10 Habits Of The Highly Successful People

In the entire history, no other person has managed to have personified the notion of the self-made man more than Henry Ford. Henry Ford is best remembered as the one who single-handedly created the US automotive industry. What Ford had only a limited formal education, born in a farm, and was expected to take over the farm when he grows up.

Instead, Ford left home at the age of seventeen and joined as an apprentice at a machinist in Detroit. A career choice that left him wildly famous and successful. Even with a sort of okay education, Ford managed to revolutionize the mechanized assembly line, Detroit was later known as the ‘Motor City’ because of his work.

What is it that makes the uber rich, famous and successful set apart from the rest? It is not they have got access to more resources than you, you’re seriously mistaken if you think they have got more resources than you. Many of the successful people did not even had the amount of resources that you have access to now. So what is it that makes these people build gold mines out of stones?

Everyone wishes if there were a handbook for success, a shortcut that would make you instantly rich. But there’s a good thing, and a bad one. The bad one is, there is no shortcut to success. The good thing is a change in your habits could make you more successful.

A wise man once said:

“We are what we repeatedly do, Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle
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Excellence and success is an art that needs to be mastered by habituation. There’s a fine line between success and failure, and here, in this case, Habituation is the thing that separates you from the successful people.

What makes the human race so interesting is the vastly differentiating individualism. What is a sin to you might be a virtue to someone else? So, when the beliefs are diverse, the habits too are diverse. All the famous people had two things in common – their dedication to living up to their beliefs and sticking to their habits.

Do you have what it takes to be Successful?

Habits are what you are and what you become. Here’s a list of the Top 10 Habits of the Highly successful people. So do you think you have what it takes to be successful?

They start with the end in Mind

Your goal is where you want to end up. So, start from there. Average goals get you to average success. The highly successful people start with the end in mind. When you ultimate goal is ultimate success, you work much harder than you think you might ever think you could.

These successful people work with the bigger picture in mind and work daily on moving a step closer to their dreams. Steve Jobs, the late founder of Apple, is believed to chalk out the ideas for iPad back from the 1980’s when the first tablet – Microsoft’s Surface hit the shelves in 2001. A long-term vision for themselves is what they were possessed with.

They are all about Here and Now

The successful people are not only all about the future, but they also work in the present. “Be here now” lingers throughout the book – ‘Here and Now’ by Ram Dass. Although all the successful people start with the end in mind, they completely never forget about the here and now. It’s no point scheming up plans for the future and leaving the present flow away.

They don’t wait to act. These people live in the present and do what they have to do at that moment. They do not always know the right direction, but that doesn’t keep them for setting their sails high and moving forward. Action will bring you to your answers.

They don’t Hear; they Listen

The Quieter you become the more you hear

In his book – ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, Stephen R. Covey says that people are concerned with talking that they never listen. There is a lot of difference between listening and hearing and you ought to figure out that yourselves.

All the successful people were great listeners in their very own sense. They listen to understand, not just to reply.

And the widely celebrated author writes:

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
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– Stephen R. Covey.

They understand first, then they are later understood.

They are Proactive

The no. 1 habit listed on the book – ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ is about being proactive. What does that even mean? The successful people realize that they are responsible for their choices. You choose to be happy, or either you choose to be sad.Your life is not ‘happening’, you are making it. These people don’t go around blaming genetics, circumstances, or conditions for how their life turns out to be.

Instead of worrying on what you can’t control, focus on what’s controllable. The successful people spend their time and efforts on things they could do something about.

They don’t fear Failure

How could you be successful at anything, if you are afraid of everything?

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The fear of failure is the worst of all. Sir Richard Branson might not have become what he is now if he feared to drop out of school. These people care the least about failure and work hard to avoid it at any cost.

“Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It’s OK to fail. If you’re not failing, you’re not growing.”

– H. Stanley Judd

The fear of failure shouldn’t pull you from having fun.

They embrace Change

Do you know what humans are the most afraid of? Yep, you guessed it – Change. Most of the people might just go ahead and claim that they are not afraid of change. But when under a complete overhaul of conditions and circumstances, people loathe change.

The successful people have embraced winds of change and sailed through them. A change is difficult to deal with, but could be the most rewarding thing in your life. Walt Disney is a great example of people who embraced change. He started out as a newspaper editor, where he was fired as he “lacked imagination and had no good idea.”

They Work harder than you thought

You might have heard this by now over a million times from hundreds of your sources. But they are working hard from hours before you wake up everyday and more hours after you are off to bed at night. These people get up insanely early. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook wakes up daily at 5.30 am. Then there’s Friedrich Nietzsche, the famous author, who woke up everyday at 4.30 am to write.

10 Tips to improve Time-management Skills for Young Entrepreneurs

Successful people clock in long hours, not because they have to, but because they want to. What sets apart these from the rest is that they work hard for the love of it, not just for the sake of it.

They do not follow the crowds

Conventional wisdom yields conventional success. Most of the highly successful people are well known for their unconventional thinking. ‘Think Different’, as Apple shouts out to people; these people do not simply follow trends.

Even the person who leads the orchestra needs to turn his back on the crowd. The successful people are all about following their following their dreams passionately and they don’t worry about where’s everyone headed to! Be yourself and follow what your heart and your gut says, not just because some bloke is doing the same.

They take ‘power’ Break’s

You don’t need to completely unplug yourselves from life, but a little refreshing and quick ‘power’ break’s would help you better. Even the successful people are humans and even they care about breaks. Breaks are an essential to refocus on your work.

Here’s what they said about American writer and Humorist Mark Twain:

“On Sundays, Twain skipped work to relax with his wife and children, read, and daydream in some shady spot on the farm.”

Padmasree Warrior, the CTO of Cisco systems says taking time to meditate and unplug helped in her previous job as head of engineering, which required her to oversee 22,000 employees. “It’s almost like a reboot for your brain and your soul.”

Power breaks – short, yet effective breaks would steer you clear of your obstacles and make you much relaxed and focused.

They show humility

Humility is the essence of life. Success doesn’t always mean it should lead to ego. Although there are many successful people who weren’t too good with others, there were also people known for their humbleness. A true successful person doesn’t come with an ego.

The remarkably successful people are almost as humble as fearless they are. These people never hesitate to admit that they have made a mistake or to apologize for the things they have done wrong. To admit their mistakes, to ask for help, to say they are sorry, to say they owe their success to others; these are the signs of a true successful person.

Bonus

Now that you have spent a good amount of time reading through this long article, I would like to add something which would be of great use to you if you are more interested about the habits of successful people.

Here are two books that would be the best few bucks you would have ever spent.

Daily Rituals: How Artists Work – Mason Currey
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change – Stephen R. Covey

Now that you know the secret ingredients to the habits of the highly successful people, make them your daily habits and see yourself become the better version of yourselves.

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