Success looks different for everyone. For one person, it could mean getting a promotion or creating a better work-life balance. 【小题1】

But while making changes in your life can seem overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be. You can do small things that have a huge impact on your quality of life. Check out three things you can do that will empower you to be more successful — on your own terms.

Set weekly and monthly goals.

Setting regular goals for yourself can keep you from getting stagnant(停滞不前的) in both your professional and personal life. The best way to keep track of your goals is to write them down. Jot them down on a whiteboard, a notepad on your desk, or an online calendar — anywhere you can see them regularly. (“Exercise three times this week”, for example, or

“Finish a big presentation.”) 【小题2】

Set aside time for yourself every day.

【小题3】 It’s important to stop, take a breath, and have some time just for yourself. Set up calendar alerts or block out “busy” time in your daily calendar that makes you unavailable to others. During this time, you could go out for a real lunch away from your desk, take a walk, work on a side project, or even read a book. Whatever it is, be sure to use this time to recharge your batteries.

【小题4】

It’s easy to spend all your leisure time binge-watching(一口气看完) shows on Netflix or being addicted to social media. But when was the last time you tried something new that put you out of your comfort zone? In order to avoid getting bored, it’s important to break out of your comfort zone by finding fresh activities and passions. 【小题5】 Pick one thing that you’ve always wanted to do, or something that you liked when you were a kid and never pursued. Then start researching ways you can make it happen. By opening yourself up to different experiences, you’re bound to learn something new about yourself.

One of the many lessons we were forced to learn from the pandemic was the importance of social interaction, and the negative effects on social isolation. And even outside of our close relationships with friends and family, weak social ties are also necessary to our sense of wellbeing. I know how easy it is to close yourself off from interactions from strangers.【小题1】

Recent research shows that even weak social interactions — like a quick exchange with a stranger on the sidewalk — contribute positively to our wellbeing. It is easy to live life with your head down, avoiding the far ends of your social network, like classmates you never chat with or neighbors whose names you don’t remember.【小题2】But by avoiding such tiny interactions, you could be robbing yourself of potential happiness.

Take a look at your social network. Think about your favorite coffee shop, your grocery store, your gym — every day we cross paths with some of the same people.【小题3】Then you’re no longer strangers, and now have mutual familiarity.

【小题4】Consider taking out your ear buds, shifting your gaze from your phone, and smiling at others. You might start identifying familiar faces to introduce yourself to later, you might be making yourself available to someone who needs directions, or you might simply feel less lonely from a small wave or nod from a stranger.

Don’t be disturbing.【小题5】Don’t force conversation with some who clearly wants to be alone. If you are concerned that your small talk is making the other person feel in danger, listen to that instinct. However, if what’s holding you back is a fear of awkwardness or embarrassment, then push yourself to beat that anxiety.

Many of us were told from an early age that, “you learn from your mistakes”. But is this actually true?

The short answer is “yes” — failure can be a teachable moment. But learning from our mistakes is, in reality, very hard because we don’t like to fail. It doesn’t feel good, so we react to failure in impulsive and emotional ways, like giving up on a task prematurely, telling ourselves we don’t care whether we succeed, or finding fault with the task itself. This is self-protective, according to Hallgeir, a professor of psychology at the Norwegian School of Economics. “Most of us want to think of ourselves as competent”, he says, so when we fail “it poses a serious threat to our self-image”.

Fortunately, there is research to suggest that there are some strategies to help us overcome the emotional barriers around failure. One of them is to adopt a third-person perspective. Instead of asking “Why did I fail?”, we could ask “Why did Sam fail?”, for example. Multiple studies by psychologist Ethan Kross at the University of Michigan show that adopting a third-person perspective helps to soften our negative emotional reactions, allowing us to look at failure more objectively.

A second strategy involves offering advice to others who may be in the same position as us. This strategy led to better levels of motivation and academic success in the test groups — involving both adults and children — that were asked to give advice based on their own failures. Professors Eskreis-Winkler and Duckworth found that the satisfaction of helping others “forces people to engage with their experience and what they have learned”.

The writer Samuel Beckett once said: “fail again, fail better”. But it now seems that we should be saying: “fail again, fail smarter”. Failure is an unavoidable part of life, but by learning to overcome the emotional barriers around it, we may find the road to success is a little easier to navigate (确定方向).