A few days ago, I wrote a piece on setting goals and reaching them. Now, I am going to go full circle and give you a few more keys to success when it comes to finding your way to the top of the pile. These are part of my book, "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about College," but affect every aspect of your life.

Let's get started then, shall we?

6)Set goals for every part of your life, not just professional ones.

One important part of your development as a human being is that you remember to be well-rounded. You can't just work like crazy on one thing and ignore everything else. If you do that, you end up being a geek who can't relate to people, or a person who ignores his/her family for the sake of earning that extra dollar. The dollars are fine, but the fact is that you have to think about what is going to make you happy in the long-run. One way to keep your balance is to incorporate your family and friends into your goals. You can have goals related to school or work, but you can also have a goal related to spending more time with your family, making new friends, or losing weight. If you have a relationship, you can set a goal related to making your relationship work or at least learning to be nicer to your significant other. Think about all the things that make you happy, and work hard to get them all right. The actor Will Smith mentioned that not setting goals in every area of his life led him to have tremendous success on the big screen, but failures in his personal life. You don't want to have that same kind of pain.

7) Review your goals on a regular basis and think about whether you are doing what it takes to reach them

Every goal you set should also be accompanied by a strategy for achieving that goal. You should not only know where you want to go, but you must also have a map for getting there, and a vehicle that you are going to use to make the trip. Keep checking the map every couple of days to make sure you are headed in the right direction. You have to remind yourself of your goals every day, what the requirements are, and whether or not you are meeting those requirements. That is how you get to the finish line.

8) Never let failure get to you or take away your confidence

Many great people have strong confidence that carries them through the embarrassment of their failures. Remember that "being great" is not something that describes a person, it is a choice that a person makes. "Great" people are not usually born with greatness, they go out and get it. They make a day-to-day choice to go that extra mile, no matter what. They also understand that failure is just a bump in the road on their way to success. The more you adopt that mentality, the more likely you are to succeed.

9) Be happy no matter what

It means nothing to reach your goals if you are not happy. No matter what happens, what you go through, or how things work out, you must ALWAYS find a reason to be happy and smile. We are all blessed with life and have many things that are very valuable to us: maybe it's our family, our health, the chance to go to school, or just having both legs! Don't ever get so caught up in your desire to achieve that you forget to be happy. If you don't reach your goal, just try again, but remember that while you should take your goals very seriously, it's not the end of the world if you don't reach them.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University and author of "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about College." To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered directly to your email, please click here.