16 Habits Of Successful People
16 Habits Of Successful People
They say success leaves clues... This is true.
If you study people who have achieved success in their lives, you will find common traits and behaviours between them.
Below, I have pulled together 16 of the top habits most common in the most successful among us.
If you want to achieve success, then do what successful people do...
1. Read Every Day
It is said that on average, the most successful people, such as CEOs of the worlds largest companies, read 1 book per week.
Each day you should read at least 30 minutes of positive, informative or constructive material. Something that will teach you a new skill, or expand you knowledge in a given field.
The habit of reading every day not only helps to get your mind fired up, but each book you read is typically a condensed version of many months or even years of somebody's work, study and experiments, captured on the pages. It gives you the unique opportunity to learn all the lessons that the author has learnt, without having to take the time to go through the toil.
Each book you read will typically have 1 - 3 good ideas within. Be sure to try and identify the key ideas of each book to extract the most benefit.
In this current day and age of the internet, it has never been easier to access such a wealth of knowledge at out finger tips. With things like Amazon Audible, you can listen you audio books anywhere you go - fill those journeys that were previously a waste of your time with a learning session by listening to a good book on your way!
2. Exercise
Maintaining a strong, healthy body is key to having a strong, healthy mind. It is a habit you can't afford not to practice.
Exercising each day not only provides you with physical benefits, but it will also give you a mental boost too, through the release of serotonin.
It is a good habit to develop to start your day with an exercise routine to get the blood and nutrients flowing through your body to your brain.
3. Take Time to Think
In today's fast paced world, it's easy to get caught up with what is going on around us, jumping from one though to the next without a break in-between.
Successful people however find time for thinking.
That's right, I'm telling you to get in the habit of taking some time out of your busy schedule - 30 - 45 minutes each day to sit and think...
Start with a question... ask your self deep, quality questions causes you to have to think. Frame a challenge that you would like to overcome, then spend some time, free from distractions, in a quiet room with nothing but you, a notepad and a pen, and let your mind get to work with finding the solutions!
4. Set Goals
You will never get somewhere that you haven't planned to get to.
If you want to achieve anything in life, then you must have a plan for how to get there which generally consists of breaking down what you want to achieve into goals - short, medium and long term.
Successful people are avid goal setters and always check that the actions they are taking are moving them towards their goals.
You should set goals for each area of your life, review them daily and identify the next action you need to take to move towards each particular goal.
If you want to be successful, make this habit part of your every day focus.
5. Visualisation
Everything in the world was created twice. Once in the mind of it's creator, then again when it came into reality.
Your goals are no different - if you want to create something new in your life, you need to first create the vision in your mind.
A key habit of successful people is that they visualise their results, whatever they may be, playing out in their mind.
We all know what practice makes - and it's not perfect! That's right, practice makes progress, but the thing is, your mind can't tell the difference between when you actually do something, or when you are picturing doing it in your mind.
The key is to go over achieving the result you want in your mind over and over again, until you have it mapped out and know exactly how it will come about, and to hold that thought in your mind until you make it a reality!
6. Plan The Day
We all have the same amount of time in a day - the day is 24 hours long for all of us, from the beggar to the billionaire.
To be successful you need to get the most out of the time that you have available to you, and to do that, you need a plan.
A very important habit of successful people is that they learn to value their time - they eliminate low value tasks, outsource where possible and use their time for only the most important tasks, or things that can't be outsourced.
Identify each day 3-5 things that you need to accomplish in the day that will move you towards your goal, and schedule time in your day to do them, and to carry out other key activities that you need to get done.
7. Believe in Yourself
As Napoleon Hill said in Think And Grow Rich, 'What the mind can perceive and believe, it can achieve'.
There is no stronger force - nothing that will take you further towards your version of success, than having total belief in yourself that you CAN achieve whatever it is that you want to achieve.
Make it a habit everyday to talk positive to yourself, create a list of positive affirmations and read them aloud, twice a day, every day, and start to condition your mind to believe in yourself - believe in your own success.
8. Be Positive, Be Happy, Be Grateful!
If you are in the presence of a successful person, chances are they hold positive views about the world, and they are grateful for what they have, this will have been true even when they didn't have what they have now!
