Money, with everything listed above!

my perspective comes from a bodybuilding standpoint

consistency and time. you cant shortcut quality mass. everyday is an opportunity and must be treated that way. are you getting better today? or are you selling your self short? treat everyday this way and growth will come.

alot of guys try and shortcut serious mass and end up bloated and overweight. no reason to get overly fat trying to put on mass. put your time in and dont skip meals or workouts. dont rush the process. massive amounts of gear wont help short cut this process either. yes gear is involved in the process, but doing stupid amounts of gear wont give you 10 years of gains in a cycle or 2. nothing gives 10 years of gains except 10 years of grinding day in and day out.

alot of guys think they eat well, they run a cycle and they gain 10-15lbs. after their cycle they loose 80% of it and wonder why. truth is that you wernt eating enough. most of your weight gain throughout the cycle was extra glycogen and water. to build lean tissue nothing is more important than food.

awesome post btw.

You spelled "Education" wrong in the title.

The last one is consistency, and its HUGE, without it all the other four are absolutely meaningless, if you eat right train hard and sleep right for 2 days then fuck up your diet skip your workout for the next two then half ass the weekend then where does that get you? NOWHERE, you made zero progress. You have to be consistent day in and day out, month after month day after day. year after year if you want to build any decent amount of muscle. With everything, it doesnt matter if you lift like a beast day on every scheduled day and sleep 10 hours when your fucking up your diet every other day, you wont get anywhere. Or you train hard eat right but you go out everynight and only get a few hours of sleep, youll be short changing yourself. When you dont wana eat you have to eat, when youre tired and dont wanna train you gottta man up and get in the gym and when your friends ask you to go out ( well at this point they should know you dont go out anymore) you should be able to say no.

So, IMO number 5 is consistency

This thread had awesome posts! I'd bonecrush the weights with all of you gentlemen!

Everything I'd say was laid down!

I'll throw in not becoming complacent in the same routine. Don't get me wrong, you want to have a plan and stick to it! Stick to it with a concrete stance! Ride that routine till you've stripped every bit of meat off it! Recognize when there's just bone left...meaning acknowledge when you aren't taking anymore steps forward in terms of meeting and superceding your goal. Then move on to another routine you can demolish from every angle.

The body wants to adapt to its environment. It will recognize an amount of physical stress placed on it and adjust muscle growth accordingly. So once its established what is necessary in terms of growth for the loads being placed on it...it will have no more reason to grow. It will lay in a content state. Manipulate your body by being proactive in your lifting routine!

Well i think most can imagine where i have had to visit throughout the years, and here is how i did it.

Positive mindset... so positive it can drive a man insane!

When i do anything i do it to win!.. i never doubt myself ever!.. Doubting is Negativity and Negativity is the decease of the weak and leads to nothing but failure.

Go into battle with a Negative mind and you will DIE........... exactly the same when we go to battle in the gym except we are our own enemy.... if your mind says STOP tell it to FUCK OFF... the battle is within and you must dominate to succeed.

Pain is your friend.......... Pain equals Growth.

If you ever leave the gym and think "i could have done more" YOU FAILED!!

Ever go to the gym thinking "lets take it easy today" YOU FAILED!!

I would rather train than do ANYTHING else life offers..... and i mean that sincerely.

Training made me, training is my life...... i owe training EVERYTHING.

This encompasses things that have been said below, but SELF-DISCIPLINE is the key to making things work and reaching your goals.
I like this saying: "Self-discipline is when your conscience tells you to do something and you don't talk back." Don't be a self deceiver. It's up to you to do it and not to rationalize or make excuses when things are hard (diet, training, tired, etc.).

Drive and determination.

Pushing through the pain barrier. I don't mean squeezing out that last rep I mean training to the point where you can't curl a 10lb dumb bell on arm day, when you can't press the bar at the end of a chest workout.

People put weights down too easily because they've done x amount of reps. Who cares about the number. Real lifters do more.....

man...i think you got it dead on...but its also a synergy effect. i think u have to have ALL of those to get great results. like what if u eat good, and work out good, but never sleep...or u sleep and workout great, but dont eat worth a fuck, u wont grow...you really need all of those and even if u have a few but not all it still wont work...you got it spot on...working out is a good point. ive met alot of guys that think they work out hard, but their workouts arent shit, and they wonder why they get no results. they sleep and eat good but dont bust ass in the gym...if ur not pushing until u literally cant push ONE MORE REP! on eat set!!! then u are NOT working hard enough!!! so do that, eat and sleep...and ur good! mix great cycles and ur golden

How about mental acuity/strength/maturity. I mean one should recognise that all of the above are synergistic and if one is off it is likely to throw one or more of the others off too resulting in potential issues or serious health problems. The idea is to get these components working in harmony. You need the acuity to recognise if something is off, the strength to deal with it and the maturity to learn from mistakes and to seek the help and advice of others. Sure there are others but this is what occured to me when I read the post.