How Your Habits Determine Your Success

Behaviors of Successful People

Success: the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.

Ever wonder how to be successful but for some reason it almost seems out of reach?  The truth is, to be successful, you need to be highly disciplined.  You also need to be conscious of habits, determined, and focused. When I started writing this blog, I realized that success is subjective, and for many, it might mean different things. It always starts with a purpose to one’s life.

For me, the fulfillment of success is to strive to have an impact. Successful people have a clearly defined purpose.  They are open-minded, positive, and unwavering in their goals.  They are also able to let go of the past and look at failure as a stepping stone and a way to learn from that experience while using their abilities as a strength to help them achieve success.

When you read stories about successful people like Mark Cuban, Melinda Gates, Albert Einstein, and Tory Burch, you realize that success is about traits and not limited to race, IQ level or how much money you have.  So without further ado, let me share a few highlights to cultivating habits of success.

Cultivating habits of Success

If you’re looking to making some changes to your life mid-year, here are a few things you need to do that can help you cultivate habits of successful people.

1. Wake Up Early: Waking up early is not the easiest habit to cultivate.  It takes a lot of self-discipline and determination but you can accomplish so much by getting up at 5:30 am or even getting up an hour earlier than your usual wake up time. A couple of initial techniques to help you get up in the mornings is to plan your morning the day before. If using an alarm clock never hit the snooze button. Over time, this will become second nature and your internal clock will be the one waking you up.
2. Quiet Your Mind:  Spend 3-5 minutes each morning meditating.  Meditation alleviates anxiety, prevents depression, and helps with pain management. It can also help you re-center yourself and your goals. Unfortunately, this takes a lot of practice.  If random thoughts keep popping in your head, just calmly refocus and redirect yourself to concentrate on your breathing.
3. Incorporate a Healthy Lifestyle: Make healthy food choices, block time for fitness activities whether it is a walking, yoga, or spending time at the gym. Stay hydrated by drinking lots of water and cutting down on sugary drinks.  It is amazing what a healthy diet can do to one’s health. When you incorporate a healthy lifestyle into your daily routine, you will feel great with bouts of energy.
4. Minimize Distractions: This means staying focused on your goals.  Maintain a journal to write down your gratitudes so you are more likely to be appreciative of progress despite the setbacks. Also maintain a to-do list and focus on one or two each day so you have a feeling of accomplishment when you achieve that goal.
5. Work Deliberately, not harder: Efficiency is the key word here. Be strategic about how you work and don’t procrastinate.  You can find shortcuts for everything in life, but to build the foundation of your goals, you will need to work smart. It is all about finding the right balance between working smart, deliberate, and efficiently.

Maintaining momentum can also instill these habits as part of your daily life to where it will become almost second nature. Remember, celebrate the wins along the way. Use each habit as an anchor to prompt you into doing the new habit you’re trying to master and you will very much be on your way to success!

Please share what are other habits you think are critical to success. I would love to know.