“If I’d observed all the rules, I’d never have got anywhere”

- Marilyn Monroe

Do you follow every rule in life, whether the rules are set by your employer, law, or your peers?

Most of the time people try to make new rules to make life easier for us – think about for example how dangerous traffic is in countries where rules are not obeyed. However, there are also some rules that most people obey even though the rules are based more on limiting beliefs than actual laws or facts.

Here are some rules and myths that are eagerly waiting for you to break them if you want to succeed in life:

1. You need a master’s degree or an MBA to become successful in business

Getting a respected degree from a university was probably an excellent choice about 40 years ago, when there was less competition and everyone who graduated was almost definitely going to get a decent job with a nice salary. You didn’t have to worry too much about getting fired – there was always a new job around the corner.

Times have changed, and now almost every second person has a master’s degree, so where’s competitive advantage now?

You must be the best of your class with a perfect job experience to get full benefit from your degree, so I am not sure if studying very hard for five years is the best bet for success anymore. At least you don’t need it in order to achieve great things in life.

Most of the successful entrepreneurs have skipped university almost completely and nothing has stopped them later in life. Talk about Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg for starters.

If you have a master’s degree like I do, good for you, and sincere congratulations. If you don’t have a degree, don’t let it bother you. Succeeding in life comes from giving value to other people, and you don’t need a degree for that.

2. You can only make money if you have money

Sure it is easier to start making money if you have something to invest, but it has never been easier than today to start your own business online without investing more than about ten dollars on domain and hosting and then start making money as an affiliate marketer. It will not necessarily be a quick or an easy road, but it doesn’t involve any risk.

You can also start a bigger business with a little bit more risk, no matter how much money you have got at the moment, if you just take your time and find a business angel or two to fund your start-up.

If your plan is good enough, there is always money to help you to get started. Most countries also have their own funding for start-up entrepreneurs, so not having money right now is a bad excuse for not starting to make money.

3. You need a degree from your own language or Journalism to start writing articles

No, you don’t need any degrees for that. Many successful writers have never studied writing, but they have just started to write because they love to write, and eventually they have become quite good at it. J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter books was an unemployed single mom with no degree from writing when she began to write her first book.

No one becomes a great author instantly, and it takes time and practice like anything in life to become really good in writing, but you have to start somewhere and a degree is not nearly as important as practice is.

If you have dreamed about writing articles or your own book, why don’t you just start today? It doesn’t matter where you are now, all that matters is that you do what you love and learn everyday by doing.

You have nothing to lose and everything to win.

4. Writing a book takes a long time

No, it doesn’t have to take a long time. If you decide to write just two pages every day, which only takes an hour or two if you are in a productive mood, you will write 120 pages in four months, which is enough to call it a book in my opinion.

If you make it your habit to write just a little bit every day, you can write three books a year without any huge effort. It’s really not that difficult or time consuming when you have the right habits. Most people spend easily two hours a day watching TV or just laying in their couch doing nothing, so only by using that time more wisely you can publish your own book in just a few months. I bet that will be more rewarding than the soap operas you missed.

5. You need to have X (you can put youth, talent, looks, time, money – almost anything here) to become a star

It often seems like all the people who have somehow made it and become a rock star, famous actor, blogger superstar, or successful entrepreneur are different from the rest of us, and it is easy to make excuses to make yourself believe that you don’t have enough something to become what you deep down would like to be.

Let me tell you that it is simply not true. The only thing you need is to believe 110% in the thing you want to become really good at, and then start giving value to people as much as you can. Persistence is the key here. Talent, looks, and knowing the right people can make it easier to succeed in certain things, but what matters the most is that you have the persistence.

Do you think that Madonna or Britney Spears are amazing singers? Bullshit. I heard Madonna live and I could almost sing better than her.

You should just never give up. Most people give up after four months because they could not get a break during that time. Most famous superstars would still be serving drinks in a bar without persistence. Give everything you’ve got to chase your own dream for ten years, and then think about something else. Then you can at least look back when you are old and say that you tried and didn’t give up.

You only regret the things you did not do.

6. Investing is too difficult for an average person

Too many people either keep their money in a bank account or “invest” it to different expensive funds that their bank recommends for them. Because you are reading this article, you have access to internet and there is nothing that should prevent you from finding out how you can invest your money wisely without too much risk.

First get an account for shares and other commodities, then buy different stock market indexes if you don’t know how to pick right stocks, and remember to buy them a little bit over time. It’s all about patience.

Now it is quite a good moment for making long-term investments because the stock markets have come quite a bit down from the all-time highs, but don’t expect to make huge profits in a short period – focus on the long run.

Remember not to focus on the price if you buy stocks, but rather on the fact that you are going to own a little piece of the company. If the company is a really good one and you paid a reasonable price for it, why would it matter if the price goes down in the short run?

7. Your doctor knows everything

Respecting authorities and believing anything they say is quite common.

Especially for many elderly people doctors are god-like creatures that know everything about human beings and their bodies, but did you know that doctors for example study only one course regarding nutrition in university (at least in my home country), so if you believe that they know what you should eat to be healthy, you might be wrong.

If you buy and read ten books regarding nutrition and health, you are probably better off to give nutritional advice to other people than average doctor.

8. Scientifically researched things are facts

Science is only as good as the people who are behind the studies.

I have seen the academic world and I know that people there are not super-humans, but rather just like the rest of us. There are clever people in every field of science, but they are still only humans who can make mistakes and be biased towards something.

If a researcher or a lab gets funding from some source, it unfortunately is possible that the results are favorable for that particular source of funding, no matter how idealistic you would like to be.

It is possible to get different results from a particular data set, not to mention about how different data collection methods affect your results.

The main point is: Always believe in common sense and your own empiric observations more than authorities and scientific research.

Do you know some other rules or myths in life that one should break in order to succeed? Leave a comment and let me know.

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