essay how to be successful

How To Be Successful

I’ve observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about what it takes to make a huge amount of money or to create something important. Usually, people start off wanting the former and end up wanting the latter.

Here are 13 thoughts about how to achieve such outlier success. Everything here is easier to do once you’ve already reached a baseline degree of success (through privilege or effort) and want to put in the work to turn that into outlier success. [1] But much of it applies to anyone.

1. Compound yourself

Compounding is magic. Look for it everywhere. Exponential curves are the key to wealth generation.

A medium-sized business that grows 50% in value every year becomes huge in a very short amount of time. Few businesses in the world have true network effects and extreme scalability. But with technology, more and more will.  It’s worth a lot of effort to find them and create them.

You also want to be an exponential curve yourself—you should aim for your life to follow an ever-increasing up-and-to-the-right trajectory. It’s important to move towards a career that has a compounding effect—most careers progress fairly linearly.

You don't want to be in a career where people who have been doing it for two years can be as effective as people who have been doing it for twenty—your rate of learning should always be high. As your career progresses, each unit of work you do should generate more and more results. There are many ways to get this leverage, such as capital, technology, brand, network effects, and managing people.

It’s useful to focus on adding another zero to whatever you define as your success metric—money, status, impact on the world, or whatever. I am willing to take as much time as needed between projects to find my next thing. But I always want it to be a project that, if successful, will make the rest of my career look like a footnote.

Most people get bogged down in linear opportunities. Be willing to let small opportunities go to focus on potential step changes.

I think the biggest competitive advantage in business—either for a company or for an individual’s career—is long-term thinking with a broad view of how different systems in the world are going to come together. One of the notable aspects of compound growth is that the furthest out years are the most important. In a world where almost no one takes a truly long-term view, the market richly rewards those who do.

Trust the exponential, be patient, and be pleasantly surprised.

2. Have almost too much self-belief

Self-belief is immensely powerful. The most successful people I know believe in themselves almost to the point of delusion.

Cultivate this early. As you get more data points that your judgment is good and you can consistently deliver results, trust yourself more.

If you don’t believe in yourself, it’s hard to let yourself have contrarian ideas about the future. But this is where most value gets created.

I remember when Elon Musk took me on a tour of the SpaceX factory many years ago. He talked in detail about manufacturing every part of the rocket, but the thing that sticks in memory was the look of absolute certainty on his face when he talked about sending large rockets to Mars. I left thinking “huh, so that’s the benchmark for what conviction looks like.”

Managing your own morale—and your team’s morale—is one of the greatest challenges of most endeavors. It’s almost impossible without a lot of self-belief. And unfortunately, the more ambitious you are, the more the world will try to tear you down.  

Most highly successful people have been really right about the future at least once at a time when people thought they were wrong. If not, they would have faced much more competition.

Self-belief must be balanced with self-awareness. I used to hate criticism of any sort and actively avoided it. Now I try to always listen to it with the assumption that it’s true, and then decide if I want to act on it or not. Truth-seeking is hard and often painful, but it is what separates self-belief from self-delusion.

This balance also helps you avoid coming across as entitled and out of touch.

3. Learn to think independently

Entrepreneurship is very difficult to teach because original thinking is very difficult to teach. School is not set up to teach this—in fact, it generally rewards the opposite. So you have to cultivate it on your own.

Thinking from first principles and trying to generate new ideas is fun, and finding people to exchange them with is a great way to get better at this. The next step is to find easy, fast ways to test these ideas in the real world.

“I will fail many times, and I will be really right once” is the entrepreneurs’ way. You have to give yourself a lot of chances to get lucky.

One of the most powerful lessons to learn is that you can figure out what to do in situations that seem to have no solution. The more times you do this, the more you will believe it. Grit comes from learning you can get back up after you get knocked down.

4. Get good at “sales”

Self-belief alone is not sufficient—you also have to be able to convince other people of what you believe.

All great careers, to some degree, become sales jobs. You have to evangelize your plans to customers, prospective employees, the press, investors, etc. This requires an inspiring vision, strong communication skills, some degree of charisma, and evidence of execution ability.

Getting good at communication—particularly written communication—is an investment worth making. My best advice for communicating clearly is to first make sure your thinking is clear and then use plain, concise language.

The best way to be good at sales is to genuinely believe in what you’re selling. Selling what you truly believe in feels great, and trying to sell snake oil feels awful.

Getting good at sales is like improving at any other skill—anyone can get better at it with deliberate practice. But for some reason, perhaps because it feels distasteful, many people treat it as something unlearnable.

My other big sales tip is to show up in person whenever it’s important. When I was first starting out, I was always willing to get on a plane. It was frequently unnecessary, but three times it led to career-making turning points for me that otherwise would have gone the other way.

5. Make it easy to take risks

Most people overestimate risk and underestimate reward. Taking risks is important because it’s impossible to be right all the time—you have to try many things and adapt quickly as you learn more.

It’s often easier to take risks early in your career; you don’t have much to lose, and you potentially have a lot to gain. Once you’ve gotten yourself to a point where you have your basic obligations covered you should try to make it easy to take risks. Look for small bets you can make where you lose 1x if you’re wrong but make 100x if it works. Then make a bigger bet in that direction.

Don’t save up for too long, though. At YC, we’ve often noticed a problem with founders that have spent a lot of time working at Google or Facebook. When people get used to a comfortable life, a predictable job, and a reputation of succeeding at whatever they do, it gets very hard to leave that behind (and people have an incredible ability to always match their lifestyle to next year’s salary). Even if they do leave, the temptation to return is great. It’s easy—and human nature—to prioritize short-term gain and convenience over long-term fulfillment.  

But when you aren’t on the treadmill, you can follow your hunches and spend time on things that might turn out to be really interesting. Keeping your life cheap and flexible for as long as you can is a powerful way to do this, but obviously comes with tradeoffs.

Focus is a force multiplier on work.

Almost everyone I’ve ever met would be well-served by spending more time thinking about what to focus on. It is much more important to work on the right thing than it is to work many hours. Most people waste most of their time on stuff that doesn’t matter.

Once you have figured out what to do, be unstoppable about getting your small handful of priorities accomplished quickly. I have yet to meet a slow-moving person who is very successful.

7. Work hard

You can get to about the 90th percentile in your field by working either smart or hard, which is still a great accomplishment. But getting to the 99th percentile requires both—you will be competing with other very talented people who will have great ideas and be willing to work a lot.

Extreme people get extreme results. Working a lot comes with huge life trade-offs, and it’s perfectly rational to decide not to do it. But it has a lot of advantages. As in most cases, momentum compounds, and success begets success.

And it’s often really fun. One of the great joys in life is finding your purpose, excelling at it, and discovering that your impact matters to something larger than yourself. A YC founder recently expressed great surprise about how much happier and more fulfilled he was after leaving his job at a big company and working towards his maximum possible impact. Working hard at that should be celebrated.  

It’s not entirely clear to me why working hard has become a Bad Thing in certain parts of the US, but this is certainly not the case in other parts of the world—the amount of energy and drive exhibited by entrepreneurs outside of the US is quickly becoming the new benchmark.

You have to figure out how to work hard without burning out. People find their own strategies for this, but one that almost always works is to find work you like doing with people you enjoy spending a lot of time with.

I think people who pretend you can be super successful professionally without working most of the time (for some period of your life) are doing a disservice. In fact, work stamina seems to be one of the biggest predictors of long-term success.

One more thought about working hard: do it at the beginning of your career. Hard work compounds like interest, and the earlier you do it, the more time you have for the benefits to pay off. It’s also easier to work hard when you have fewer other responsibilities, which is frequently but not always the case when you’re young.

I believe that it’s easier to do a hard startup than an easy startup. People want to be part of something exciting and feel that their work matters.

If you are making progress on an important problem, you will have a constant tailwind of people wanting to help you. Let yourself grow more ambitious, and don’t be afraid to work on what you really want to work on.

If everyone else is starting meme companies, and you want to start a gene-editing company, then do that and don’t second guess it.

Follow your curiosity. Things that seem exciting to you will often seem exciting to other people too.

9. Be willful

A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of the time—most people don’t even try, and just accept that things are the way that they are.

People have an enormous capacity to make things happen. A combination of self-doubt, giving up too early, and not pushing hard enough prevents most people from ever reaching anywhere near their potential.

Ask for what you want. You usually won’t get it, and often the rejection will be painful. But when this works, it works surprisingly well.

Almost always, the people who say “I am going to keep going until this works, and no matter what the challenges are I’m going to figure them out”, and mean it, go on to succeed. They are persistent long enough to give themselves a chance for luck to go their way.

Airbnb is my benchmark for this. There are so many stories they tell that I wouldn’t recommend trying to reproduce (keeping maxed-out credit cards in those nine-slot three-ring binder pages kids use for baseball cards, eating dollar store cereal for every meal, battle after battle with powerful entrenched interest, and on and on) but they managed to survive long enough for luck to go their way.

To be willful, you have to be optimistic—hopefully this is a personality trait that can be improved with practice. I have never met a very successful pessimistic person.

10. Be hard to compete with

Most people understand that companies are more valuable if they are difficult to compete with. This is important, and obviously true.

But this holds true for you as an individual as well. If what you do can be done by someone else, it eventually will be, and for less money.

The best way to become difficult to compete with is to build up leverage. For example, you can do it with personal relationships, by building a strong personal brand, or by getting good at the intersection of multiple different fields. There are many other strategies, but you have to figure out some way to do it.

Most people do whatever most people they hang out with do. This mimetic behavior is usually a mistake—if you’re doing the same thing everyone else is doing, you will not be hard to compete with.

11. Build a network

Great work requires teams. Developing a network of talented people to work with—sometimes closely, sometimes loosely—is an essential part of a great career. The size of the network of really talented people you know often becomes the limiter for what you can accomplish.

An effective way to build a network is to help people as much as you can. Doing this, over a long period of time, is what lead to most of my best career opportunities and three of my four best investments. I’m continually surprised how often something good happens to me because of something I did to help a founder ten years ago.

One of the best ways to build a network is to develop a reputation for really taking care of the people who work with you. Be overly generous with sharing the upside; it will come back to you 10x. Also, learn how to evaluate what people are great at, and put them in those roles. (This is the most important thing I have learned about management, and I haven’t read much about it.) You want to have a reputation for pushing people hard enough that they accomplish more than they thought they could, but not so hard they burn out.

Everyone is better at some things than others. Define yourself by your strengths, not your weaknesses. Acknowledge your weaknesses and figure out how to work around them, but don’t let them stop you from doing what you want to do. “I can’t do X because I’m not good at Y” is something I hear from entrepreneurs surprisingly often, and almost always reflects a lack of creativity. The best way to make up for your weaknesses is to hire complementary team members instead of just hiring people who are good at the same things you are.

A particularly valuable part of building a network is to get good at discovering undiscovered talent. Quickly spotting intelligence, drive, and creativity gets much easier with practice. The easiest way to learn is just to meet a lot of people, and keep track of who goes on to impress you and who doesn’t. Remember that you are mostly looking for rate of improvement, and don’t overvalue experience or current accomplishment.

I try to always ask myself when I meet someone new “is this person a force of nature?” It’s a pretty good heuristic for finding people who are likely to accomplish great things.

A special case of developing a network is finding someone eminent to take a bet on you, ideally early in your career. The best way to do this, no surprise, is to go out of your way to be helpful. (And remember that you have to pay this forward at some point later!)

Finally, remember to spend your time with positive people who support your ambitions.

12. You get rich by owning things

The biggest economic misunderstanding of my childhood was that people got rich from high salaries. Though there are some exceptions—entertainers for example —almost no one in the history of the Forbes list has gotten there with a salary.

You get truly rich by owning things that increase rapidly in value.

This can be a piece of a business, real estate, natural resource, intellectual property, or other similar things. But somehow or other, you need to own equity in something, instead of just selling your time. Time only scales linearly.

The best way to make things that increase rapidly in value is by making things people want at scale.

13. Be internally driven

Most people are primarily externally driven; they do what they do because they want to impress other people. This is bad for many reasons, but here are two important ones.

First, you will work on consensus ideas and on consensus career tracks.  You will care a lot—much more than you realize—if other people think you’re doing the right thing. This will probably prevent you from doing truly interesting work, and even if you do, someone else would have done it anyway.

Second, you will usually get risk calculations wrong. You’ll be very focused on keeping up with other people and not falling behind in competitive games, even in the short term.

Smart people seem to be especially at risk of such externally-driven behavior. Being aware of it helps, but only a little—you will likely have to work super-hard to not fall in the mimetic trap.

The most successful people I know are primarily internally driven; they do what they do to impress themselves and because they feel compelled to make something happen in the world. After you’ve made enough money to buy whatever you want and gotten enough social status that it stops being fun to get more, this is the only force I know of that will continue to drive you to higher levels of performance.

This is why the question of a person’s motivation is so important. It’s the first thing I try to understand about someone. The right motivations are hard to define a set of rules for, but you know it when you see it.

Jessica Livingston and Paul Graham are my benchmarks for this. YC was widely mocked for the first few years, and almost no one thought it would be a big success when they first started. But they thought it would be great for the world if it worked, and they love helping people, and they were convinced their new model was better than the existing model.

Eventually, you will define your success by performing excellent work in areas that are important to you. The sooner you can start off in that direction, the further you will be able to go. It is hard to be wildly successful at anything you aren’t obsessed with.

Until then, if you aren't born lucky, you have to claw your way up for awhile before you can take big swings. If you are born in extreme poverty, then this is super difficult :(

It is obviously an incredible shame and waste that opportunity is so unevenly distributed. But I've witnessed enough people be born with the deck stacked badly against them and go on to incredible success to know it's possible.

