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 traveled 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.
By: Carl Preston
Image: www.leaditconsulting.net
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