If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

Joseph Addison

Looking at my life, there are many life lessons I’ve learned. Some of them are the fruits of difficult experiences. Some others are the advice I got from wise people. They came from different sources but they all have something in common: they are all useful to guide my life into the future.

Here I’d like to share with you eight life lessons that have significantly affected my life. Apply them and you will achieve true success in life. Here they are:

1. Be grateful

Being grateful is perhaps the most important attitude you must have to live a happy life. No matter how bad the situations around you are, you can always choose to respond positively. Being grateful makes you look at the world through positive lens and energizes your life. Don’t take things for granted. Be grateful even for simple things.

2. Follow your heart

Nothing can replace following your heart. People may tell you about the right thing to do or what they expect from you, but at the end, it’s your life. If you don’t live your own life, who will?

So slow down and listen to your heart. What does it tell you about your career? What does it tell you about your relationships? Listen to your heart and find the courage to follow it.

3. Dream big

How far you go is very much determined by how big your dream is. Having a small dream is like putting yourself inside a small box. You might end up living far below your fullest potential.

Of course, it’s not easy to dream big. Perhaps your failures in the past scare you. Perhaps you don’t think you have what it takes to achieve your dream. But don’t let negativity push you down. Be dare to dream big.

If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse.

Walt Disney

4. Good is the worst enemy of best

When you reach a position that is good enough, you may become comfortable and think that it’s no longer worth it to continue fighting for the best. That’s why good is the worst enemy of best: it makes you stop before you achieve your fullest potential. It distracts you from pursuing your best life. Be grateful for what you have but understand that you still have a lot more in front of you.

5. Run your own race

Your race is different from other people’s races. Realizing this is liberating because it frees you from envy. When you hear that other people are successful, you can sincerely be grateful since you are not in competition with them. At the same time, it also pushes you to live your best life. Why? Because you are competing against yourself.

I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.

Mikhail Baryshnikov

6. Focus on what you can control

Sometimes you might have bad experiences that you can’t do anything about. If that happened, don’t dwell on it. You are wasting a lot of mental energy if you do. Move on and focus instead on things you can control. Applying this frees you from a lot of stress and worries.

One application of this principle is on changing people. Which one do you think you can change: yourself or other people? You can’t change other people but you can change yourself. So focus on changing yourself.

7. Failure is your friend

Befriending failure makes you dare to try new things. It puts you on the path of inventions, breakthroughs, and innovations. Failure is often the price of progress.

Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure.

Thomas J. Watson

8. Relationships are your greatest treasures

At the end, what do you want to achieve in life? Will it be meaningful to have a lot of money if you have broken relationships? Will it be meaningful to be famous if you lose love? I don’t think so. Your relationships are your greatest treasures. Understand it before it’s too late.