Thanks to Brian Armstrong, Greg Brockman, Dalton Caldwell, Diane von Furstenberg, Maddie Hall, Drew Houston, Vinod Khosla, Jessica Livingston, Jon Levy, Luke Miles (6 drafts!), Michael Moritz, Ali Rowghani, Michael Seibel, Peter Thiel, Tracy Young and Shivon Zilis for reviewing drafts of this, and thanks especially to Lachy Groom for help writing it.

Essay on How to be Successful in Life

Every person in this world wants to attain something in life. It might be that somebody wants to become a dancer, singer, environmentalist, banker, etc. The choices vary according to the individual. It is easy to dream and imagine being successful in our life but the journey of this victory is really a challenging one. There are many successful people in the world but every one of them has infinite effort and dedication in becoming successful.

Short and Long Essay on How to be Successful in Life in English

The most important question that arises in our minds is how we can be successful in our life. This is a commonly asked topic in exams for writing an essay on it. Many students find it difficult in writing essays on this topic. In the same reference, I have provided essays on this topic. I think it might benefit the students in getting an idea about writing an essay, project, or assignment on this topic.

10 Lines Essay on How to be Successful in Life (100 – 120 Words)

1) Success is something everyone strives for to get a good life.

2) Hard work will help you to achieve success in life.

3) Confidence is another factor that will help you to be successful.

4) To be successful in life, you should not fear failure.

5) Determination and dedication are required to be successful.

6) You will achieve success if you don’t lose sight of your goal.

7) Keep trying and never quit to reach success.

8) You will be successful in life if you believe in yourself.

9) Continuous practice and patience will help you to become successful.

10) Motivation is required at every step to reach the peak of success.

How to be Successful Essay – 250 Words

Introduction

We all have some goals in our life. Success is the ultimate thing that we require in any work that we do in our life. This can be achieved only with hard work and determination. Success gives us immense pleasure and satisfaction in our life.

Success requires sacrifice

We all want to be successful in any work that we do in our life. Success gives great pleasure and contentment to us. The process of being successful is not as easy as it is to say. It requires great sacrifice and hard work. We need to reduce our comforts and work with greater determination to attain success in our life. The most important thing that we need to inculcate in our lives is time management that helps us in doing our work on time. It is always said in order to gain something in life we have to lose something. The desire for success becomes more interesting when it starts giving challenges to us. Later when we become successful we feel that the struggle that we have done earlier is now fruitful. Being successful is one of the most beautiful experiences of life.

Failures should never be treated as hindrances in the path of success

We all make effort to be successful in accomplishing our goals in life. This makes us happy and provides encouragement to move forward in our life. Many times it happens that people face failure in their first step of success. It does not mean that we should stop doing efforts and become hopeless. The act of being hopeless and depressed takes us far away from success. Failure always states that there is a mistake in our effort and therefore we must learn from our failure instead of making it a hindrance in the path of success.

Success requires patience as it is not attained in a short period of time. We must believe in doing an effort and results will surely be fruitful.

How to be Successful Person – Long Essay (1100 Words)

We all are attracted by people achieving success in different fields. Many of the successful people are also the role models for many people and students in the society. The act of being successful is not as easy as it is in saying or seeing others. It is only we who can make our way towards becoming successful in our life.

What is Meant by Success?

Success is something that is can be achieved by making the best use of our abilities and the resources that we have. Success isn’t very easy as spelled but requires greater patience. It totally depends upon us that how we want to shape of life and carrier. Every person in this world has a different opinion regarding the word success in his/her life. It is the real satisfaction and happiness that one gets after achieving the goal of life. Success brings happiness to our lives and motivates us to do our best. We all dream of becoming successful in life, but success is only achieved by people who are really concerned about it.

Few Ways of becoming Successful in Life

We all are born with some purpose in our life. It is because life without a significant goal is meaningless. We all understand ourselves and our abilities in a better way than anyone else. The utilization of our own ability in getting our goals accomplished makes us successful in our life. Here are some tips that can help you in becoming successful in your life.

Recognize your passion or goal – Everybody in this world is born with a unique talent. It is most essential for you to recognize your passion. Passion in doing any work gives you inner happiness and satisfaction. If you identify your passion and work accordingly the path of your success becomes clear. For example, if you have a talent for dancing and want to make it your carrier then you need to focus on polishing your dancing skill. This can only make you a successful dancer in your life. In other words, it can be said that it is essential to recognize the goal of your life and work upon it till it makes you shine.

Have the courage to accept failure – There are many challenges in the way of success. The people who are really serious about their passion or dreams make their way by facing challenges. It may happen that you might face failure in life while proceeding towards being successful. You must not lose hope but try to find out your mistakes that had been behind getting failure. According to our former President Dr. Abdul Kalam, the word FAIL means First Attempt in Learning. Failure is always accompanied by success. It makes you realize and learn from your mistakes. It is necessary that you must never panic about failure and have the courage to accept it. Success is a long process and therefore you need to have patience in you. This will surely make you successful in your life.

Hard work – It is always said that there is no substitute for hard work in getting success. People who are talented from birth also need to work hard in their life to become successful. Hard work helps you sharpening your passion and skill. You really have to become extraordinary for becoming successful in your life.

Stay motivated – In no condition, you must forget about your goal in life. As you have seen a spider even after the destruction of its web it again starts weaving a new one without losing hope. There must be something in your life that might remind you about your goal every time. This will make you more motivated for doing hard work for achieving your goal. The picture of your goal must be in front of your eyes every time either you are slept or awake. You may write some quotations or draw and paste them on your room wall so that whenever you enter your room you must get energized once again. Motivation is a very essential key factor for becoming successful in our life.

Be disciplined and time-bounded – Discipline and time management is most important for attaining success in life. Living a disciplined life helps you to concentrate towards the goal of your life. After deciding on your goal you need to do proper planning for accomplishing it. You have to make time management for everything you do in your life. It is because time is most precious and if lost can never be regained. Opportunity only knocks once and you must not let it go in vain. Therefore the right decision at right time can only make the journey of life a successful one.

Does being Successful mean being Able to Earn a Lot of Money?

Money and success both are important for an individual. We all have some goals in our life and after accomplishing them we get a good carrier and earn a good amount of money. It is true that money is necessary for everything in your life but only money can never provide you happiness. In my opinion, every highly earning person is not really a successful one. The real meaning of being successful is getting happiness and satisfaction in life after being able to do that what you love to do in life.

A child getting good marks in the examination is a success, getting your dream job is a success, being able to fulfill your dreams is a success. The act of fulfilling your dreams makes you very happy and is the real meaning of success. There are many people in this world who earn money by wrong means and therefore they are rich enough. It does not mean that they are successful. Thus there is a great difference between being able to earn a lot of money and being successful. Richness is not the right way of measuring success. Successful people can earn good money along with respect in society.

Success is aspired by everyone in this world but only a few people become capable of tasting real success. Everything is possible in this world and people are making it happen. In the same way, becoming successful is difficult but not impossible. It requires several sacrifices, hard work, dedication, time management. The people who are focused and have a keen desire to make their dream come true can surely become successful in their life.

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

Ans . Real success means fulfilling your dream goal of your life that you love doing.

Ans . The habit of being honest with oneself is most important for becoming successful.

Ans . We have to leave our comforts and concentrate on our aim for being successful in life.

Ans . Success is important because it gives us self-confidence and hopes to move to the next level in life.

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Success Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on success.

Success Essay- In today’s world everyone wants to be successful but what is a success. The perspective of success varies from person to person. For the record, the people before us have a different view on success and the person after us will have a different view on success.

Moreover, people compare different people performance to evaluate their success. But success is not something that you can copy from others. You have to make your own path to achieving success. In modern-day, people are obsessed with success because of the glamour and lifestyle of successful people .

What formulates a person successful?

There are many ways in the world to be successful. But most people think of celebrities, artist, politicians, and businessmen whenever they heard the word success.

Moreover, they think doing what they will make you successful but that not the case. They forget the most basic thing that makes a person successful that is their hard work, dedication, and the desire to achieve their dream. More importantly, they what they like to do not what that others told them to do. Successful people do what they like to do also they do what they feel correct for their business.

If you look in the dictionary for the meaning of the word success then you will find that it means the achievement of one’s goal or aim . So, basically, anyone can achieve success by simply achieving their aim or goal.

What is the harm of success?

We all knew that we can’t achieve something without sacrificing something. Success also demands various things from you. But these sacrifices will not go in vain if you achieve your goal.

Certainly, many people achieve professional success but in doing so they fail in achieving mental, social and physical success. The tension of lacking behind in other things pulls them apart.

Also, there are cases where people became so obsessed with success that the people around them start to feel uncomfortable around them. In some cases, they have gone mad. Apart from that, people also get depressed if they can’t achieve success like others. So, we can say that there is much harm to success.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Success and hard work

It may sound unfit to some peoples but success depends a lot of hard work. Without it, you can’t become successful. Hard work does not mean that you do laborious work or the work that make you sweat. Hard work means having a healthy body, strong mind, willpower and positive attitude towards things. And for all those things you need energy. So, be attentive to your body and soul.

Besides, do not just work on your program, push your limit, take charge of other things, improve your skills and most importantly keep learning. Apart from that, be with positive peoples, develop positive habits, and do exercise not only for the body but also for your mind.

To sum it up, we can say that success is like a seed that needs a balanced proportion of all the elements of life. And no one can achieve success in a day they have to go through and face different conditions in life for being successful. Above all, success is the feeling of fulfillment that you feel when you achieve your goal.

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Finding Success Starts with Finding Your Purpose

• John Coleman

It’s never too early — or too late — to ask the big questions.

Many people work their whole lives to achieve material success only to find their happiness and sense of purpose wanting when that success comes. They often spend their later years looking for purpose in their lives in order to feel a sense of meaning. Searching for meaning late in your life is a missed opportunity. Success without significance — purpose, service, and meaningful relationships — is not really success at all. It’s important to properly reflect on how you can live a life imbued intensely not just with the superficial trappings of “success” but with deep purpose and joy in all we do — starting now. Ask yourself:  What is the core purpose of my work and the ways in which it makes the world better? Who are the key relationships in my life, and how can I deepen them? What more can I do at work, at home, and in my community to serve others? How am I becoming better each day?

In 1995, Bob Buford wrote the bestselling book Halftime , which popularized the concept of “moving from success to significance” in the second half of life. Buford realized that many businesspeople work their whole lives to achieve material success only to find their happiness and sense of purpose wanting when that success comes. And he rightly encouraged those people to seek out meaning and impact in their later years.

• JC John Coleman is the author of the HBR Guide to Crafting Your Purpose . Subscribe to his free newsletter, On Purpose , follow him on Twitter @johnwcoleman, or contact him at johnwilliamcoleman.com.

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How to Be Successful in Reaching Your Goals

9 Psychological Strategies to Get Ahead in Life

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Rachel Goldman, PhD FTOS, is a licensed psychologist, clinical assistant professor, speaker, wellness expert specializing in eating behaviors, stress management, and health behavior change.

Build a Growth Mindset

Improve your emotional intelligence, develop mental toughness, strengthen your willpower, focus on intrinsic motivations, set achievable goals, nurture traits linked to high potential, cultivate strong social support, avoid burnout.

Success is often defined as the ability to reach your goals in life, whatever those goals may be. In some ways, a better word for success might be attainment, accomplishment, or progress. It is not necessarily a destination but a journey that helps develop the skills and resources you need to thrive.

At a Glance

There are many different tactics for how to be successful in life, but the strategy that works best for you may depend on what success means to you . If you think of success as doing well at work or earning a high salary, your professional goals and accomplishments will take priority.

While professional success can be one piece of the puzzle, it leaves out many other important areas of life. Family, romantic relationships, academics, and athletics are just a few areas where people may strive for success. Your definition of success may vary, but many might define it as being fulfilled, happy, safe, healthy, and loved.

While there is no single right way to be successful, you can improve your chances by building a growth mindset, improving your emotional intelligence, developing mental toughness, and strengthening your willpower, among other strategies.

Because goals are self-created, what people view as success can vary depending on their needs, goals, and situation. There may not be a perfect combination of ingredients that can guarantee success. Still, there are some basic steps you can follow that can improve your chances of being successful in life, love, work, or whatever happens to be important to you.

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Research by psychologist Carol Dweck suggests that there are two basic mindsets that influence how people think about themselves and their abilities: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset .

People who possess a fixed mindset believe that things such as intelligence are static and unchangeable. Those with a fixed mindset believe that success isn't a result of hard work—it's simply a consequence of innate talents.

Because they believe that such talents are something people are either born with or without, they tend to give up more easily in the face of a challenge. They quit when things do not come easily because they believe that they lack the inborn skills needed to excel.

Those who have a growth mindset, on the other hand, feel that they can change, grow, and learn through effort. People who believe that they are capable of growth are more likely to achieve success. When things get tough, they look for ways to improve their skills and keep working toward success.

People with a growth mindset believe that they have control of their life, while those with a fixed mindset believe that things are out of their control.

What can you do to build a growth mindset?

• Believe that your efforts matter . Rather than thinking their abilities are fixed or stuck, people who have a growth mindset believe that effort and hard work can lead to meaningful growth.
• Learn new skills . When faced with a challenge, they look for ways to develop the knowledge and skills that they need to overcome and triumph.
• View failures as learning experiences . People with growth mindsets don't believe that failure is a reflection of their abilities. Instead, they view it as a valuable source of experience from which they can learn and improve. "That didn't work," they might think, "so this time I'll try something a little different."

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Overall intelligence has long been believed to be one factor contributing to success in different areas of life, but some experts suggest that emotional intelligence may actually matter even more.   Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to understand, utilize, and reason with emotions. Emotionally intelligent people are able to understand not only their own emotions, but those of others as well.