It's all about developing the success mindset, negativity and pessimism are symptoms of fear, usually a fear of failure of some kind. To be truly successful you need to clear your mind of poisonous negative thoughts that will limit what you can achieve.
Get in the habit of thinking like a successful person, instead of seeing the negatives all the time, look for the positives and the opportunities - as per Newton's 3rd law, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, you just have to identify it.
Also, take the time to be grateful for what you already have. Living with a mindset of lack, poverty and want, for the things you don't have, will not aid you in attracting success and wealth - it will only attract more of what you think about!
A great idea is to keep a gratitude journal so you can keep a log of everything you are grateful for, and can reflect on these regularly.
9. Develop Yourself
Every day is a school day!
Successful people know that you should never stop learning. As Jim Rohn used to say, 'Formal education will make you a living, but self education will make you a fortune'.
If you are not growing, you are dying.
You should get in the habit of looking for ways to develop new skills and knowledge every day - seek out your short-comings and look to strengthen them. What areas could you develop in to make you better at what you do?
Constantly review this, create a list and make a plan of attack! Review the list regularly to assess progress and if the particular areas are still relevant, or if new ones need to be added.
10. Control Your Finances
"They say money isn't important, but it's right up there with oxygen!" - Jim Rohn.
If you don't learn to control you finances, then it will control you. It will dictate what you can do, eat, wear, where you can live and what type of life you will lead in general.
You need to get on this as early as possible. It is a shame that financial education isn't taught in schools so people could learn how to manage their money, and make more of it!
Start out by managing what you have effectively.
A good habit, and one that I use, is to have multiple back accounts to split your money up for different purposes. Set up a standing order so that as soon as your money goes into your main account, it is split up for you.
You can define your own split, but a good rule of thumb would be something like this:
- Essentials - 50% - This is for your regular costs, such as bills and living expenses. If your bills and living expenses exceed 50% of your income, then you are living beyond you means, and the first step for you is to study your spending and look for ways to reduce your outgoings (or increase your income if possible)
- Investment - 20% - You should seek out active (or even passive) investment opportunities where you can use this pot of money to generate 'interest' on itself. You then re-invest the money and the interest to then generate additional interest, and so on. This is called compound interest, and is what makes people rich! Einstein once said that compound interest was the 8th wonder of the world
- Education - 10% - Learn from other people who are ahead of you, people who have achieved what you want to achieve. This will cost you, by way of paying for books, courses, coaching and mentorship, but is necessary for development and ultimately, success.
- Saving - 10% - This, I would suggest, is a 2 part process. Firstly you should save with an aim to have a 'nest egg', typically 3-6 months of your total monthly living costs, should anything happen that would affect your income - having this will also give you peace of mind and make you more open to opportunities. After this is achieved, you would then use this for long term purchases, such as holidays, or a car.
- Fun - 5% - All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy! It is important to treat yourself and remember to live and enjoy life, otherwise, what is the point in any of this? Just make sure to be disciplined and do it within your budget!
- Charity - 5% - Give, and you shall receive. It is one of the laws of the universe. Help those less fortunate than you are, and it will come back to you ten-fold. The sense of satisfaction and purpose you get from knowing you are making a difference to someone's life is unparalleled... just take care to ensure you are giving to a worthwhile cause.
You might find that your expenses don't allow you to stick to this - that means you are living beyond your means. Just start doing what you can and look to improve.
You can do this by increasing your income - getting a better job, a 2nd job, renting out a room, starting a side hustle, asking for a pay rise, etc., OR, often the easier option to start with is to reduce your outgoings.
The first step to this is to know what you spend each month. Get in the habit of knowing what you are spending your money on - you will be surprised.
Go through your bank statements each month and categories your spending into things like groceries, entertainment, fuel and travel costs, gifts, general spending, eating out, and any other relevant categories that come to mind.
You will then be able to see what your biggest costs are and come up with a plan to reduce it - if it is eating out, then break that habit and start making more home cooked food. Travel costs? Look at more economical ways to get about. General spending? Start being more disciplined and asking yourself, do you really need to buy this thing.
