All of us, at least once in our lives, have envied someone for his success. All of us, at least once in our lives, would have liked to have the knowledge, skills and spirit of another person, thinking of innate attitudes as a reason to succeed.

It’s natural, it happens to everyone. Well, know that this is not the case. Success may not necessarily be a natural gift. Success is built day after day, and is within everyone’s reach. It’s up to you not to let it slip from your hands.

Your problems are not the result of external causes and it is not what others do to put you in difficulty. You must improve your leadership qualities if you want to transform your life. If you try to correct some of your negative attitudes and behaviors, then the rest will also change.

The 3 suggestions I am going to illustrate serve precisely to focus first on oneself, then to interact effectively with others and to make the path of improvement undertaken continuous.

Rule 1: Become a proactive person

Our problem, in reality, is “how” we see the problem. Proactively thinking means taking the initiative and getting around obstacles. There are facts that we cannot directly control, but on which we can intervene indirectly. If you are on vacation and it starts to rain, you will not be able to do anything to control the situation from a meteorological point of view, and therefore you will not be able to go to the beach. However, you can always choose an alternative destination, such as the nearby cinema or museum. Covey insists on the importance of working on what we can influence, that is, on the things we can change. It is obvious that whatever you do, there will be rain and you will never be able to stop it. But if instead of complaining about the problem, you think about what you can do as an alternative, then you prove that you are proactive. In this regard, your ability to affect the reality that surrounds you becomes ever greater, instead of suffering it as we usually do. No excuses or complaints: learn to work on what is in your power.

Rule 2: Parts from the final objective

Covey suggests starting from the end in designing your goals. State to yourself your mission, even a small one, and write it on a piece of paper. In essence, you must be clear about OKR, where you want to go, what your destination is, otherwise you will not be able to plan your growth path correctly and therefore it’s recommended that you must learn “What is OKR (Objectives and Key Results)”. The gist of the second rule is to understand what really makes you happy. The first step, therefore, consists in understanding what happiness is. The second step, instead, consists in understanding how to get to it. This second teaching, therefore, suggests you to identify your priorities in life. Covey, in his book, considers examples such as family, friends, work, partners, religion, success and various objects, to help you think. If the first rule showed you that everything depends on you, it says that you choose where to go to reach happiness.

Rule 3: Establishing priorities

Many of the activities you do during the day are urgent: you can’t postpone them, but you have to face them immediately. What can you do to tackle this problem? The secret is to give the right priorities, that is to give priority to the important things before they become urgent, thus avoiding arriving always late and containing the damage. If you always start doing the things that matter at the right time, you will have less and less water in your throat. Usually, we always have a thousand commitments, in our opinion mandatory, and the really important things in life, those that would make us happy, are postponed until a later date. Nothing could be more wrong. This third rule, therefore, teaches how to get organized during the day so as not to waste energy on things of little value. And when can you not postpone and do you have to do a lot of work? Well, there comes a time when you will have to hand over some tasks to people you think deserve trust. Learn to delegate and take your space.