We all want to be more successful in life but not all of us get the results we want. When you study successful people, you will realize they are just people like the rest of us and for the most part, they do a lot of the same things we do. The big difference is that they tend to focus on a few things and give much more time and energy to those things than the rest of us.
When you break it down, the difference between those who struggle and those who succeed comes down to habits. It’s the little things you do, or fail to do, on a daily basis that determines what results you will get in life.
Let’s take a look at some of the habits many successful people tend to have.
1. They surround themselves with the right people.
The company we keep have a much larger influence on our lives than most of us realize. We tend to become like the people we spend most of our time with. From our net worth to our health to our eagerness to expand our mind, it’s all affected.
If you want to increase your chances of success, start hanging out with people who are either already successful or those who are clearly serious about success and are making good progress. It’s hard to stay focused when you’re always surrounded by people who are lazy and always comes up with excuses as to why their life sucks.
2. They do the important things first.
There’s only so much time in a given day to get work done. Many people tend to procrastinate on the difficult, but most important things and instead, do the easy, non-essential things first just to keep/look busy.
Successful people focus on the 20% of tasks that make 80% of the difference. This is according to the Pareto Principle. Another way to look at it is most unsuccessful people spend most of their time and effort on tasks that only give them 20% of the results.
In other words, successful people don’t necessarily work harder, but they do often work smarter and more efficiently.
3. They take care of their health.
Success takes a lot of work and without a healthy body to do that work, you won’t get much done. Get some exercise on a regular basis and watch what you eat. Your mind might be motivated to do a ton of work but if your body is struggling just to get out of bed and you’re constantly tired, you’re going to be at a huge disadvantage.
And don’t say you don’t have time. We all have the same amount of time each day. What you make a priority will happen; what you don’t, won’t.
4. They constantly learn and work on improving.
No matter how good at something you are, you can always improve. In this competitive world where everyone is fighting for the top, if you’re not constantly improving your knowledge and skills, you’re going to fall behind. Don’t fall into the trap of being complacent, otherwise, whatever success you have built up might one day disappear.
5. They make the time to enjoy life.
Being successful means working hard but a life where you do nothing but work isn’t much of a life. Find the time to enjoy your life. Take a vacation at least once a year. At the very least, pick up a hobby. Do something that gets your mind off of work. After all, what’s the point of financial success when you don’t make the time to do the things you would be doing if money were no longer an issue?
Doing these things won’t guarantee that you will become successful but it will increase your chances. Obviously, there are many other habits you can form to help you out, many of which are specific to certain goals. If you don’t know what to focus on, find people who already have what you want and find out what the habits that got them there are and just copy them.
Success isn’t a mystery. It’s simply a process of doing “A” in order to get to “Z”. Find out what “A” is and keep doing it until you get to “Z”.