To improve your emotional intelligence:

• Pay attention to your own emotions . Focus on identifying what you are feeling and what is causing those feelings.
• Manage your emotions . Step back and try to view things with an impartial eye. Avoid bottling up or repressing your feelings, but look for healthy and appropriate ways of dealing with what you are feeling.
• Listen to others. This not only involves hearing what they are saying, but also paying attention to nonverbal signals and body language.

Mental toughness refers to the resilience to carry on and continue trying even in the face of obstacles. People who possess this mental strength see challenges as opportunities. They also feel that they have control over their own destiny, are confident in their abilities to succeed, and are committed to finishing what they start.

What can you do to improve your mental toughness and increase your chances of being successful in life?

• Believe in yourself . Cut out negative self-talk and look for ways to stay positive and self-encouraging.
• Keep trying . Even when things seem impossible or setbacks keep holding you back, focus on ways that you can develop your skills and keep soldiering forward. One of the key habits of successful people is always looking at setbacks or failures as learning opportunities.
• Care for yourself . Staying strong also means that you treat yourself with kindness. Check in with yourself regularly to ensure you have the things you need to thrive.
• Look for growth opportunities . Learning more about yourself and challenging yourself to try new things can provide opportunities for self-discovery.

In a long-running longitudinal study, psychologists followed a group of children who were identified by their teachers as highly intelligent. As they compared how these subjects fared throughout childhood and into adulthood, researchers found that those who ultimately were the most successful in life shared some key characteristics, including perseverance and willpower.  

These characteristics tend to be part of an individual's overall personality, but they are also something you can improve. Delayed gratification , learning to persist in the face of challenges, and waiting for the rewards of your hard work can often be the key to success in life.

Strategies you can use to improve your willpower include:

• Distraction . For example, if you are trying to lose weight but are having a difficult time staying away from your favorite snacks, distracting yourself during your moments of weakness can be an effective way to avoid giving in to temptation.
• Practice . Willpower is something you can build, but it takes time and effort. Start by making small goals that require will power to achieve, such as avoiding sugary snacks. As you build your ability to use your will power to achieve such small goals, you may find that your willpower is also stronger when working on much larger goals.

What is it that motivates you the most? Do you find that the promise of external rewards keeps you reaching for your goals, or is it the more personal, intrinsic motivators that keep you feeling inspired? While extrinsic rewards such as money, awards, and praise can be helpful, many people find that they are most motivated when they are doing things for personal satisfaction.

If you are doing things because you enjoy them, because you find them meaningful, or because you enjoy seeing the effects of your work, then you are driven by intrinsic motivations. Research has shown that while incentives can be a better predictor of some types of performance, intrinsic motivators tend to be better at predicting performance quality.  

While it is often the external motivators that get people started, it is the internal motivators that kick in and keep people going in order to maintain those new behaviors.

What can you do to boost your sense of intrinsic motivation?

• Challenge yourself . Pursuing a goal that is achievable but not necessarily easy, is a great way to increase motivation to succeed. Challenges can keep you interested in a task, improve your self-esteem, and offer feedback on areas you can improve on. Choosing a slightly challenging task will help motivate you to get started—it feels exciting!
• Stay curious . Look for things that grab your attention and that you want to learn more about.
• Take control . It can be difficult to stay intrinsically motivated to pursue a goal if you don't feel that you have any real influence over the outcome. Look for ways that you can take an active role.
• Don't fear competition . There might be other people trying to reach the same goals as you, but this doesn't mean you should give up. Don't compare your progress or journey to anyone else's. You can look to others for motivation and inspiration, but remember that we all have different paths.

Successful people know that they need to start by having attainable goals to achieve. These goals are not necessarily easy to reach, but by having something to aim for, you will be better able to move forward and overcome obstacles.

When setting goals :

• Be as specific as possible : Choosing a goal like "I'm going to spend 20 minutes a day learning a new language" is more achievable than setting a general goal like "I'm going to learn French."
• Break your goal into smaller steps : Even if you select a specific goal, it can often seem difficult to achieve. Try breaking it into smaller steps that allow you to focus on moving forward without becoming overwhelmed.
• Reward progress : Recognize your successes along the way and allow yourself to enjoy your accomplishments.

One of the biggest reasons people don't follow through on their goals [is] because they aren't what THEY want to do. Make sure your goals align with your personal values and needs, not what you 'think' you should do.

Psychologists have long attempted to link specific traits or personality characteristics to success in life and work. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one widely used assessment that is often utilized by businesses to screen job candidates. However, research often fails to show that the MBTI actually correlates to performance.  

According to some more recent research, there are certain traits that tend to be consistently tied to success.   Researchers Ian MacRae and Adrian Furnham have identified six key traits that can play a role in how well people do at work.   However, they note that there are optimal levels of these traits. Too little of these characteristics can hinder success, but so can having too much.

If you are trying to learn how to be successful in life, consider what you can do to nurture these key traits:

Conscientiousness

Conscientious people consider the effects of their actions. They also consider how other people will react and feel. You can nurture this trait by:

• Thinking about the consequences of actions
• Considering other people's perspectives

Accepting of Ambiguity

Life is full of situations that are not always clear. People with a great deal of potential for success are better able to accept this ambiguity. Rather than being rigid and inflexible, they are ready to adapt when the unexpected comes their way. You can learn to embrace ambiguity by:

• Challenging your perspectives and considering opinions and ideas other than your own
• Not fearing the unfamiliar
• Being willing to change
• Valuing diversity

Capable of Adjustment

In addition to being able to accept ambiguity, success often hinges on the ability to quickly adjust to change. You can nurture this ability to adjust by:

• Reframing difficult situations, to see them as opportunities to learn and grow rather than simply obstacles to live through
• Being open to change; when plans or situations change, step back and look at ways to cope

The world's most successful people often exemplify great courage. They are willing to take risks, even in the face of potential failure. Research suggests that courageous people utilize positive emotions to overcome fear.   You can improve your tolerance of risk by:

• Quelling negative emotions and focusing on more positive feelings
• Balancing risk with common sense; being cautious and pragmatic can also pay off, depending upon the situation

People who are successful tend to be curious about the world around them. They are always eager to learn more, including new knowledge and skills. You can cultivate your sense of curiosity by:

• Relating tasks to your interests: If you find filing boring, for example, look for a more efficient way to categorize the information to play to your strengths as an organizer.
• Learning new things

Competitiveness

Successful people are able to utilize competition to motivate, but avoid falling prey to jealousy. You can nurture a healthy sense of competition by:

• Focusing on your own improvements; rather than worry about being the best at something, pay attention to your progress
• Being happy when others succeed

Some personality traits and types may be better suited for certain jobs than others. However, no specific personality trait can guarantee success, nor can being low in that trait doom someone to failure.

While there are differences in opinion on just how much personality can be altered , nurturing some of these high potential traits might help you develop skills that can serve you well in many different aspects of your life.

Doing things alone can be difficult, but having a strong social support system can make things easier. Different types of social support can be important for success.

• Emotional support can provide the comfort, security, and empathy you need as you face challenges.
• Esteem support can boost your confidence and encourage you to keep going.
• Informational support can provide mentorship, advice, and other necessary resources to reach your goals.
• Tangible support can help you in active and practical ways. This might involve someone helping you perform a task or taking care of the task for you.

Having even one close person in your life that you feel you can go to in any circumstance is more helpful for your relational well-being than having 10 friends who are surface level. It's about quality, not quantity.

Mentors, friends, co-workers, and family members can cheer you on when things get tough and even offer advice and assistance that can help you improve your chances for success.

Burnout can happen when you are exposed to chronic stress . It can seriously impede success and lead to exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced performance.  

Reduced motivation makes it harder to stick to your goals and can make you feel apathetic and uninterested.

Self-care strategies, such as getting enough sleep and engaging in healthy eating, can relieve some stress. But addressing burnout often requires getting to the bottom of the issue that is causing the problem.

Sometimes, this might mean reassessing your goals. If your goals are creating too much stress or if you are trying to achieve too much too fast, it can be a recipe for burnout. Look for ways to reduce stress, whether that involves shifting your goals, changing your plans, or even doing something more significant like moving somewhere else or changing jobs.

Keep in Mind

There is no single measure of success, and certainly no single answer for how to be successful in life. Yet by looking at some of the habits of successful people, you can learn new tactics and strategies to implement in your own daily life. Cultivate and nurture these abilities, and over time you may find that you are better able to reach your goals and achieve the success you want in life.

Dweck CS, Yeager DS. Mindsets: A view from two eras . Perspect Psychol Sci. 2019;14(3):481-496. doi:10.1177/1745691618804166

Urquijo I, Extremera N, Azanza G. The contribution of emotional intelligence to career success: Beyond personality traits . Int J Environ Res Public Health . 2019;16(23). doi:10.3390/ijerph16234809

Giles B, Goods PSR, Warner DR, et al. Mental toughness and behavioural perseverance: A conceptual replication and extension . J Sci Med Sport . 2018;21(6):640-645. doi:10.1016/j.jsams.2017.10.036

Shoda Y, Mischel W, Peake PK. Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions .  Developmental Psychology. 1990;26(6):978-986. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.26.6.978  

Cerasoli CP, Nicklin JM, Ford MT. Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives jointly predict performance: A 40-year meta-analysis . Psychol Bull . 2014;140(4):980-1008. doi:10.1037/a0035661

Pittenger DJ. Cautionary comments regarding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator .  Consult Psychol J Pract Res. 2005;57(3):210-221. doi:10.1037/1065-9293.57.3.210 

Komarraju M, Karau SJ, Schmeck RR, Avdic A. The big five personality traits, learning styles, and academic achievement . Pers Indiv Differ . 2011;51(4):472-477. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.04.019

MacRae I, Furnham A, Reed M. High Potential: How to Spot, Manage, and Develop Talented People at Work . Bloomsbury; 2018.

Eagleson C, Hayes S, Matthews A, Perman G, Hirsch CR. The power of positive thinking: Pathological worry is reduced by thought replacement in generalized anxiety disorder . Behav Res Ther . 2016;78:13-18. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2015.12.017

Maslach C, Leiter MP.  Understanding the burnout experience: recent research and its implications for psychiatry.   World Psychiatry . 2016;15(2):103–111. doi:10.1002/wps.20311

Crum AJ, Salovey P, Achor S. Rethinking stress: The role of mindsets in determining the stress response. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2013;104(4):716-733. doi:10.1037/a0031201

McLain DL, Kefallonitis E, Armani K. Ambiguity tolerance in organizations: Definitional clarification and perspectives on future research . Front Psychol . 2015;6:344. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00344

Mussel P. Introducing the construct curiosity for predicting job performance . J Organ Behav . 2012;34(4):453-472. doi:10.1002/job.1809  

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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This article was co-authored by Jake Adams . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. This article has been viewed 68,787 times.

No matter whether you're working on a college research paper or a middle school essay, you can boost your writing skills and make your essay even more successful. A good essay has a convincing argument, evidence to back up the main points, and clear writing. Ready to take your writing from good to great? We'll give you clear-cut writing tips to create a successful essay.

Writing the introduction

• Make sure that your topic relates to the assignment, and that you can support it using various mediums, such as the internet or a book.

Writing the body of the essay

Finishing the essay

• For your conclusion, state your thesis in a different, unique way. Summarize your whole paper, and leave a lasting impression on your readers.

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• Never repeat what you've already said. If you do, it'll sound less interesting. Thanks Helpful 7 Not Helpful 0
• Remember to use transitions. Transitions connect ideas and establish a flow to your paper. Like the thesis, transitions are a necessary part of all papers. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 0
• Don't go overboard on the appearances of your essay. It'll look cheesy and plus it'll cost a lot of money. Remember, after your current school year is over, your teacher will just throw it away, so it isn't smart to load up on the pictures and ribbons. Thanks Helpful 4 Not Helpful 1

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• ↑ https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/writing/how-to-write-an-essay.html
• ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/07/how-to-write-an-essay
• ↑ Jake Adams. Academic Tutor & Test Prep Specialist. Expert Interview. 20 May 2020.
• ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zv7fqp3/articles/znvn92p
• ↑ https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/ending-essay-conclusions

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Essay on How to Be Successful in Life

Students are often asked to write an essay on How to Be Successful in Life in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on How to Be Successful in Life

Defining success.

Success means different things to different people. For some, it’s about achieving goals, for others, it’s about happiness and satisfaction. It’s important to define what success means to you.

Setting Goals

Having clear goals is a key to success. These goals should be measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. They give you a sense of direction and purpose.

Hard Work and Dedication

Success requires hard work and dedication. There’s no shortcut to success. You need to be committed to your goals and work tirelessly towards them.

Learning from Failures

Failures are stepping stones to success. Learning from your mistakes and not repeating them is crucial for success.

Staying Positive

250 words essay on how to be successful in life.

Success is a multifaceted concept, varying from person to person. It is not merely confined to financial or societal status but extends to personal satisfaction, happiness, and the realization of individual goals.

Success begins with setting goals. These should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Goals provide a roadmap, guiding you towards your desired destination.

Persistence and Consistency

Success is not a one-time event, but a journey. It requires persistence and consistency. Facing challenges and overcoming obstacles is part and parcel of this journey. Persistence ensures that you stay on your chosen path, while consistency guarantees steady progress.

Continuous Learning

The world is ever-evolving, and so should our knowledge. Continuous learning keeps you abreast of new developments, enhances your skills, and broadens your perspective. It empowers you to adapt to changes and seize opportunities.

Success isn’t a solo endeavor. Building a robust network of relationships can open doors to opportunities and provide support during challenging times.

Health and Well-being

In conclusion, success in life is a blend of goal setting, persistence, continuous learning, networking, and maintaining health. It’s a journey of self-discovery and personal growth, where the destination is as important as the journey itself.

