The Science of Success: What Researchers Know that You Should Know

Go to Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/success

Introduction

### Course Review: The Science of Success: What Researchers Know that You Should Know If you're on a quest for personal and professional growth, "The Science of Success" on Coursera is a must-take course. This comprehensive program takes a scientific approach to understanding what truly predicts success in life, leveraging decades of research to help you reshape your beliefs, motivations, and strategies. #### Course Overview "The Science of Success" is designed to help individuals identify and implement the vital habits and mindsets that pave the way to achievement. The course challenges common misconceptions about success—such as the notion that high IQ is a major determinant—and instead provides learners with evidence-based frameworks for personal success. The curriculum is packed with practical insights that you can immediately apply to foster meaningful changes in your life. #### Detailed Syllabus Breakdown 1. **Introduction to the Science of Success** - This initial module lays the groundwork, helping you to reflect on what success means personally. You will learn four key strategies utilized by successful people and how a scientifically-backed approach can transform your understanding of achievement. 2. **The Power of Beliefs** - Here, you'll uncover how beliefs can both hinder and propel your journey. The course emphasizes the importance of maintaining a growth mindset while debunking limiting beliefs that can hold you back. By the end, you’ll be equipped with strategies to foster empowering beliefs that contribute to high goals. 3. **The Power of Expertise** - This module explores the significance of expertise and how it contributes to success. You will learn through real-life examples, like the heroic landing of US Airways Flight 1549 by Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, to understand the foundations of expertise, the role of practice, and the science behind how experts think and act. 4. **The Power of Self-Motivation** - Focusing on essential traits such as conscientiousness and grit, this part of the course dives into what drives individuals to persist and succeed. You'll also have the chance to introspect on your own levels of conscientiousness and grit, gaining helpful insights to boost your personal effectiveness. 5. **The Power of Relationships** - This module emphasizes the critical role of social relationships in achieving success. You’ll discover how to build essential social capital and learn the skills necessary to cultivate a robust network that can support you in your endeavors. 6. **The Power of a Plan: Creating Your Action Plan** - By now, you will have grasped the core strategies of success, and you will be guided in creating your personalized action plan. This plan will help you focus on what’s truly important, take tangible steps towards your goals, and develop resilience in the face of challenges. 7. **Your Personalized Action Plan** - This module wraps up the course by prompting you to compile everything you've learned into a personalized action plan. You will receive feedback on your plan and can refine it as needed to ensure it aligns with your evolving goals. #### Personal Experience As a participant in "The Science of Success," I appreciated the structured and engaging content that kept me motivated throughout the course. Each module is full of high-quality videos, interactive quizzes, and actionable insights,, encouraging not just passive consumption of knowledge but active participation. The real-world examples and research-driven content truly opened my eyes to the mechanisms behind success. #### Recommendation I highly recommend "The Science of Success" to anyone looking to enhance their personal or professional life. Whether you’re a student, a professional in your career, or simply someone seeking personal development, this course will provide you with invaluable strategies and a solid foundation in understanding success from a scientific perspective. Equip yourself with the tools that the most successful individuals in society leverage, and embark on your journey towards a more fulfilling and successful life. In conclusion, this course doesn’t just promise transformation; it provides the research-backed methods to make it a reality. Don’t wait—enroll today and take your first step to unlock the potential within you!

Syllabus

Introduction to the Science of Success: What Researchers Know that You Should Know

This course is designed to help you achieve the success in life that you desire and deserve. This module sets the foundation for the course and introduces you to the course objectives, as well as to four strategies that successful people use to achieve their life goals. In the first video, you’ll learn about the goals of the course and how a scientifically-based approach to success can help you achieve your life goals. In the second video, you’ll have the opportunity to think carefully about what success means to you, particularly in the areas of achieving better and more meaningful results at work, achieving the career success that you desire, and enjoying a happy, healthy life. In the third video, you’ll learn about the most common myths about success that can distract you from achieving your life goals, as well as what researchers have found really predicts success in life. Happy learning!

In this module, you’ll learn how some beliefs can hold you back from achieving your goals, while others – such as having a growth mindset and positive core self-evaluations - can propel you forward toward your goals. You will also learn how having a growth mindset can protect people against the harmful effects of bias and prejudice and why people with positive core self-evaluations tend to earn significantly more money, regardless of their grades in school and family background. By the end of this module, you’ll have specific strategies for creating beliefs that will help you set high goals and succeed in achieving them.

In this module, you’ll learn about the importance of having an expertise that is meaningful to you and contributes to others. In the first video, you’ll learn about the role that expertise played in Pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger’s successful emergency landing of a United Airlines flight with 155 people on board into the Hudson River after both engines failed. You’ll learn how Sullenberger developed his expertise and how you can apply these lessons to your own pursuit of expertise. In the second video, you’ll learn about what sets experts apart from non-experts, as well as the essential role that mental representations and chunks play in the development of expertise. You’ll also learn what birds, squirrels, and elite London cab drivers have in common and what this means for you. Hint: It has to do with how the brain develops in experts. In the third video, you’ll learn a step-by-step strategy for engaging in the same type of practice that experts use to develop their expertise.

In this module, you’ll learn about two types of self-motivation that predict success: Conscientiousness and Grit. The first video focuses on conscientiousness – what it is, how it can pay off for you in school and at work, and the benefits conscientiousness has on your health. You’ll also discover researchers have learned about success from a famous series of studies about children, marshmallows, and delayed gratification. The second video focuses on grit – what it is, how it differs from conscientiousness, how it leads to success, what specific techniques you can use to become grittier, and how to avoid some of the downsides to being gritty. You will also have the opportunity to assess your own conscientiousness and grit.

In this module, you’ll learn about the power of developing mutually supportive relationships in predicting success and well-being in life. You’ll learn what social capital is, why it is a competitive advantage, and how it contributes to your success, as well as to the success of organizations and societies. You’ll learn to avoid several myths associated with relationship building, as well as four skills that are essential to developing relationships and social capital: developing self-awareness, creating your brand, being an energizer, and building your network of relationships. You’ll also have an opportunity to think about your brand, as well as map out and assess the effectiveness of your own network based on four criteria: size, structure, diversity, and strength of relationships.

By the time you reach this module, you will know more than most people know about what predicts success in life. You will now have the opportunity to turn what you know into actions that will help you achieve your life goals. You will develop an action plan that will have three parts: The heart (identifying what is most important to you in life), head (identifying the one area that you will work on in the short-term to move you toward achieving your goals), and hands (creating the steps you will take in the short-term to make progress in that specific area). You’ll learn about the power of small wins in achieving your life goals, as well as the importance of resilience and self-compassion when faced with setbacks.

Once you have watched all the videos, successfully completed the four quizzes, and created your personalized action plan, you will have successfully completed the course! You can use the Personalized Action Plan Template (found in the submissions area of the assignment) to create your action plan. Your action plan will be reviewed and graded by another course participant. If needed, you can resubmit your action plan until you achieve a passing grade. Of course, you should continue to refine your action plan throughout the different stages of your life. I wish you the very best on your journey to the life you desire and deserve.