistance to change - canstall your career, the same way it stalls big companies progress. Thats according to Scott Galloway, a clinical professor of marketing at New York Universitys Stern School of Business, the founder of the digital intelligence firm L2, and the author of the new book The Four The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.In his book, Galloway writes Trying to resist this tide of change will drown you. Successful people in the digital age are those who go to work every day, bedrngnis dreading the net change, but asking What if we did it this way?You have a vision for the kind of life you wantGranted, that vision may evolve over time. But the point is bedrngnis to take a job exclusively for the short-term benefits - like compensation.As Nathaniel Koloc, former ReWork CEO,told The Harvard Business Review, instead of asking yourself, What job do I want? you should beaskin g yourself, What life do I want? And how does this gig fit into the broader picture?Even if you only have avision for the year ahead, career coach and former Googler Jenny Blake recommends asking yourself questions like, What does my ideal average day look like? and What kinds of people do I want to be connected with or meeting?Youre using your signature strengthsYour signature strengths are simply the skills youre uniquely good at.As Eric Barker, author of Barking Up the Wrong Tree, previouslytold Business Insider, research suggests that the more often you use those skills, the more youre happier, youre respected, you feel good about your job. Whats more, if youre using those skills in your job, youre going to achieve more.Youre open to failureGalloway says the four major tech titans - Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon - are all open to occasional failure, if it means theyre trying something new. If you want to be successful in your own career, you should be the same way.As Gal loway previously told Business Insider, If you are not in your own professional life and your professional career kind of wiping out and getting beaned in the face every once in a while, you arent trying hard enough.Youre willing to take calculated risksYoud be hard pressed to find a successful person who hasnt taken some amount of risk in their career.Take Hearst executive Joanna Coles, for example. As a young newspaper reporter, Coles onceburst in on a woman in a bathroom stallin an attempt to land a scoop. Later, she left her job as a foreign correspondent for the Times of London and took a job in magazine journalism - even though she was pregnant and didnt have a visa that would allow her to say in New York.Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and the richest man in the world, has spoken often abouthow he decides which risks to pursue. In one interview, Bezos explained how he decided to found AmazonI knew that when I was 80, I was not going to regret having tried this. I was no t going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed, I wouldnt regret that.But I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day.Youre nice to people - even if theyre not your superiorsOn another episode of Success How I Did It, Coles described the importance ofmaintaining good relationshipswith your friends and colleagues. She saidThe thing that I always try and say to young people starting out is your peer group is really the most important influence on your life because you are going to rise and fall together. And I have always got jobs through the loose ties of friendships and someone knowing someone who might know a job. And, you know, a group of you will start out together, and they sort of pull you with them.Her number-one life tip? Dont be an ahole.You exhibit a beginners mindThats aconcept from Zen Buddhism, and it describes constantly seeing the world anew, as if you didnt know anything about it. Its a big advantage in business. The late Steve Jobs was a proponent of the beginners mind. As Jeff Yang wrote inThe Wall Street Journal in 2011, Jobs emphasized the need to develop a beginners mind in order to eschew the constraints that cause us to come up with old answers to difficult problems.And Salesforce CEO Marc Beniofftold The Wall Street Journal I kind of try to let go of all the things that have ever happened so far in our industry, which is a lot of stuff, and just go, OK, whats going to happen right now?You make time every day to learnYou should be allotting some of your time to reading or research - something that expands your horizons.Beth Comstock, former vice chair of General Electric, recommends devoting 10% of every workday to these activities. In an interview with LinkedIn, Comstock shared some career adviceThe first thing you have to say to people is Make room for discovery. If I manage m yself, I manage a team, I manage a division, theres a certain amount of your budget, your time, your people that need to be focused on whats next.And it could be 10% - you know for yourself. I think usually 10% is a pretty good way to think about it.Think about how you manage your own time. Can I spend 10% of my time a week reading, going to sites like Singularity, TED, talking to people, going to industry events, asking people What trends are you seeing? What are you nervous about? What are you excited about?Youre self-awareAccording to Tasha Eurich, an organizational psychologist and the author of Insight, most peopledont know how others really see them. Those who have a more accurate picture of how theyre coming off tend to be more successful.Eurich recommends finding one or two loving critics, or people who will be honest with us while still having our best interests at heart. Tap them regularly for insight into how you can perform better at work.Executive coach Marshall Goldsm ith goes so far as to say that what other people think of you matters evenmorethan how you see yourself. In his book What Got You Here Wont Get You There, Goldsmith writesIf we can stop, listen, and think about what others are seeing in us, we have a great opportunity. We can compare the self that we want to be with the self that we are presenting to the rest of the world. We can then begin to make the real changes that are needed to close the gemeinsame agrarpolitik between our stated values and our actual behavior.You show gratitudeGratitude can benefityour relationships, your health, and your career.Doug Conant is known for turning around Campbells Soup as its CEO. Hes also known formaking gratitude a key leadership strategy Throughout his career at Campbells, he sent more than 30,000 handwritten thank-you notes to staffers and clients.Other famous and successful people have adaily gratitude practice. For example, John Paul DeJoria takes the first five minutes of the day to be th ankful for life.Youre self-compassionateSelf-compassiondoesnt make you weak or unambitious. Instead, scientists say it can make you more successful.Research on self-compassion suggests that it has three components engaging in a positive internal dialogue, understanding that everyone makes mistakes, and being aware of your thoughts and feelings without succumbing to them.In The Happiness Track, Emma Seppala, science director of Stanfords Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. recommends one strategy for practicing self-compassion Treat yourself as you would treat a colleague or friend who has failed.This article was originally posted on BusinessInsider.com.