500 Words Essay on How to Be Successful in Life

Introduction.

Success is a subjective concept that varies from person to person. However, it often includes a combination of personal fulfillment, financial stability, and a sense of achievement. Here is a guide to navigating the path to success with a focus on personal development, goal setting, perseverance, and self-awareness.

Personal Development

Goal setting.

Setting clear, achievable goals is a fundamental step towards success. These goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This framework helps to create a clear path towards your objectives and allows for periodic evaluation of progress. Remember to set both short-term and long-term goals, as short-term goals act as stepping stones towards the bigger picture.

Perseverance

Success is rarely achieved overnight. It requires consistent effort, resilience in the face of setbacks, and the ability to learn from failures. Perseverance is the key to turning challenges into stepping stones. It is also essential to maintain a positive attitude and believe in your capabilities, even when the going gets tough.

Self-awareness

Financial literacy.

Financial literacy is an often-overlooked aspect of success. It involves understanding how money works, including how to earn, invest, manage, and donate it responsibly. Good financial habits such as budgeting, saving, and investing can lead to financial stability, which is a significant component of success.

Success in life is a multifaceted concept, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. It requires continuous personal development, clear goal setting, perseverance, self-awareness, and financial literacy. Most importantly, it involves defining what success means to you personally, and working relentlessly towards it. Remember, the journey to success is a marathon, not a sprint. Patience, persistence, and a positive mindset are your greatest allies on this journey.

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Success: How Do You Define It? Essay

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Introduction

The meaning of success.

Success is a word that all the human beings use a number of times during their social life. It is been used, discussed and researched frequently by the social scientists and psychologists. In this world so many people have been trying hard for success, many are achieving success, and others are not fortunate. They are doomed and buried in their endeavors to accomplish success. Many unfortunate have been perusing success for long years, but some are getting it almost suddenly without much hard work. Success is the very concept upon which many wars have been fought between countries and many innocent were killed.

Success to one man may be the dominion over another; to another man it may be his internal gratification. Often we consider the word success as the binary opposite of failure, and success of a person is measured largely based on the failure of someone else. Since all the words are only symbols and meaning is added to it later by general consensus, the word success also gets several meanings according to the context in which it is used.

The etymology of the word success says that it is derived from the Latin word ‘successus’ which means ‘an advance, succession, happy outcome’, and it is first recorded in 1586 (*5). The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines the term success as “the achievement of a desired aim, or of fame, wealth or social position” (*1). Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary gives the definition “favorable or desired outcome; also: the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence” (*2) Other dictionaries define success as “The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted [or] The gaining of fame or prosperity” (*3), “An event that accomplishes its intended purpose”, “A state of prosperity or fame” (*4) etc. so, all the dictionary meanings directs us to the meaning that success is achieving something; that may be money, fame or prosperity.

Many of the successful men in the world have endeavored to define the term success. Bessie Stanley defines success as follows:

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory a benediction. (*6)

Here Stanley’s definition gives a big list as the parameter of success. Thoreau’s strong belief in self-reliance made him say that “I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. (*6). Thoreau is so much confident about the world and the capability of the human beings to advance steadily in life with their will power. Michel Korda echoes Thoreau when he says “To succeed, we must first believe that we can”. Ralf Emerson also thinks in the same line when he says “Self-trust is the first secret of success” (*6).

As we mentioned earlier, the meaning of success will be different to different people. It comes in many forms with many definitions. What an individual is searching in life, in business, or in business defines success for him. A sports star may have one definition of success, and a house wife staying at home may have quite a different definition. A film director seems to count his success by his film becoming a huge hit in the theatres, and a doctor may consider success from a surgery that succeeded. It largely depends on what perspective of life one has.

But apart from all definitions and quotes, success can be said as something that is formed as the finishing point of all the dreams. All the dreams make its end in success. Success cannot be treated as a mere word. For some people, it is all about fulfilling it in life. In the past, success of a person is counted in terms of his or her growing bank balance only, but today all those old concepts have changed. The all-inclusive materialistic mantras have given way to a holistic and positive attitude to life. Success is counted as a result of the synergy of various factors such as material, economical and spiritual satisfaction.

Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who tried to synthesis a large body of research on the topic, motivation. Maslow’s theories posited a hierarchy of human needs, which was divided into two sections; deficiency needs and growth needs. According to Maslow, the individual is ready to act upon the growth needs only after meeting the deficiency needs. The individual attains self actualization when all his growth needs are fulfilled. Maslow says that self-actualization is the ultimate aim of all the individuals’ life. Maslow’s self-actualization can be seen as another word for success.

Maslow’s self-actualization includes both material and spiritual concepts of success. A general misconception about success is that it encompasses only material prosperity. People think that the shortcut to success is to work hard, make a lot of money, and neglect or negate the inner life. Being successful spiritually doesn’t mean success. Instead, it is only a way to sainthood. Both these thought patterns leads someone to go astray.

Some cultures, for example Ancient Indian Culture, gave importance to spiritual success, and the result was growing poverty in the nation. The modern world with its globalization and modernization spirits gives importance to material success and the result is growing dissatisfaction and insecurity feelings even among these successful people. The ideal successful life is defined by many Ancient Indian philosophers as fullness in the outer, material world with that much fullness in the inner, spiritual world each reflecting, considering and supporting each other. So, an amalgam of these two patterns will give real success to a man.

It is not always what someone achieved decides how successful he or she is. In some cases those who are considered by the society as rich or successful may not consider themselves as successful. Rather than how much one has, it is ones attitude towards what he has decides his level of success. Some people think about their inferior sides only and consider themselves as total failures, however superior they are in other areas. A rich man having all the abundance in life may be thinking sadly about his children who are not brilliant enough to manage his wealth, or he may be worrying about his poor health. This is a peculiarity of the human mind. He will not be satisfied with anything in life. So, in this way no one will be labeled as successful.

From the experience of those who were successful in life, modern success trainers have deduced many tips to become successful in life. The first step to become successful in life is to identify ones heartfelt needs versus fantasies. Then focus on one thing at a time, and always be willing to admit need. One should show a strong commitment to accomplish that need. The next step is to prioritize the needs. One way to prioritize ones needs is to make a list of the things that one may do if one has only two days to live. Then think logically and set up a time limit for the most important things in the list.

Using visualizations of the set goals will increase the rate at which enthusiasm is generated in the mind. Cutting pictures related to the goals and putting them on the pin up board will help to boost enthusiasm. This enthusiasm changes the whole body chemistry, breaking down all mental blocks. Having a staunch belief in God will help to achieve goals and to be successful. One should have a willingness to receive ever without doubting ones worthiness is a quality that one should cultivate in their lives. Always ask to oneself “what should I do today to ahead towards my goal”. This conversation with one’s heart will help to create a strong mental energy to be successful in the deeds that one is involved in. The final tip for success is to surrender one’s little self to the true self, and go on with the plan.

Whatever definitions the word success has, or whatever ways are there to achieve it, true success is the achievement and realization of a valuable ideal that your heart has desired for and is connected to. It can be called as ones birth passion or success passion. People often tend to die for such passions. This is why some people explode out and do their maximum and come back successfully in life, and some others struggle all their life for it without any achievement. These two categories are operating two different spheres of success and action. Success is double and highly spirited when it is filled with emotion, boosted by passion, controlled by destiny and created with the fire of the heart. So, there is no success like the success where the heart is connected to it with the flames of passion.

• *1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997.
• *2- Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary. Web.
• *3- TheFreeDictionary. Web.
• *4- Worldweb Online. Web.
• *5. Online etymology dictionary. Web.
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IvyPanda. (2021, August 16). Success: How Do You Define It? https://ivypanda.com/essays/success-how-do-you-define-it/

"Success: How Do You Define It?" IvyPanda , 16 Aug. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/success-how-do-you-define-it/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Success: How Do You Define It'. 16 August.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Success: How Do You Define It?" August 16, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/success-how-do-you-define-it/.

1. IvyPanda . "Success: How Do You Define It?" August 16, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/success-how-do-you-define-it/.

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✍️Essay on Success in 100,150 and 200 Words: The Power of Positive Mindset

• Updated on  
• Oct 26, 2023

The concept of success is very simple; if you invest your time wisely and work hard, you will achieve success in no time. But success is not as simple as it sounds; what might sound like success to one might not be the same for another person. It embodies the realization of one’s goals, aspirations, and desires, often accompanied by a sense of accomplishment and fulfilment.

Success is manifested in different aspects, such as career achievements, personal growth, or even the pursuit of happiness. It is a journey filled with determination, perseverance, and often a willingness to learn from both triumphs and setbacks. Ultimately, success is a subjective pursuit that reflects the unique path and definition of achievement for each person.

Table of Contents

• 1 What Makes a Person Successful?
• 2 Essay on Success in 100 Words
• 3 Essay on Success in 150 Words
• 4 Essay on Success in 200 Words

What Makes a Person Successful?

Being successful is very subjective and can vary from person to person. Therefore, here are some common factors which contribute to the success of a person.

• Hard Work and Persistence: Success requires effort and dedication and one has the ability to face challenges.
• Setting Clear Goals: It is very important for one to have specific and attainable goals which will provide direction and motivation. 
• Networking: The person should have the capability to build relations and at the same time be open to opportunities which strike. 
• Time Management: Managing time effectively and priorities is essential for productivity and progress. 
• Self-Discipline: One should be very focused and maintain self-control which will help them achieve long-term goals. 
• Management of Finances: Having a basic understanding of finances and managing them wisely is also very important for attaining financial success. 

Also Read: Essay on Water Conservation

Essay on Success in 100 Words

Success is the culmination of dedication, hard work, and determination. It is not merely the achievement of material wealth, but the fulfilment of one’s goals and aspirations. Success varies from person to person; for some, it’s a thriving career, while for others, it could be having a harmonious family life. 

To attain success, individuals must set clear objectives, persevere through challenges, and learn from failures. Success often involves learning, adapting, and embracing change. It’s the result of resilience and the willingness to keep pushing forward. Ultimately, success is a personal journey, and its definition is unique to each individual.

Essay on Success in 150 Words

Everybody wants to be successful in life, but are they willing to put in all their efforts? Success is not solely measured by wealth or fame but by achieving one’s goals and finding fulfilment. True success is often the result of determination, hard work, and resilience. Setting clear, achievable objectives and being persistent through challenges are crucial components.

Education is a common path to success, providing knowledge and skills that open doors to opportunities. Embracing failure as a stepping stone, learning from mistakes, and adapting to change are essential to achieving success. However, it’s important to recognize that success is subjective and can encompass a broader spectrum of achievements beyond material possessions.

Personal growth, happiness, and a sense of purpose are all part of success. Balancing personal and professional life is key to sustaining it. Ultimately, success is a journey, not a destination, and it’s about realizing your full potential and making a meaningful contribution to the world.

Also Read: Essay on Nature: In 100 Words, 200 Words, 300 Words

Essay on Success in 200 Words

Success is a multifaceted concept, often defined by achieving one’s goals and aspirations. It is a subjective and deeply personal notion, as what constitutes success varies from person to person. However, a common thread in success is the continuous pursuit of one’s ambitions, combined with determination and hard work.

Success is not solely measured by material wealth, but rather by the fulfilment and satisfaction that comes from reaching one’s objectives. It is the result of setting clear goals, developing a plan, and facing all the challenges. The road to success is rarely smooth; it is often marked by setbacks and failures. These obstacles are crucial for personal growth, teaching valuable lessons that contribute to success in the long run.

Moreover, success is not an endpoint; it is a continuous journey. It requires adaptability and the willingness to learn and evolve. Success can be found in various aspects of life, from career achievements to personal relationships and self-fulfilment. It is the balance and harmony between these different facets that lead to a truly successful and meaningful life.

In conclusion, success is a complex and individualized concept, rooted in determination, hard work, resilience, and personal growth. It is not defined solely by external markers but by the fulfilment and happiness, one derives from their accomplishments and the journey to achieve them.

Related Articles

Writing an essay on success requires you to describe this multifaceted concept. Success is achieved when one’s goal and objective is attained. Those who are successful, have fulfilled their highest ambitions in life and work, or are actively striving towards doing so. 

Happiness does not follow success. Contrary to popular belief, living a life that makes you happy can help you achieve your goals and be content. 

You gain from success because it gives you the things you want or need. Setting and achieving attainable goals results in a feeling of well-being. 

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay-writing page and follow Leverage Edu ! 

Malvika Chawla

Malvika is a content writer cum news freak who comes with a strong background in Journalism and has worked with renowned news websites such as News 9 and The Financial Express to name a few. When not writing, she can be found bringing life to the canvasses by painting on them.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Success — What is Success and How to Define It

What is Success and How to Define It

• Categories: Success

About this sample

Words: 1355 |

Published: Mar 1, 2019

Words: 1355 | Page: 1 | 7 min read

What is success?

Works cited.

• Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Simon & Schuster.
• Dweck, C. (2017). Mindset: Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential. Robinson.
• Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. Little, Brown and Company.
• Grant, A. (2013). Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. Penguin Books.
• Hill, N. (2020). Think and Grow Rich. Independently published.
• Kipling, R. (1910). If. The National Review.
• Loehr, J., & Schwartz, T. (2003). The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal. Free Press.
• Man's Search for Meaning (2006). Viktor E. Frankl. Beacon Press.
• Robbins, T. (2005). Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical, and Financial Destiny!. Simon & Schuster.
• Tracy, B. (2004). The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible. Thomas Nelson.

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Diener, E., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Beyond money: Toward an economy of wellbeing. Psychological science in the public interest, 5(1), 1-31.Henderson, M., & Harker, J. (2018). The Routledge Handbook of Social Epistemology. [...]

