Is there a secret to success or a secret to happiness? Why is it that some people are more successful or happier than others? How can you plan your time and course work in college to maximize your chances of success and happiness in your college, career, and personal life?

Success can be measured from the society’s point of view or from your point of view. Which of the following goals are most important to you?

Why is it that some people are more successful in accomplishing these types of life goals than other people? The factors could be summarized as internal factors and external factors.

! External Factors include family and social environment, family income and resources, educational and other opportunities, work and social opportunities, and many other factors.
! Internal Factors include personality factors, intelligence, values and beliefs, motivation, knowledge, and life skills.

The key factor in achieving success is behavior. People’s success depends primarily on their own behavior. Goals can only be attained by taking certain steps which accumulate to accomplish a goal. Even "luck" is frequently a result of actions that created opportunities. The good news is that even though you cannot control factors like birthplace, parents, or genetic variables like native intelligence, you can control essential success/happiness factors like your knowledge, beliefs, and skills.

So, if you want to be successful in a particular life area, the most controllable way is to improve the necessary knowledge, beliefs, and life skills. For example, to achieve academic success, learn and practice effective learning and study skills, time-management skills, and how to take courses in a pattern that will maximize your success. To have a happy marriage, learn how to develop high self-esteem, unselfish caring for your spouse, good emotional coping, and interpersonal skills like intimacy, romance, listening, self-disclosure, and conflict resolution skills.

Focusing too much on factors you can’t control--such as grades, other people’s opinions, or someone’s decision to accept you into a graduate school or a job–increases your anxiety level. To reduce pressure and anxiety, focus on the factors you can control–your own thoughts and behavior. You can’t make someone love you or want to be with you. You can only control how you treat that person.

Who is the most successful and happiest person you know? Who is the least successful and happy? What differences in their behavior caused one to be more successful than the other? These differences may seem small or subtle at times, but they accumulate to cause large differences over a longer period of time. One student keeps up with his homework on a daily basis and tries to understand "why," while another gets more behind every day and only tries to memorize facts. The first student graduates from college with high grades or gets accepted into Medical School, while the other doesn’t.

Ask yourself what knowledge, beliefs, or other learn able factors underlie the behaviors and habits that make one person so much more successful and happy than the other. If your first response is to assume that inner factors such as self-esteem, confidence, assertiveness, or congeniality are not learnable, then analyze the question in more detail. What actual thoughts and behaviors do self-esteem, confidence, assertiveness, and congeniality consist of? That type of analysis is not an easy task. Psychologists have been studying those questions for years. More good news: experts have learned a lot about these seemingly mysterious factors. In fact some of these factors (such as good emotional control skills, time-management skills, study skills, and interpersonal skills) are quite well known. If you read detailed descriptions by these experts, you will know their secrets. If you are curious and persistent, you can learn almost any kind of knowledge or skill. You can even learn to be almost any kind of person you want.

Common knowledge and research both point to the fact that many people who have achieved socially defined criteria of success (including high income, high status, married with children, expensive material possessions, physical health, and friends) are not happy. On the other hand, some people who have little money or status, some who are very ill, or some who are alone and don’t have any friends can be very happy. These facts run counter to most people’s assumptions that happiness comes from achieving these socially-defined goals. Though it is true when people experience adequate challenge and believe they are achieving their goals, they tend to be happier, research has shown that happiness is more elusive than just being successful as success is usually defined.

Instead research has shown that happiness (and its opposite–unhappiness) are more affected by our mental states and internal factors such as the nature of people’s values, expectations, and acceptance of reality; the degree to which people find meaning, involvement, and success in work and other activities; their spiritual life satisfaction; their degree of internal conflict versus integration; their self-esteem; the positiveness of people’s world view; their degree of internal control over life; the quality of their interpersonal relationships; and their emotional coping abilities.

Many students think that college is only about taking classes to get a good job. Getting a good job is an important aspect of college, but there is much more. Even getting a good job and being successful in your career requires much more than just completing major courses. Potential employers want to hire people with good interpersonal, self-motivation, emotional control, and self-management skills. Many university leaders believe that college should not only help you learn technical skills, but should also help you develop these deeper qualities to help you live a happier, more productive life. Some general education courses are supposed to help. Many opportunities exist on campus for developing your whole self. Courses, counseling, workshops, books, and student activities can be vital sources of personal growth. To maximize your success and happiness, take advantage of your college opportunities for developing your whole self.

The Success and Happiness Attributes Questionnaire (SHAQ). SHAQ is based upon the earlier Life Skills Questionnaire (LSQ) that was administered to more than 4,000 people and the Stevens Relationship Questionnaire (SRQ). Our research found many factors that were significantly correlated with academic, career, and interpersonal success as well as overall happiness. Some factors correlated more than 0.50 with happiness. We have added several new factors to SHAQ we think will correlate even higher with success and happiness.

Compared to other questionnaires, SHAQ is very comprehensive (covering many success factors). Also, SHAQ is part of a larger Internet expert system that provides self-help information and links. These Internet links are directly related to your lower-scoring areas. Implementing the self-help information may help you maximize your academic, career, personal, or interpersonal success and happiness.

To complete SHAQ and benefit from it, do the following:

1. Computer access. Find an Internet-connected computer that meets minimum requirements (96 MB RAM and recent browser). You may go to any CSULB Open-Access Computer Lab in the North Campus Center or in FO5-371.

2. What to bring. Bring 2 floppy disks for saving your results, your instructor’s name and email address, your student ID card for access to the labs, and your email account name and password.

3. What if you are computer illiterate? Go with at least one person who isn’t. Your instructor may assign you to a small group.

4. What to do?

4.1 If possible, restart the computer if it has been used for other programs to clear all RAM memory.

4.2 Start Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer and go to

4.3 When SHAQ asks, check that you are a University 100 Student. Check whatever other interests you have when asked.

4.4 Complete SHAQ (usually takes 45-75 minutes), and look over your results.

4.5 Copy your results to a word processor such as Word or Word Pad and save them to your floppy disks.

5.1 Follow at least 1-3 of the Internet help links to the self-help pages and read what is there. Identify at least one longer self-help Internet link that contains more specific and detailed help. Save that to a floppy if you wish.

5.2 If required by your instructor, email him/her that you have completed your results.

5.3 Print out the results at home or somewhere that is free or cheap (CSULB charges can be high).

6. How can your SHAQ results help you? Hopefully, just answering the questions will give you some insight into the beliefs and behaviors that can help you achieve more success and happiness. Later, study your results to get more insight into your own answers on these important factors. Use the help links provided to explore information on the Internet that can help change your life in significant ways. Consider recommended experiences at CSULB that may help you grow in areas such as self-motivation and self-esteem, academic and intellectual skills, internal control, emotional control, self-management, and interpersonal skills.

College can be your chance to learn what it takes to be successful and happy in all aspects of life. You can develop the knowledge and skills it takes to be a wise and productive person who can make real contributions to the world and who can have a happy personal and family life. Take SHAQ and your college personal development opportunities seriously. You can get a jump start being the best and happiest you can be. We wish you a successful and happy life.