For thousands of years, great philosophers and thinkers have studied the mystery of success. What sets the minority of successful people apart? Aside from the random element of luck, much of success is determined by habits. Why? Our daily lives reflect our daily habits. All successful people have cultivated specific habits that have positively impacted their lifestyles and the results they see. This post explores just five of them.
Self Belief
You’ve probably heard the trite remark, “Believe in yourself”. Deep down, do you? As you already know, the road to success is paved with failures, disappointments, doubt, and fears. There are times your friends, families and those whose opinion you respect will tell you that you’re chasing shadows.
It takes self-belief to believe in your dreams and abilities to make it happen. Successful people believe in their vision and they will keep at it until it becomes a reality.
Because success looks natural to successful people, we fail to see the years of hard work
Goal-Setting
There are two kinds of people in life: go-getters and procrastinators. Go-getters know what they want out of life and create SMART goals (SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based).
By having SMART goals, successful people know what needs to be done and they set a strict deadline to accomplish it. Most importantly, they do what they need to do, whether they feel like it or not.
On the other hand, unsuccessful people keep pushing the needful into the future. Cultivate the habit of writing your goals and sticking to them!
Relationship Oriented
No one builds an empire alone! Successful people realize that they have weaknesses. They know they’re not an island. That’s why they form meaningful relationships with others that will complement their efforts. You can easily see how giant corporations thrive because everyone is pulling their weights. Although the founders or executive managers get the recognition, they know that without their workers, they’ll be nowhere. Even at the peak of his career, Usain Bolt still had a team of trainers.
Develop the habit of forming positive relationships with people that will bring out the best in you.
Growth Mindset
In her famous book, ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success’, Carol Dweck argues that successful people have a growth mindset, i.e. they believe that most of their basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work – brains and talent are just starting point. On the other hand, people with a fixed mindset believe their success is just based on innate abilities.
Michael Jordan is arguably the greatest basketball player of all time. He wasn’t the best player in high school or at UNC. But he had one thing going for him; he had a strong work ethic. As he told Roy Williams, the assistant coach of UNC back then, “I’m going to show you. Nobody will ever work as hard as I can!”.
Because success looks natural to successful people, we fail to see the years of hard work, dedication, and self-improvement they put into their dreams.
Unyielding Determination
Many people don’t realize that most successful people failed at some points in their lives. However, the only difference was that they didn’t give up! J.K. Rowling’s pitch for ‘Harry Potter’ was rejected 12 times. Walt Disney was fired from Kansas City Star because the editor felt he “lacked imagination and good ideas”. The list is endless.
Successful people see failure as a learning experience after which they rise stronger. At the end of the day, that makes all the difference.
Success can only be attained and sustained by developing successful habits. Believe in yourself, set SMART goals, form meaningful relationships, be a lifelong learner, and never give up! Remember, Thomas Edison once said, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”.