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The Beginner's Guide to Writing an Essay | Steps & Examples

An academic essay is a focused piece of writing that develops an idea or argument using evidence, analysis, and interpretation.

There are many types of essays you might write as a student. The content and length of an essay depends on your level, subject of study, and course requirements. However, most essays at university level are argumentative — they aim to persuade the reader of a particular position or perspective on a topic.

The essay writing process consists of three main stages:

• Preparation: Decide on your topic, do your research, and create an essay outline.
• Writing : Set out your argument in the introduction, develop it with evidence in the main body, and wrap it up with a conclusion.
• Revision:  Check your essay on the content, organization, grammar, spelling, and formatting of your essay.

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Table of contents

Essay writing process, preparation for writing an essay, writing the introduction, writing the main body, writing the conclusion, essay checklist, lecture slides, frequently asked questions about writing an essay.

The writing process of preparation, writing, and revisions applies to every essay or paper, but the time and effort spent on each stage depends on the type of essay .

For example, if you’ve been assigned a five-paragraph expository essay for a high school class, you’ll probably spend the most time on the writing stage; for a college-level argumentative essay , on the other hand, you’ll need to spend more time researching your topic and developing an original argument before you start writing.

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Before you start writing, you should make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to say and how you’re going to say it. There are a few key steps you can follow to make sure you’re prepared:

• Understand your assignment: What is the goal of this essay? What is the length and deadline of the assignment? Is there anything you need to clarify with your teacher or professor?
• Define a topic: If you’re allowed to choose your own topic , try to pick something that you already know a bit about and that will hold your interest.
• Do your research: Read  primary and secondary sources and take notes to help you work out your position and angle on the topic. You’ll use these as evidence for your points.
• Come up with a thesis:  The thesis is the central point or argument that you want to make. A clear thesis is essential for a focused essay—you should keep referring back to it as you write.
• Create an outline: Map out the rough structure of your essay in an outline . This makes it easier to start writing and keeps you on track as you go.

Once you’ve got a clear idea of what you want to discuss, in what order, and what evidence you’ll use, you’re ready to start writing.

The introduction sets the tone for your essay. It should grab the reader’s interest and inform them of what to expect. The introduction generally comprises 10–20% of the text.

1. Hook your reader

The first sentence of the introduction should pique your reader’s interest and curiosity. This sentence is sometimes called the hook. It might be an intriguing question, a surprising fact, or a bold statement emphasizing the relevance of the topic.

Let’s say we’re writing an essay about the development of Braille (the raised-dot reading and writing system used by visually impaired people). Our hook can make a strong statement about the topic:

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability.

2. Provide background on your topic

Next, it’s important to give context that will help your reader understand your argument. This might involve providing background information, giving an overview of important academic work or debates on the topic, and explaining difficult terms. Don’t provide too much detail in the introduction—you can elaborate in the body of your essay.

3. Present the thesis statement

Next, you should formulate your thesis statement— the central argument you’re going to make. The thesis statement provides focus and signals your position on the topic. It is usually one or two sentences long. The thesis statement for our essay on Braille could look like this:

As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness.

4. Map the structure

In longer essays, you can end the introduction by briefly describing what will be covered in each part of the essay. This guides the reader through your structure and gives a preview of how your argument will develop.

The invention of Braille marked a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by blind and visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

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The body of your essay is where you make arguments supporting your thesis, provide evidence, and develop your ideas. Its purpose is to present, interpret, and analyze the information and sources you have gathered to support your argument.

Length of the body text

The length of the body depends on the type of essay. On average, the body comprises 60–80% of your essay. For a high school essay, this could be just three paragraphs, but for a graduate school essay of 6,000 words, the body could take up 8–10 pages.

Paragraph structure

To give your essay a clear structure , it is important to organize it into paragraphs . Each paragraph should be centered around one main point or idea.

That idea is introduced in a  topic sentence . The topic sentence should generally lead on from the previous paragraph and introduce the point to be made in this paragraph. Transition words can be used to create clear connections between sentences.

After the topic sentence, present evidence such as data, examples, or quotes from relevant sources. Be sure to interpret and explain the evidence, and show how it helps develop your overall argument.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

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The conclusion is the final paragraph of an essay. It should generally take up no more than 10–15% of the text . A strong essay conclusion :

• Returns to your thesis
• Ties together your main points
• Shows why your argument matters

A great conclusion should finish with a memorable or impactful sentence that leaves the reader with a strong final impression.

What not to include in a conclusion

To make your essay’s conclusion as strong as possible, there are a few things you should avoid. The most common mistakes are:

• Including new arguments or evidence
• Undermining your arguments (e.g. “This is just one approach of many”)
• Using concluding phrases like “To sum up…” or “In conclusion…”

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Write your essay conclusion

Checklist: Essay

My essay follows the requirements of the assignment (topic and length ).

My introduction sparks the reader’s interest and provides any necessary background information on the topic.

My introduction contains a thesis statement that states the focus and position of the essay.

I use paragraphs to structure the essay.

I use topic sentences to introduce each paragraph.

Each paragraph has a single focus and a clear connection to the thesis statement.

I make clear transitions between paragraphs and ideas.

My conclusion doesn’t just repeat my points, but draws connections between arguments.

I don’t introduce new arguments or evidence in the conclusion.

I have given an in-text citation for every quote or piece of information I got from another source.

I have included a reference page at the end of my essay, listing full details of all my sources.

My citations and references are correctly formatted according to the required citation style .

My essay has an interesting and informative title.

I have followed all formatting guidelines (e.g. font, page numbers, line spacing).

Your essay meets all the most important requirements. Our editors can give it a final check to help you submit with confidence.

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

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Essay Papers Writing Online

Mastering the art of essay writing – a comprehensive guide.

Essay writing is a fundamental skill that every student needs to master. Whether you’re in high school, college, or beyond, the ability to write a strong, coherent essay is essential for academic success. However, many students find the process of writing an essay daunting and overwhelming.

This comprehensive guide is here to help you navigate the intricate world of essay writing. From understanding the basics of essay structure to mastering the art of crafting a compelling thesis statement, we’ve got you covered. By the end of this guide, you’ll have the tools and knowledge you need to write an outstanding essay that will impress your teachers and classmates alike.

So, grab your pen and paper (or fire up your laptop) and let’s dive into the ultimate guide to writing an essay. Follow our tips and tricks, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a skilled and confident essay writer!

The Art of Essay Writing: A Comprehensive Guide

Essay writing is a skill that requires practice, patience, and attention to detail. Whether you’re a student working on an assignment or a professional writing for publication, mastering the art of essay writing can help you communicate your ideas effectively and persuasively.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the key elements of a successful essay, including how to choose a topic, structure your essay, and craft a compelling thesis statement. We’ll also discuss the importance of research, editing, and proofreading, and provide tips for improving your writing style and grammar.

By following the advice in this guide, you can become a more confident and skilled essay writer, capable of producing high-quality, engaging essays that will impress your readers and achieve your goals.

Understanding the Essay Structure

When it comes to writing an essay, understanding the structure is key to producing a cohesive and well-organized piece of writing. An essay typically consists of three main parts: an introduction, the body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Introduction: The introduction is where you introduce your topic and provide some background information. It should also include your thesis statement, which is the main idea or argument that you will be discussing in the essay.

Body paragraphs: The body of the essay is where you present your supporting evidence and arguments. Each paragraph should focus on a separate point and include evidence to back up your claims. Remember to use transition words to link your ideas together cohesively.

Conclusion: The conclusion is where you wrap up your essay by summarizing your main points and restating your thesis. It is also a good place to make any final thoughts or reflections on the topic.

Understanding the structure of an essay will help you write more effectively and communicate your ideas clearly to your readers.

Choosing the Right Topic for Your Essay

One of the most crucial steps in writing a successful essay is selecting the right topic. The topic you choose will determine the direction and focus of your writing, so it’s important to choose wisely. Here are some tips to help you select the perfect topic for your essay:

By following these tips and considering your interests, audience, and research, you can choose a topic that will inspire you to write an engaging and compelling essay.

Research and Gathering Information

When writing an essay, conducting thorough research and gathering relevant information is crucial. Here are some tips to help you with your research:

Crafting a Compelling Thesis Statement

When writing an essay, one of the most crucial elements is the thesis statement. This statement serves as the main point of your essay, summarizing the argument or position you will be taking. Crafting a compelling thesis statement is essential for a strong and cohesive essay. Here are some tips to help you create an effective thesis statement:

• Be specific: Your thesis statement should clearly state the main idea of your essay. Avoid vague or general statements.
• Make it arguable: A strong thesis statement is debatable and presents a clear position that can be supported with evidence.
• Avoid clichés: Stay away from overused phrases or clichés in your thesis statement. Instead, strive for originality and clarity.
• Keep it concise: Your thesis statement should be concise and to the point. Avoid unnecessary words or phrases.
• Take a stand: Your thesis statement should express a clear stance on the topic. Don’t be afraid to assert your position.

By following these guidelines, you can craft a compelling thesis statement that sets the tone for your essay and guides your reader through your argument.

Writing the Body of Your Essay

Once you have your introduction in place, it’s time to dive into the body of your essay. The body paragraphs are where you will present your main arguments or points to support your thesis statement.

Here are some tips for writing the body of your essay:

• Stick to One Main Idea: Each paragraph should focus on one main idea or argument. This will help keep your essay organized and easy to follow.
• Use Topic Sentences: Start each paragraph with a topic sentence that introduces the main idea of the paragraph.
• Provide Evidence: Support your main points with evidence such as facts, statistics, examples, or quotes from experts.
• Explain Your Points: Don’t just state your points; also explain how they support your thesis and why they are important.
• Use Transition Words: Use transition words and phrases to connect your ideas and create a smooth flow between paragraphs.

Remember to refer back to your thesis statement and make sure that each paragraph contributes to your overall argument. The body of your essay is where you can really showcase your critical thinking and analytical skills, so take the time to craft well-developed and coherent paragraphs.

Perfecting Your Essay with Editing and Proofreading

Editing and proofreading are essential steps in the essay writing process to ensure your work is polished and error-free. Here are some tips to help you perfect your essay:

• Take a Break: After writing your essay, take a break before starting the editing process. This will help you look at your work with fresh eyes.
• Focus on Structure: Check the overall structure of your essay, including the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Make sure your ideas flow logically and cohesively.
• Check for Clarity: Ensure that your arguments are clear and easy to follow. Eliminate any jargon or confusing language that might obscure your message.
• Grammar and Punctuation: Review your essay for grammar and punctuation errors. Pay attention to subject-verb agreement, verb tense consistency, and proper punctuation usage.
• Use a Spell Checker: Run a spell check on your essay to catch any spelling mistakes. However, don’t rely solely on spell checkers as they may miss certain errors.
• Read Aloud: Read your essay aloud to yourself or have someone else read it to you. This can help you identify awkward phrasing or unclear sentences.
• Get Feedback: Consider getting feedback from a peer, teacher, or writing tutor. They can offer valuable insights and suggestions for improving your essay.

By following these editing and proofreading tips, you can ensure that your essay is well-crafted, organized, and free of errors, helping you make a strong impression on your readers.

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12 Strategies to Writing the Perfect College Essay

College admission committees sift through thousands of college essays each year. Here’s how to make yours stand out.

Pamela Reynolds

When it comes to deciding who they will admit into their programs, colleges consider many criteria, including high school grades, extracurricular activities, and ACT and SAT scores. But in recent years, more colleges are no longer considering test scores.

Instead, many (including Harvard through 2026) are opting for “test-blind” admission policies that give more weight to other elements in a college application. This policy change is seen as fairer to students who don’t have the means or access to testing, or who suffer from test anxiety.

So, what does this mean for you?

Simply that your college essay, traditionally a requirement of any college application, is more important than ever.

A college essay is your unique opportunity to introduce yourself to admissions committees who must comb through thousands of applications each year. It is your chance to stand out as someone worthy of a seat in that classroom.

A well-written and thoughtful essay—reflecting who you are and what you believe—can go a long way to separating your application from the slew of forgettable ones that admissions officers read. Indeed, officers may rely on them even more now that many colleges are not considering test scores.

Below we’ll discuss a few strategies you can use to help your essay stand out from the pack. We’ll touch on how to start your essay, what you should write for your college essay, and elements that make for a great college essay.

Be Authentic

More than any other consideration, you should choose a topic or point of view that is consistent with who you truly are.

Readers can sense when writers are inauthentic.

Inauthenticity could mean the use of overly flowery language that no one would ever use in conversation, or it could mean choosing an inconsequential topic that reveals very little about who you are.

Use your own voice, sense of humor, and a natural way of speaking.

Whatever subject you choose, make sure it’s something that’s genuinely important to you and not a subject you’ve chosen just to impress. You can write about a specific experience, hobby, or personality quirk that illustrates your strengths, but also feel free to write about your weaknesses.

Honesty about traits, situations, or a childhood background that you are working to improve may resonate with the reader more strongly than a glib victory speech.

Grab the Reader From the Start

You’ll be competing with so many other applicants for an admission officer’s attention.

Therefore, start your essay with an opening sentence or paragraph that immediately seizes the imagination. This might be a bold statement, a thoughtful quote, a question you pose, or a descriptive scene.

Starting your essay in a powerful way with a clear thesis statement can often help you along in the writing process. If your task is to tell a good story, a bold beginning can be a natural prelude to getting there, serving as a roadmap, engaging the reader from the start, and presenting the purpose of your writing.

Focus on Deeper Themes

Some essay writers think they will impress committees by loading an essay with facts, figures, and descriptions of activities, like wins in sports or descriptions of volunteer work. But that’s not the point.

College admissions officers are interested in learning more about who you are as a person and what makes you tick.

