What are you willing to do in order
to reach success? It is common among people these days to be average and not
stand out too much. But those who are successful do not fall under this
category.
In order to stay on top of your game
and reach the level of success you want, you need to follow a certain set
of self-induced rules. Success is not something that happens by accident; if
you want it bad enough, you will get it. Learn the habits that successful
people have given up in order to reach their own success.
1. They don’t work in their comfort
zone.
What is your comfort zone? Your
comfort zone is defined as “A psychological state in which a person feels
familiar, at ease, in control, and experiences low anxiety.” When you get
outside of your comfort zone, it doesn’t mean that you should strive for a
constant state of anxiety and stress. It simply means that, in order to grow,
you should try new things and expand your horizons.
The reason we are comfortable in our
comfort zone is because we are not taking risks when we are in this state. When
we live in our comfort zones, we are living life like hamsters on a wheel,
going around and around in a constant cycle, but going nowhere in our lives.
Famous motivational speaker, Les
Brown, said it best with, “If you put yourself in a position where you have to
stretch outside your comfort zone, then you are forced to expand your
consciousness.”
2. They don’t do without first
learning.
Learning is what we do best. The
greatest thing about learning is the benefit that we receive in all aspects of
our lives. Successful people strive to continue learning new things and expanding
on things that they already know.
If we stop learning, then the only
thing we can do is settle with what we already know; if we settle for that,
then there is no way to expand our minds. Expansion is essential on the path to
success. Since our minds require learning for expansion, we must never stop
seeking new knowledge.
Imagine what would have happened if
Bill Gates stopped learning and growing. The internet would be much more
primitive than it is today. But because he followed his dreams and continued
growing, he founded one of the biggest companies in the world and it is still
flourishing and growing today.
3. They don’t fear asking for advice.
Richard Branson, a famous
entrepreneur, stated, “When you need to make hard decisions, being able to
discuss your ideas with entrepreneurs and business leaders who have solved
similar problems can make all the difference.”
Asking for advice is not always easy.
We think that we have the same opportunity as everyone else and sometimes feel
insecure and dependent, so we decide not to ask for advice, and try to figure
it out ourselves. But this could be greatly limiting us from reaching our full
potential, because the advice we might be seeking could be something that
somebody knows very well.
4. They don’t get lost in the small
details
When life gives us seemingly endless
opportunities, it is very easy to get lost in the small details. The small
details are very easy for us to become focused on, thus causing us to miss out
on the overall vision, also known as the “big picture”.
Focusing too much on the smaller
details constricts your ability to see how everything ties together. Much of
our lives hinge upon the connections that we make with others and with
ourselves. If we get lost in the small detail, it is like having missing pieces
to a puzzle. How are we supposed to solve that?
Imagine what would have happened if
Henry Ford only saw the small details. When building the company that Ford is
today, he knew that he must do something different if his company was to succeed.
After many people told him it couldn’t be done, his company continued improving
upon the smaller details until they got it right.
Henry Ford didn’t focus too much on
the small details, which were the hundreds of times he failed; he saw the
overall goal and knew that it could be accomplished. It required seeing the
bigger picture to make it happen.
5. They don’t multitask.
Multitasking is typically viewed as a
skill that only certain people possess. But truth be told, nobody actually has
the ability to multitask. Multitasking is known to actually decrease
productivity. Those who are successful focus on one specific task and do that
task to the best of their ability without interruption.
When you multitask, you limit your
ability to fully focus on one specific task at a time. Successful people
utilize the talents and abilities that they have by focusing it on one task and
one task only.
Emma Watson said, “I just dropped my
iPhone in my soup. I think it might be time to tone down the multitasking..”
This demonstrates how destructive multitasking is highlighting the fact that
when we multitask, we are greatly limiting ourselves.
6. They don’t lie to themselves
Lying to yourself is one of the
easiest things for you to do. It is much more difficult to accept the problems
that we have without make excuses for them. Successful people understand that
we will encounter problems, both internally and externally.
But it is important to accept the
problems that reside in our lives, rather than not dealing with them and lying
to ourselves about them.
As Steve Maraboli said, “Stop lying
to yourself. When we deny our own truth, we deny our own potential.”
7. They don’t procrastinate in asking
for feedback.
Feedback is important, because it
gives you a different perspective on your current situation. Sometimes you are
not able to see the answer that is right in front of you. But when someone
gives you feedback, it allows you to see something from the perspective of
someone else.
If you procrastinate asking someone
for feedback, you are missing out on time that could be put towards
accomplishing your dreams. The longer you wait, the harder it is to utilize
advice that others can give you.
“I think It’s very important to have
a feedback loop, where you´re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and
how you could be doing it better,” entrepreneur Elon Musk once said.
8. They don’t follow, they lead
You have probably heard the phrase
“lead, follow or get out of the way.” There are two types of people in this
world: leaders and followers. The ones who are successful are the ones who are
leading the pack.
Successful people are not successful
because they got there by chance. They did not follow somebody to the finish
line. They paved their own path in life to get where they needed to be.
Just as the great Robert Frost
stated, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less travelled
by, and that has made all the difference.”
9. They don’t let the past dictate
their future.
The past is something that we will
never change, nor should we want to change it; because without it, we would not
have learned the lessons we needed to learn. Therefore, we would wind up making
the same mistakes over and over again until we learned the lesson that life is
trying to teach us.
At one time, businessman Shahid Khan
washed dishes for $1.20 an hour. His humble background did not prevent him from
thinking bigger though. With a net worth of $3.8 billion dollars, he now owns
Flex-N-Gate, one of the largest private companies in the U.S., the NFL’s
Jacksonville Jaguars, and Premier League soccer club Fulham.
10. They don’t hang around negative
people
Negative people are very destructive
to be around when it comes to achieving success, because there are so many
situations that life throws at us and causes us to get down on ourselves or our
situation. But some people like to focus on this aspect of life the majority of
the time.
When you are around negative people
enough, you start to see things negatively and you begin to lose sight of your
dream. Success is more about mindset than anything, and if you always have a
negative mindset, life will reward you with negative outcomes to deal with.
Joel Olsteen once said, “You cannot
expect to live a positive life if you hang with negative people.” So if you
wish you be successful, don’t focus on the negativity that others bring.
To be successful requires focus and
determination. It seems that every successful person follows similar patterns. Therefore,
it’s easy to see why they are where they are. They knew what they had to do in
order to achieve their dreams and they didn’t let anyone or anything stop them
from getting there.
You have the power in yourself to
become one of those successful people you admire and look up to.
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