13 Reasons Why Some People Achieve Their Goals and Others Don’t

Darrah Brustein
2 min readSep 26, 2022

“What do you see as the key differentiators between those who achieve their goals and those who don’t?” I was recently asked this question, and it was an opportunity to really reflect on what makes someone successful. To me, there are 13 key elements. People who succeed:

  1. Define success for themselves first. In so doing, they can then orient their steps towards it, not getting side-winded by other people’s metrics.
  2. Align themselves with other people who have similar goals and values and prioritize connection and community. You become the average of the company you keep, so they keep good company.
  3. Move through the fear of trying things they’ve never done before. They know it’s the only way to grow and become the person they hope to be.
  4. Reorient their relationship to failure, knowing that you can’t fail if you keep going, and if you never make mistakes, you’re not pushing yourself.
  5. Are teachable, open-minded, and curious. Life is a classroom to them and they are insatiable about learning.
  6. Ask for the support they need, even when that feels uncomfortable.
  7. Connect with their intuition and inner voice as a GPS to guide them.
  8. Desire to grow more than they desire to…

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Darrah Brustein

On a mission to debunk "sleep when you're dead" culture + chasing others people's definitions of success to build a life of your own design. www.darrah.co