They want to know what has brought you to this stage in life. They want to read about realizations you may have come to through adversity as well as your successes, not just about how many games you won while on the soccer team or how many people you served at a soup kitchen.

Let the reader know how winning the soccer game helped you develop as a person, friend, family member, or leader. Make a connection with your soup kitchen volunteerism and how it may have inspired your educational journey and future aspirations. What did you discover about yourself?

Show Don’t Tell

As you expand on whatever theme you’ve decided to explore in your essay, remember to show, don’t tell.

The most engaging writing “shows” by setting scenes and providing anecdotes, rather than just providing a list of accomplishments and activities.

Reciting a list of activities is also boring. An admissions officer will want to know about the arc of your emotional journey too.

Try Doing Something Different

If you want your essay to stand out, think about approaching your subject from an entirely new perspective. While many students might choose to write about their wins, for instance, what if you wrote an essay about what you learned from all your losses?

If you are an especially talented writer, you might play with the element of surprise by crafting an essay that leaves the response to a question to the very last sentence.

You may want to stay away from well-worn themes entirely, like a sports-related obstacle or success, volunteer stories, immigration stories, moving, a summary of personal achievements or overcoming obstacles.

However, such themes are popular for a reason. They represent the totality of most people’s lives coming out of high school. Therefore, it may be less important to stay away from these topics than to take a fresh approach.

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Write With the Reader in Mind

Writing for the reader means building a clear and logical argument in which one thought flows naturally from another.

Use transitions between paragraphs.

Think about any information you may have left out that the reader may need to know. Are there ideas you have included that do not help illustrate your theme?

Be sure you can answer questions such as: Does what you have written make sense? Is the essay organized? Does the opening grab the reader? Is there a strong ending? Have you given enough background information? Is it wordy?

Write Several Drafts

Set your essay aside for a few days and come back to it after you’ve had some time to forget what you’ve written. Often, you’ll discover you have a whole new perspective that enhances your ability to make revisions.

Start writing months before your essay is due to give yourself enough time to write multiple drafts. A good time to start could be as early as the summer before your senior year when homework and extracurricular activities take up less time.

Read It Aloud

Writer’s tip : Reading your essay aloud can instantly uncover passages that sound clumsy, long-winded, or false.

Don’t Repeat

If you’ve mentioned an activity, story, or anecdote in some other part of your application, don’t repeat it again in your essay.

Your essay should tell college admissions officers something new. Whatever you write in your essay should be in philosophical alignment with the rest of your application.

Also, be sure you’ve answered whatever question or prompt may have been posed to you at the outset.

Ask Others to Read Your Essay

Be sure the people you ask to read your essay represent different demographic groups—a teacher, a parent, even a younger sister or brother.

Ask each reader what they took from the essay and listen closely to what they have to say. If anyone expresses confusion, revise until the confusion is cleared up.

Pay Attention to Form

Although there are often no strict word limits for college essays, most essays are shorter rather than longer. Common App, which students can use to submit to multiple colleges, suggests that essays stay at about 650 words.

“While we won’t as a rule stop reading after 650 words, we cannot promise that an overly wordy essay will hold our attention for as long as you’d hoped it would,” the Common App website states.

In reviewing other technical aspects of your essay, be sure that the font is readable, that the margins are properly spaced, that any dialogue is set off properly, and that there is enough spacing at the top. Your essay should look clean and inviting to readers.

End Your Essay With a “Kicker”

In journalism, a kicker is the last punchy line, paragraph, or section that brings everything together.

It provides a lasting impression that leaves the reader satisfied and impressed by the points you have artfully woven throughout your piece.

So, here’s our kicker: Be concise and coherent, engage in honest self-reflection, and include vivid details and anecdotes that deftly illustrate your point.

While writing a fantastic essay may not guarantee you get selected, it can tip the balance in your favor if admissions officers are considering a candidate with a similar GPA and background.

Write, revise, revise again, and good luck!

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About the Author

Pamela Reynolds is a Boston-area feature writer and editor whose work appears in numerous publications. She is the author of “Revamp: A Memoir of Travel and Obsessive Renovation.”

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How to Write the Perfect Essay

06 Feb, 2024 | Blog Articles , English Language Articles , Get the Edge , Humanities Articles , Writing Articles

You can keep adding to this plan, crossing bits out and linking the different bubbles when you spot connections between them. Even though you won’t have time to make a detailed plan under exam conditions, it can be helpful to draft a brief one, including a few key words, so that you don’t panic and go off topic when writing your essay.

If you don’t like the mind map format, there are plenty of others to choose from: you could make a table, a flowchart, or simply a list of bullet points.

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Thanks for signing up, step 2: have a clear structure.

Think about this while you’re planning: your essay is like an argument or a speech. It needs to have a logical structure, with all your points coming together to answer the question.

Start with the basics! It’s best to choose a few major points which will become your main paragraphs. Three main paragraphs is a good number for an exam essay, since you’ll be under time pressure. 

If you agree with the question overall, it can be helpful to organise your points in the following pattern:

• YES (agreement with the question)
• AND (another YES point)
• BUT (disagreement or complication)

If you disagree with the question overall, try:

• AND (another BUT point)

For example, you could structure the Of Mice and Men sample question, “To what extent is Curley’s wife portrayed as a victim in Of Mice and Men ?”, as follows:

• YES (descriptions of her appearance)
• AND (other people’s attitudes towards her)
• BUT (her position as the only woman on the ranch gives her power as she uses her femininity to her advantage)

If you wanted to write a longer essay, you could include additional paragraphs under the YES/AND categories, perhaps discussing the ways in which Curley’s wife reveals her vulnerability and insecurities, and shares her dreams with the other characters. Alternatively, you could also lengthen your essay by including another BUT paragraph about her cruel and manipulative streak.

Of course, this is not necessarily the only right way to answer this essay question – as long as you back up your points with evidence from the text, you can take any standpoint that makes sense.

Step 3: Back up your points with well-analysed quotations

You wouldn’t write a scientific report without including evidence to support your findings, so why should it be any different with an essay? Even though you aren’t strictly required to substantiate every single point you make with a quotation, there’s no harm in trying.

A close reading of your quotations can enrich your appreciation of the question and will be sure to impress examiners. When selecting the best quotations to use in your essay, keep an eye out for specific literary techniques. For example, you could highlight Curley’s wife’s use of a rhetorical question when she says, a”n’ what am I doin’? Standin’ here talking to a bunch of bindle stiffs.” This might look like:

The rhetorical question “an’ what am I doin’?” signifies that Curley’s wife is very insecure; she seems to be questioning her own life choices. Moreover, she does not expect anyone to respond to her question, highlighting her loneliness and isolation on the ranch.

Other literary techniques to look out for include:

• Tricolon – a group of three words or phrases placed close together for emphasis
• Tautology – using different words that mean the same thing: e.g. “frightening” and “terrifying”
• Parallelism – ABAB structure, often signifying movement from one concept to another
• Chiasmus – ABBA structure, drawing attention to a phrase
• Polysyndeton – many conjunctions in a sentence
• Asyndeton – lack of conjunctions, which can speed up the pace of a sentence
• Polyptoton – using the same word in different forms for emphasis: e.g. “done” and “doing”
• Alliteration – repetition of the same sound, including assonance (similar vowel sounds), plosive alliteration (“b”, “d” and “p” sounds) and sibilance (“s” sounds)
• Anaphora – repetition of words, often used to emphasise a particular point

Don’t worry if you can’t locate all of these literary devices in the work you’re analysing. You can also discuss more obvious techniques, like metaphor, simile and onomatopoeia. It’s not a problem if you can’t remember all the long names; it’s far more important to be able to confidently explain the effects of each technique and highlight its relevance to the question.

Step 4: Be creative and original throughout

Anyone can write an essay using the tips above, but the thing that really makes it “perfect” is your own unique take on the topic. If you’ve noticed something intriguing or unusual in your reading, point it out – if you find it interesting, chances are the examiner will too!

Creative writing and essay writing are more closely linked than you might imagine. Keep the idea that you’re writing a speech or argument in mind, and you’re guaranteed to grab your reader’s attention.

It’s important to set out your line of argument in your introduction, introducing your main points and the general direction your essay will take, but don’t forget to keep something back for the conclusion, too. Yes, you need to summarise your main points, but if you’re just repeating the things you said in your introduction, the body of the essay is rendered pointless.

Think of your conclusion as the climax of your speech, the bit everything else has been leading up to, rather than the boring plenary at the end of the interesting stuff.

To return to Of Mice and Men once more, here’s an example of the ideal difference between an introduction and a conclusion:

Introduction

In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men , Curley’s wife is portrayed as an ambiguous character. She could be viewed either as a cruel, seductive temptress or a lonely woman who is a victim of her society’s attitudes. Though she does seem to wield a form of sexual power, it is clear that Curley’s wife is largely a victim. This interpretation is supported by Steinbeck’s description of her appearance, other people’s attitudes, her dreams, and her evident loneliness and insecurity.

Overall, it is clear that Curley’s wife is a victim and is portrayed as such throughout the novel in the descriptions of her appearance, her dreams, other people’s judgemental attitudes, and her loneliness and insecurities. However, a character who was a victim and nothing else would be one-dimensional and Curley’s wife is not. Although she suffers in many ways, she is shown to assert herself through the manipulation of her femininity – a small rebellion against the victimisation she experiences.

Both refer back consistently to the question and summarise the essay’s main points. However, the conclusion adds something new which has been established in the main body of the essay and complicates the simple summary which is found in the introduction.

Hannah is an undergraduate English student at Somerville College, University of Oxford, and has a particular interest in postcolonial literature and the Gothic. She thinks literature is a crucial way of developing empathy and learning about the wider world. When she isn’t writing about 17th-century court masques, she enjoys acting, travelling and creative writing. 

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How to Write a Great College Essay, Step-by-Step

College Admissions , College Essays

Writing your personal statement for your college application is an undeniably overwhelming project. Your essay is your big shot to show colleges who you are—it's totally reasonable to get stressed out. But don't let that stress paralyze you.

This guide will walk you through each step of the essay writing process to help you understand exactly what you need to do to write the best possible personal statement . I'm also going to follow an imaginary student named Eva as she plans and writes her college essay, from her initial organization and brainstorming to her final edits. By the end of this article, you'll have all the tools you need to create a fantastic, effective college essay.

So how do you write a good college essay? The process starts with finding the best possible topic , which means understanding what the prompt is asking for and taking the time to brainstorm a variety of options. Next, you'll determine how to create an interesting essay that shows off your unique perspective and write multiple drafts in order to hone your structure and language. Once your writing is as effective and engaging as possible, you'll do a final sweep to make sure everything is correct .

This guide covers the following steps:

#1: Organizing #2: Brainstorming #3: Picking a topic #4: Making a plan #5: Writing a draft #6: Editing your draft #7: Finalizing your draft #8: Repeating the process

Step 1: Get Organized

The first step in how to write a college essay is figuring out what you actually need to do. Although many schools are now on the Common App, some very popular colleges, including Rutgers and University of California, still have their own applications and writing requirements. Even for Common App schools, you may need to write a supplemental essay or provide short answers to questions.

Before you get started, you should know exactly what essays you need to write. Having this information allows you to plan the best approach to each essay and helps you cut down on work by determining whether you can use an essay for more than one prompt.

Start Early

Writing good college essays involves a lot of work: you need dozens of hours to get just one personal statement properly polished , and that's before you even start to consider any supplemental essays.

In order to make sure you have plenty of time to brainstorm, write, and edit your essay (or essays), I recommend starting at least two months before your first deadline . The last thing you want is to end up with a low-quality essay you aren't proud of because you ran out of time and had to submit something unfinished.

Determine What You Need to Do

As I touched on above, each college has its own essay requirements, so you'll need to go through and determine what exactly you need to submit for each school . This process is simple if you're only using the Common App, since you can easily view the requirements for each school under the "My Colleges" tab. Watch out, though, because some schools have a dedicated "Writing Supplement" section, while others (even those that want a full essay) will put their prompts in the "Questions" section.

It gets trickier if you're applying to any schools that aren't on the Common App. You'll need to look up the essay requirements for each college—what's required should be clear on the application itself, or you can look under the "how to apply" section of the school's website.

Once you've determined the requirements for each school, I recommend making yourself a chart with the school name, word limit, and application deadline on one side and the prompt or prompts you need to respond to on the other . That way you'll be able to see exactly what you need to do and when you need to do it by.

The hardest part about writing your college essays is getting started. 

Decide Where to Start

If you have one essay that's due earlier than the others, start there. Otherwise, start with the essay for your top choice school.

I would also recommend starting with a longer personal statement before moving on to shorter supplementary essays , since the 500-700 word essays tend to take quite a bit longer than 100-250 word short responses. The brainstorming you do for the long essay may help you come up with ideas you like for the shorter ones as well.

Also consider whether some of the prompts are similar enough that you could submit the same essay to multiple schools . Doing so can save you some time and let you focus on a few really great essays rather than a lot of mediocre ones.

However, don't reuse essays for dissimilar or very school-specific prompts, especially "why us" essays . If a college asks you to write about why you're excited to go there, admissions officers want to see evidence that you're genuinely interested. Reusing an essay about another school and swapping out the names is the fastest way to prove you aren't.

Example: Eva's College List

Eva is applying early to Emory University and regular decision to University of Washington, UCLA, and Reed College. Emory, the University of Washington, and Reed both use the Common App, while University of Washington, Emory, and Reed all use the Coalition App.

Even though she's only applying to four schools, Eva has a lot to do: two essays for UW, four for the UCLA application, one for the Common App (or the Coalition App), and two essays for Emory. Many students will have fewer requirements to complete, but those who are applying to very selective schools or a number of schools on different applications will have as many or even more responses to write.