Now you have the habit of managing your finances effectively nailed down, it's onto the next step...
11. Build Multiple Streams Of Income
The average millionaire has 7 streams of income, whereas average Joe has just 1, typically a job.
Look to create other income streams to supplement your main income to start with, these will start off small, but may well overtake you current primary income as they grow, which could allow you to step back from working the 9-5 and concentrate on your own ventures.
Examples of these might be setting up you own business, consulting/coaching, selling your knowledge (ebooks/courses), online arbitrage, setting up an online business, real estate/property investing, stock market - the list goes on, some of these you can set up and literally make money while you sleep!
The main thing is that successful people have the habit of looking for new opportunities - don't just be content with 1 income stream. It's up to you to identify opportunities and take action to turn them into profit.
12. Take Responsibility
The same things happen to all of us in life, it is all about the meaning you give to what happens - your perspective on it.
You can't progress if you don't take responsibility - if you constantly pass the blame to other people, then you are putting control in their hands and relying on other people to do something about the situation.
Even when something is seemingly not your fault - if it is affecting you, then you should take responsibility and ask yourself, what have I done to put myself in this situation, and what can I do to avoid this happening again.
13. Be A Person Of Value
You get paid in direct proportion to the value that you add to the marketplace. The more valuable of a person you become, the more successful you will be in your chosen field, and the more you will be paid for it.
How do you become more valuable? You become a problem solver.
Everyday, people all around you have problems in their lives that they don't know how to solve. Take the time to find out what problems are causing people pain and look for solutions to those problems.
This can be selling a problem solving product or knowledge to individuals, or it could mean solving a business issue in your employment that will save your company time and/or money.
Once you become known as the person who solves people problems, then the world is yours for the taking!
It also means getting in the habit of going the extra mile - don't do just enough, don't be the person that says well I only get paid for this so that's all I'm doing. If that is your attitude, then that is all you will ever get paid.
Do more than what is expected - if you want to advance your career - put in the extra hours, even if it's not direct work, spend time learning your industry, your business, get ideas for improvements, become better.
Likewise, if you want to start your own business, don't say well I work full time so I don't have time to do anything else - there are 168 hours in a week, if you work 40 hours and sleep 7 hours a night (you don't need 12 hours sleep!), that still leaves 79 hours so you can still find time to work on yourself and learn the skills you need to succeed.
14. Be Persistent
This one is a really important habit of successful people.
So many people set of on the right journey, only to stop short of achieving their goals in frustration, thinking that they aren't getting anywhere.
If you look at any successful person, they didn't get to where they are overnight (although sometimes it may seem that way), they put in a lot of work beforehand to get them to the point of success.
The story of Mr. Darby in Think And Grow Rich is the epitome of this, where he developed a mine to dig for gold, and after some initial success, stopped digging when he thought the mine had gone dry, only to sell it for a few hundred dollars - the price of the machinery. As it tuned out, he had stopped digging just 3 feet from a huge gold vein worth millions!
Successful people don't quit, they make adjustments. Don't do something to see if it works, do it until it works!
15. Meditate
A great tool to use to get your mind in the right zone, is meditation.
This can really help to get rid of the clutter from you mind, and help your focus. Inability to remain focused on a task is a sign of a weak mind.
The mind is a muscle, and just like the muscles in your body, in order to make it stronger, it needs to be trained.
To train your body, you would go to the gym. Well, meditation is like the gym for the mind. Incorporated as a daily habit, it can help you to maintain focus and clarity.
16. Take Action
Last but by no means least, in fact, probably the most important of all of these habits, is to develop the habit to take action.
No matter how great your plan is, how much you read, visualise or meditate - if you don't take positive action towards achieving your goals and creating the life that you want to live, then I can say with confidence that it is extremely unlikely that anything will change for you.
This is probably the point where most people fall flat.
A lot of people study success, or attend courses and seminars, but don't do anything with the knowledge they have acquired - hence it becomes 'shelf help'.
Know what you want, have a plan to get it, and commit to taking daily action towards it for as long as it takes to achieve it!
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