Eva's first deadline is early decision for Emory, she'll start by writing the Common App essay, and then work on the Emory supplements. (For the purposes of this post, we'll focus on the Common App essay.)

Pro tip: If this sounds like a lot of work, that's because it is. Writing essays for your college applications is demanding and takes a lot of time and thought. You don't have to do it alone, though. PrepScholar has helped students like you get into top-tier colleges like Stanford, Yale, Harvard, and Brown. Our essay experts can help you craft amazing essays that boost your chances of getting into your dream school . 

Step 2: Brainstorm

Next up in how to write a college essay: brainstorming essay ideas. There are tons of ways to come up with ideas for your essay topic: I've outlined three below. I recommend trying all of them and compiling a list of possible topics, then narrowing it down to the very best one or, if you're writing multiple essays, the best few.

Keep in mind as you brainstorm that there's no best college essay topic, just the best topic for you . Don't feel obligated to write about something because you think you should—those types of essays tend to be boring and uninspired. Similarly, don't simply write about the first idea that crosses your mind because you don't want to bother trying to think of something more interesting. Take the time to come up with a topic you're really excited about and that you can write about in detail.

Analyze the Prompts

One way to find possible topics is to think deeply about the college's essay prompt. What are they asking you for? Break them down and analyze every angle.

Does the question include more than one part ? Are there multiple tasks you need to complete?

What do you think the admissions officers are hoping to learn about you ?

In cases where you have more than one choice of prompt, does one especially appeal to you ? Why?

Let's dissect one of the University of Washington prompts as an example:

"Our families and communities often define us and our individual worlds. Community might refer to your cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood or school, sports team or club, co-workers, etc. Describe the world you come from and how you, as a product of it, might add to the diversity of the UW. "

This question is basically asking how your personal history, such as your childhood, family, groups you identify with etc. helped you become the person you are now. It offers a number of possible angles.

You can talk about the effects of either your family life (like your relationship with your parents or what your household was like growing up) or your cultural history (like your Jewish faith or your Venezuelan heritage). You can also choose between focusing on positive or negative effects of your family or culture. No matter what however, the readers definitely want to hear about your educational goals (i.e. what you hope to get out of college) and how they're related to your personal experience.

As you try to think of answers for a prompt, imagine about what you would say if you were asked the question by a friend or during a get-to-know-you icebreaker. After all, admissions officers are basically just people who you want to get to know you.

The essay questions can make a great jumping off point, but don't feel married to them. Most prompts are general enough that you can come up with an idea and then fit it to the question.

Consider Important Experiences, Events, and Ideas in Your Life

What experience, talent, interest or other quirk do you have that you might want to share with colleges? In other words, what makes you you? Possible topics include hobbies, extracurriculars, intellectual interests, jobs, significant one-time events, pieces of family history, or anything else that has shaped your perspective on life.

Unexpected or slightly unusual topics are often the best : your passionate love of Korean dramas or your yearly family road trip to an important historical site. You want your essay to add something to your application, so if you're an All-American soccer player and want to write about the role soccer has played in your life, you'll have a higher bar to clear.

Of course if you have a more serious part of your personal history—the death of a parent, serious illness, or challenging upbringing—you can write about that. But make sure you feel comfortable sharing details of the experience with the admissions committee and that you can separate yourself from it enough to take constructive criticism on your essay.

Think About How You See Yourself

The last brainstorming method is to consider whether there are particular personality traits you want to highlight . This approach can feel rather silly, but it can also be very effective.

If you were trying to sell yourself to an employer, or maybe even a potential date, how would you do it? Try to think about specific qualities that make you stand out. What are some situations in which you exhibited this trait?

Example: Eva's Ideas

Looking at the Common App prompts, Eva wasn't immediately drawn to any of them, but after a bit of consideration she thought it might be nice to write about her love of literature for the first one, which asks about something "so meaningful your application would be incomplete without it." Alternatively, she liked the specificity of the failure prompt and thought she might write about a bad job interview she had had.

In terms of important events, Eva's parents got divorced when she was three and she's been going back and forth between their houses for as long as she can remember, so that's a big part of her personal story. She's also played piano for all four years of high school, although she's not particularly good.

As for personal traits, Eva is really proud of her curiosity—if she doesn't know something, she immediately looks it up, and often ends up discovering new topics she's interested in. It's a trait that's definitely come in handy as a reporter for her school paper.

Step 3: Narrow Down Your List

Now you have a list of potential topics, but probably no idea where to start. The next step is to go through your ideas and determine which one will make for the strongest essay . You'll then begin thinking about how best to approach it.

What to Look for in a College Essay Topic

There's no single answer to the question of what makes a great college essay topic, but there are some key factors you should keep in mind. The best essays are focused, detailed, revealing and insightful, and finding the right topic is vital to writing a killer essay with all of those qualities.

As you go through your ideas, be discriminating—really think about how each topic could work as an essay. But don't be too hard on yourself ; even if an idea may not work exactly the way you first thought, there may be another way to approach it. Pay attention to what you're really excited about and look for ways to make those ideas work.

Consideration 1: Does It Matter to You?

If you don't care about your topic, it will be hard to convince your readers to care about it either. You can't write a revealing essay about yourself unless you write about a topic that is truly important to you.

But don't confuse important to you with important to the world: a college essay is not a persuasive argument. The point is to give the reader a sense of who you are , not to make a political or intellectual point. The essay needs to be personal.

Similarly, a lot of students feel like they have to write about a major life event or their most impressive achievement. But the purpose of a personal statement isn't to serve as a resume or a brag sheet—there are plenty of other places in the application for you to list that information. Many of the best essays are about something small because your approach to a common experience generally reveals a lot about your perspective on the world.

Mostly, your topic needs to have had a genuine effect on your outlook , whether it taught you something about yourself or significantly shifted your view on something else.

Consideration 2: Does It Tell the Reader Something Different About You?

Your essay should add something to your application that isn't obvious elsewhere. Again, there are sections for all of your extracurriculars and awards; the point of the essay is to reveal something more personal that isn't clear just from numbers and lists.

You also want to make sure that if you're sending more than one essay to a school—like a Common App personal statement and a school-specific supplement—the two essays take on different topics.

Consideration 3: Is It Specific?

Your essay should ultimately have a very narrow focus. 650 words may seem like a lot, but you can fill it up very quickly. This means you either need to have a very specific topic from the beginning or find a specific aspect of a broader topic to focus on.

If you try to take on a very broad topic, you'll end up with a bunch of general statements and boring lists of your accomplishments. Instead, you want to find a short anecdote or single idea to explore in depth .

Consideration 4: Can You Discuss It in Detail?

A vague essay is a boring essay— specific details are what imbue your essay with your personality . For example, if I tell my friend that I had a great dessert yesterday, she probably won't be that interested. But if I explain that I ate an amazing piece of peach raspberry pie with flaky, buttery crust and filling that was both sweet and tart, she will probably demand to know where I obtained it (at least she will if she appreciates the joys of pie). She'll also learn more about me: I love pie and I analyze desserts with great seriousness.

Given the importance of details, writing about something that happened a long time ago or that you don't remember well isn't usually a wise choice . If you can't describe something in depth, it will be challenging to write a compelling essay about it.

You also shouldn't pick a topic you aren't actually comfortable talking about . Some students are excited to write essays about very personal topics, like their mother's bipolar disorder or their family's financial struggles, but others dislike sharing details about these kinds of experiences. If you're a member of the latter group, that's totally okay, just don't write about one of these sensitive topics.

Still, don't worry that every single detail has to be perfectly correct. Definitely don't make anything up, but if you remember a wall as green and it was really blue, your readers won't notice or care.

Consideration 5: Can It Be Related to the Prompt?

As long as you're talking about yourself, there are very few ideas that you can't tie back to one of the Common App or Coalition App prompts. But if you're applying to a school with its own more specific prompt, or working on supplemental essays, making sure to address the question will be a greater concern.

Deciding on a Topic

Once you've gone through the questions above, you should have a good sense of what you want to write about. Hopefully, it's also gotten you started thinking about how you can best approach that topic, but we'll cover how to plan your essay more fully in the next step.

If after going through the narrowing process, you've eliminated all your topics, first look back over them: are you being too hard on yourself? Are there any that you really like, but just aren't totally sure what angle to take on? If so, try looking at the next section and seeing if you can't find a different way to approach it.

If you just don't have an idea you're happy with, that's okay! Give yourself a week to think about it. Sometimes you'll end up having a genius idea in the car on the way to school or while studying for your U.S. history test. Otherwise, try the brainstorming process again when you've had a break.

If, on the other hand, you have more than one idea you really like, consider whether any of them can be used for other essays you need to write.

Example: Picking Eva's Topic

• Love of books
• Failed job interview
• Parents' divorce

Eva immediately rules out writing about playing piano, because it sounds super boring to her, and it's not something she is particularly passionate about. She also decides not to write about splitting time between her parents because she just isn't comfortable sharing her feelings about it with an admissions committee.

She feels more positive about the other three, so she decides to think about them for a couple of days. She ends up ruling out the job interview because she just can't come up with that many details she could include.

She's excited about both of her last two ideas, but sees issues with both of them: the books idea is very broad and the reporting idea doesn't seem to apply to any of the prompts. Then she realizes that she can address the solving a problem prompt by talking about a time she was trying to research a story about the closing of a local movie theater, so she decides to go with that topic.

Step 4: Figure Out Your Approach

You've decided on a topic, but now you need to turn that topic into an essay. To do so, you need to determine what specifically you're focusing on and how you'll structure your essay.

If you're struggling or uncertain, try taking a look at some examples of successful college essays . It can be helpful to dissect how other personal statements are structured to get ideas for your own , but don't fall into the trap of trying to copy someone else's approach. Your essay is your story—never forget that.

Let's go through the key steps that will help you turn a great topic into a great essay.

Choose a Focal Point

As I touched on above, the narrower your focus, the easier it will be to write a unique, engaging personal statement. The simplest way to restrict the scope of your essay is to recount an anecdote , i.e. a short personal story that illustrates your larger point.

For example, say a student was planning to write about her Outward Bound trip in Yosemite. If she tries to tell the entire story of her trip, her essay will either be far too long or very vague. Instead, she decides to focus in on a specific incident that exemplifies what mattered to her about the experience: her failed attempt to climb Half Dome. She described the moment she decided to turn back without reaching the top in detail, while touching on other parts of the climb and trip where appropriate. This approach lets her create a dramatic arc in just 600 words, while fully answering the question posed in the prompt (Common App prompt 2).

Of course, concentrating on an anecdote isn't the only way to narrow your focus. Depending on your topic, it might make more sense to build your essay around an especially meaningful object, relationship, or idea.

Another approach our example student from above could take to the same general topic would be to write about the generosity of fellow hikers (in response to Common App prompt 4). Rather than discussing a single incident, she could tell the story of her trip through times she was supported by other hikers: them giving tips on the trails, sharing snacks, encouraging her when she was tired, etc. A structure like this one can be trickier than the more straightforward anecdote approach , but it can also make for an engaging and different essay.

When deciding what part of your topic to focus on, try to find whatever it is about the topic that is most meaningful and unique to you . Once you've figured that part out, it will guide how you structure the essay.

Decide What You Want to Show About Yourself

Remember that the point of the college essay isn't just to tell a story, it's to show something about yourself. It's vital that you have a specific point you want to make about what kind of person you are , what kind of college student you'd make, or what the experience you're describing taught you.

Since the papers you write for school are mostly analytical, you probably aren't used to writing about your own feelings. As such, it can be easy to neglect the reflection part of the personal statement in favor of just telling a story. Yet explaining what the event or idea you discuss meant to you is the most important essay —knowing how you want to tie your experiences back to your personal growth from the beginning will help you make sure to include it.

Develop a Structure

It's not enough to just know what you want to write about—you also need to have a sense of how you're going to write about it. You could have the most exciting topic of all time, but without a clear structure your essay will end up as incomprehensible gibberish that doesn't tell the reader anything meaningful about your personality.

There are a lot of different possible essay structures, but a simple and effective one is the compressed narrative, which builds on a specific anecdote (like the Half Dome example above):

Start in the middle of the action. Don't spend a lot of time at the beginning of your essay outlining background info—it doesn't tend to draw the reader in and you usually need less of it than you think you do. Instead start right where your story starts to get interesting. (I'll go into how to craft an intriguing opener in more depth below.)

Briefly explain what the situation is. Now that you've got the reader's attention, go back and explain anything they need to know about how you got into this situation. Don't feel compelled to fit everything in—only include the background details that are necessary to either understand what happened or illuminate your feelings about the situation in some way.

Finish the story. Once you've clarified exactly what's going on, explain how you resolved the conflict or concluded the experience.

Explain what you learned. The last step is to tie everything together and bring home the main point of your story: how this experience affected you.

The key to this type of structure is to create narrative tension—you want your reader to be wondering what happens next.

A second approach is the thematic structure, which is based on returning to a key idea or object again and again (like the boots example above):

Establish the focus. If you're going to structure your essay around a single theme or object, you need to begin the essay by introducing that key thing. You can do so with a relevant anecdote or a detailed description.

Touch on 3-5 times the focus was important. The body of your essay will consist of stringing together a few important moments related to the topic. Make sure to use sensory details to bring the reader into those points in time and keep her engaged in the essay. Also remember to elucidate why these moments were important to you.

Revisit the main idea. At the end, you want to tie everything together by revisiting the main idea or object and showing how your relationship to it has shaped or affected you. Ideally, you'll also hint at how this thing will be important to you going forward.

To make this structure work you need a very specific focus. Your love of travel, for example, is much too broad—you would need to hone in on a specific aspect of that interest, like how traveling has taught you to adapt to event the most unusual situations. Whatever you do, don't use this structure to create a glorified resume or brag sheet .

However you structure your essay, you want to make sure that it clearly lays out both the events or ideas you're describing and establishes the stakes (i.e. what it all means for you). Many students become so focused on telling a story or recounting details that they forget to explain what it all meant to them.

Example: Eva's Essay Plan

For her essay, Eva decides to use the compressed narrative structure to tell the story of how she tried and failed to report on the closing of a historic movie theater:

• Open with the part of her story where she finally gave up after calling the theater and city hall a dozen times.
• Explain that although she started researching the story out of journalistic curiosity, it was important to her because she'd grown up going to movies at that theater.
• Recount how defeated she felt when she couldn't get ahold of anyone, and then even more so when she saw a story about the theater's closing in the local paper.
• Describer her decision to write an op-ed instead and interview other students about what the theater meant to them.
• Finish by explaining that although she wasn't able to get the story (or stop the destruction of the theater), she learned that sometimes the emotional angle can be just as interesting as the investigative one.

Step 5: Write a First Draft

The key to writing your first draft is not to worry about whether it's any good—just get something on paper and go from there. You will have to rewrite, so trying to get everything perfect is both frustrating and futile.

Everyone has their own writing process. Maybe you feel more comfortable sitting down and writing the whole draft from beginning to end in one go. Maybe you jump around, writing a little bit here and a little there. It's okay to have sections you know won't work or to skip over things you think you'll need to include later.

Whatever your approach, there are a few tips everyone can benefit from.

Don't Aim for Perfection

I mentioned this idea above, but I can't emphasize it enough: no one writes a perfect first draft . Extensive editing and rewriting is vital to crafting an effective personal statement. Don't get too attached to any part of your draft, because you may need to change anything (or everything) about your essay later .

Also keep in mind that, at this point in the process, the goal is just to get your ideas down. Wonky phrasings and misplaced commas can easily be fixed when you edit, so don't worry about them as you write. Instead, focus on including lots of specific details and emphasizing how your topic has affected you, since these aspects are vital to a compelling essay.

Write an Engaging Introduction

One part of the essay you do want to pay special attention to is the introduction. Your intro is your essay's first impression: you only get one. It's much harder to regain your reader's attention once you've lost it, so you want to draw the reader in with an immediately engaging hook that sets up a compelling story .

There are two possible approaches I would recommend.

The "In Media Res" Opening

You'll probably recognize this term if you studied The Odyssey: it basically means that the story starts in the middle of the action, rather than at the beginning. A good intro of this type makes the reader wonder both how you got to the point you're starting at and where you'll go from there . These openers provide a solid, intriguing beginning for narrative essays (though they can certainly for thematic structures as well).

But how do you craft one? Try to determine the most interesting point in your story and start there. If you're not sure where that is, try writing out the entire story and then crossing out each sentence in order until you get to one that immediately grabs your attention.

Here's an example from a real student's college essay:

"I strode in front of 400 frenzied eighth graders with my arm slung over my Fender Stratocaster guitar—it actually belonged to my mother—and launched into the first few chords of Nirvana's 'Lithium.'"

Anonymous , University of Virginia

This intro throws the reader right into the middle of the action. The author jumps right into the action: the performance. You can imagine how much less exciting it would be if the essay opened with an explanation of what the event was and why the author was performing.

The Specific Generalization

Sounds like an oxymoron, right? This type of intro sets up what the essay is going to talk about in a slightly unexpected way . These are a bit trickier than the "in media res" variety, but they can work really well for the right essay—generally one with a thematic structure.

The key to this type of intro is detail . Contrary to what you may have learned in elementary school, sweeping statements don't make very strong hooks. If you want to start your essay with a more overall description of what you'll be discussing, you still need to make it specific and unique enough to stand out.

Once again, let's look at some examples from real students' essays:

Neha, Johns Hopkins University

Brontë, Johns Hopkins University

Both of these intros set up the general topic of the essay (the first writer's bookshelf and and the second's love of Jane Eyre ) in an intriguing way. The first intro works because it mixes specific descriptions ("pushed against the left wall in my room") with more general commentary ("a curious piece of furniture"). The second draws the reader in by adopting a conversational and irreverent tone with asides like "if you ask me" and "This may or may not be a coincidence."

Don't Worry Too Much About the Length

When you start writing, don't worry about your essay's length. Instead, focus on trying to include all of the details you can think of about your topic , which will make it easier to decide what you really need to include when you edit.

However, if your first draft is more than twice the word limit and you don't have a clear idea of what needs to be cut out, you may need to reconsider your focus—your topic is likely too broad. You may also need to reconsider your topic or approach if you find yourself struggling to fill space, since this usually indicates a topic that lacks a specific focus.

Eva's First Paragraph

I dialed the phone number for the fourth time that week. "Hello? This is Eva Smith, and I'm a reporter with Tiny Town High's newspaper The Falcon. I was hoping to ask you some questions about—" I heard the distinctive click of the person on the other end of the line hanging up, followed by dial tone. I was about ready to give up: I'd been trying to get the skinny on whether the Atlas Theater was actually closing to make way for a big AMC multiplex or if it was just a rumor for weeks, but no one would return my calls.

Step 6: Edit Aggressively

No one writes a perfect first draft. No matter how much you might want to be done after writing a first draft—you must take the time to edit. Thinking critically about your essay and rewriting as needed is a vital part of writing a great college essay.

Before you start editing, put your essay aside for a week or so . It will be easier to approach it objectively if you haven't seen it in a while. Then, take an initial pass to identify any big picture issues with your essay. Once you've fixed those, ask for feedback from other readers—they'll often notice gaps in logic that don't appear to you, because you're automatically filling in your intimate knowledge of the situation. Finally, take another, more detailed look at your essay to fine tune the language.

I've explained each of these steps in more depth below.

First Editing Pass

You should start the editing process by looking for any structural or thematic issues with your essay . If you see sentences that don't make sense or glaring typos of course fix them, but at this point, you're really focused on the major issues since those require the most extensive rewrites. You don't want to get your sentences beautifully structured only to realize you need to remove the entire paragraph.

This phase is really about honing your structure and your voice . As you read through your essay, think about whether it effectively draws the reader along, engages him with specific details, and shows why the topic matters to you. Try asking yourself the following questions:

• Does the intro make you want to read more?
• Is the progression of events and/or ideas clear?
• Does the essay show something specific about you? What is it and can you clearly identify it in the essay?
• Are there places where you could replace vague statements with more specific ones?
• Do you have too many irrelevant or uninteresting details clogging up the narrative?
• Is it too long? What can you cut out or condense without losing any important ideas or details?

Give yourself credit for what you've done well, but don't hesitate to change things that aren't working. It can be tempting to hang on to what you've already written —you took the time and thought to craft it in the first place, so it can be hard to let it go. Taking this approach is doing yourself a disservice, however. No matter how much work you put into a paragraph or much you like a phrase, if they aren't adding to your essay, they need to be cut or altered.

If there's a really big structural problem, or the topic is just not working, you may have to chuck this draft out and start from scratch . Don't panic! I know starting over is frustrating, but it's often the best way to fix major issues.

Consulting Other Readers

Once you've fixed the problems you found on the first pass and have a second (or third) draft you're basically happy with, ask some other people to read it. Check with people whose judgment you trust : parents, teachers, and friends can all be great resources, but how helpful someone will be depends on the individual and how willing you are to take criticism from her.

Also, keep in mind that many people, even teachers, may not be familiar with what colleges look for in an essay. Your mom, for example, may have never written a personal statement, and even if she did, it was most likely decades ago. Give your readers a sense of what you'd like them to read for , or print out the questions I listed above and include them at the end of your essay.

Second Pass

After incorporating any helpful feedback you got from others, you should now have a nearly complete draft with a clear arc.

At this point you want to look for issues with word choice and sentence structure:

• Are there parts that seem stilted or overly formal?
• Do you have any vague or boring descriptors that could be replaced with something more interesting and specific?
• Are there any obvious redundancies or repetitiveness?
• Have you misused any words?
• Are your sentences of varied length and structure?

A good way to check for weirdness in language is to read the essay out loud. If something sounds weird when you say it, it will almost certainly seem off when someone else reads it.

Example: Editing Eva's First Paragraph

In general, Eva feels like her first paragraph isn't as engaging as it could be and doesn't introduce the main point of the essay that well: although it sets up the narrative, it doesn't show off her personality that well. She decides to break it down sentence by sentence:

I dialed the phone number for the fourth time that week.

Problem: For a hook, this sentence is a little too expository. It doesn't add any real excitement or important information (other than that this call isn't the first, which can be incorporate elsewhere.

Solution: Cut this sentence and start with the line of dialogue.

"Hello? This is Eva Smith, and I'm a reporter with Tiny Town High's newspaper The Falcon. I was hoping to ask you some questions about—"

Problem: No major issues with this sentence. It's engaging and sets the scene effectively.

Solution: None needed, but Eva does tweak it slightly to include the fact that this call wasn't her first.

I heard the distinctive click of the person on the other end of the line hanging up, followed by dial tone.

Problem: This is a long-winded way of making a point that's not that important.

Solution: Replace it with a shorter, more evocative description: " Click. Bzzzzzzz. Whoever was on the other end of the line had hung up."

I was about ready to give up: I'd been trying to get the skinny on whether the Atlas Theater was actually closing to make way for a big AMC multiplex or if it was just a rumor for weeks, but no one would return my calls.

Problem: This sentence is kind of long. Some of the phrases ("about ready to give up," "get the skinny") are cliche.

Solution: Eva decides to try to stick more closely to her own perspective: "I'd heard rumors that Atlas Theater was going to be replaced with an AMC multiplex, and I was worried." She also puts a paragraph break before this sentence to emphasize that she's now moving on to the background info rather than describing her call.

Step 7: Double Check Everything

Once you have a final draft, give yourself another week and then go through your essay again. Read it carefully to make sure nothing seems off and there are no obvious typos or errors. Confirm that you are at or under the word limit.

Then, go over the essay again, line by line , checking every word to make sure that it's correct. Double check common errors that spell check may not catch, like mixing up affect and effect or misplacing commas.

Finally, have two other readers check it as well . Oftentimes a fresh set of eyes will catch an issue you've glossed over simply because you've been looking at the essay for so long. Give your readers instructions to only look for typos and errors, since you don't want to be making any major content changes at this point in the process.

This level of thoroughness may seem like overkill, but it's worth taking the time to ensure that you don't have any errors. The last thing you want is for an admissions officer to be put off by a typo or error.

Example: Eva's Final Draft (Paragraphs 1 and 2)

"Hello? This is Eva Smith again. I'm a reporter with Tiny Town High's newspaper The Falcon , and I was hoping to ask you some questions about —" Click. Bzzzzzzz. Whoever was on the other end of the line had hung up.

I'd heard rumors that the historic Atlas Theater was going to be replaced with an AMC multiplex, and I was worried. I'd grown up with the Atlas: my dad taking me to see every Pixar movie on opening night and buying me Red Vines to keep me distracted during the sad parts. Unfortunately my personal history with the place didn't seem to carry much weight with anyone official, and my calls to both the theater and city hall had thus far gone unanswered.

Once you've finished the final check, you're done, and ready to submit! There's one last step, however.

Step 8: Do It All Again

Remember back in step one, when we talked about making a chart to keep track of all the different essays you need to write? Well, now you need to go back to that list and determine which essays you still need to write . Keep in mind your deadlines and don't forget that some schools may require more than one essay or ask for short paragraphs in addition to the main personal statement.

Reusing Essays

In some cases, you may be able to reuse the essay you've already written for other prompts. You can use the same essay for two prompts if:

Both of them are asking the same basic question (e.g. "how do you interact with people who are different from you?" or "what was an important experience and why?"), or

One prompt is relatively specific and the other is very general (e.g. "tell us about how your family shaped your education" and "tell us something about your background"), and

Neither asks about your interest in a specific school or program.

If you choose to reuse an essay you wrote for a different prompt, make sure that it addresses every part of question and that it fits the word limit. If you have to tweak a few things or cut out 50-odd words, it will probably still work. But if the essay would require major changes to fit the criteria, you're probably better off starting from scratch (even if you use the same basic topic).

Crafting Supplemental Essays

The key to keep in mind in when brainstorming for supplemental essays is that you want them to add something new to your application . You shouldn't write about the same topic you used for your personal statement, although it's okay to talk about something similar, as long as you adopt a clearly different angle.

For example, if you're planning to be pre-med in college and your main essay is about how volunteering at the hospital taught you not to judge people on their appearance, you might write your secondary essay on your intellectual interest in biology (which could touch on your volunteering). There's some overlap, but the two topics are clearly distinct.

And now, you're really, truly, finally done. Congrats!

What's Next?

Now that you know how to write a college essay, we have a lot more specific resources for you to excel.

Are you working on the Common App essay ? Read our breakdown of the Common App prompts and our guide to picking the best prompt for you.

Or maybe you're interested in the University of California ? Check out our complete guide to the UC personal statements .

In case you haven't finished the rest of the application process , take a look at our guides to asking for recommendations , writing about extracurriculars , and researching colleges .

Finally, if you're planning to take the SAT or ACT one last time , try out some of our famous test prep guides, like "How to Get a Perfect Score on the SAT" and "15 Key ACT Test Day Tips."

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Alex is an experienced tutor and writer. Over the past five years, she has worked with almost a hundred students and written about pop culture for a wide range of publications. She graduated with honors from University of Chicago, receiving a BA in English and Anthropology, and then went on to earn an MA at NYU in Cultural Reporting and Criticism. In high school, she was a National Merit Scholar, took 12 AP tests and scored 99 percentile scores on the SAT and ACT.

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