Tackle your biggest goals like a boss! By learning the top 7 characteristics that you need to be successful! Use these qualities to drive you towards your goals and dreams! Not only in your career, but in all aspects of your life!
1.) Be decisive
Ready? Set? Decide!
Cardio or Weights? Pizza or Tacos? Chocolate or Vanilla? Beach or Mountains? Dogs or Cats?
Even though these choices are silly, simple, and easy, I know that having to make even the smallest decision can stress out even the most successful humans. When it comes to tough decision making, you may find yourself constantly frustrated and confused wishing someone could just give you the correct or best option to choose! If only it was that simple, am I right?
Now to be successful, you do not need to be born with the amazing ability of “being decisive.” Even though many people believe that you do. In fact, this is a quality that you can practice and eventually execute into your everyday life.
Discussed in an article published in Business Insider, author, and journalist Napolean Hill studied over 500 millionaires. These well-known millionaires included Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, and Charles M. Schwab. Hill found that all of these millionaires share one common quality above the rest: decisiveness.
So why is it so important to be decisive if you want to be successful?
These successful individuals make decisions promptly and confidently. As well as stick to them and move on. Decisiveness plays such a crucial role in accumulating wealth, demolishing procrastination, and achieving overall success! Success requires you to be able to make GOOD decisions!
That is why it is so important to understand that being decisive does not mean to make hasty, dumb decisions! They know what they want and they have a clear vision of what they want to ultimately accomplish!
Successful people are successful because they have clarity, a vivid precision, of what they do or what they want to do. Most importantly, making important decisions becomes relatively simple for those who are successful because they know who they are! What sets successful people aside from unsuccessful people is that they have a clear vision, and only make decisions that will launch them closer to their goals.
A person of great success may have millions of great ideas, but they do not let those ideas lead them off their path. They stay in their single lane and make confident decisions that only pertain to their current or overall goal.
Successful people don’t second guess themselves and question their settlements.
They do not make decisions based on the uncertain statements: “I feel like I should do this.” or “I think this will work.” or “What if…” These wealthy people don’t wait and agonize their decisions. They have a clear vision, focus, and confidence when making their decisions. Which is why successful people have the ability to make quick, decisive decisions and move on.
Related Posts: “How to Stop Procrastinating Once and for All”
2.) Don’t be afraid of change
When it comes to change, many people will want to believe that they are okay with it!
However, when it comes down to really vast changes, people tend to shy away from it. Big changes such as leaving your job to start your own business, move to another state to pursue a better life, traveling, etc. these changes tend to scare people.
Little do they know, when it comes down the major things happening in their lives, their sub-conscious will begin to interfere with any efforts to avoid that big change. In your mind and in your heart you may be telling yourself that you want nothing more than to create a successful, happier life for yourself. However, deep inside you are scared of these big dreams that you have, and you fear the results that will come from them.
If you keep feeding yourself all of these lies of why you shouldn’t have these dreams, then you are 100% going to self-sabotage yourself through multiple ways such as procrastination or resistance.
What Has Helped Me:
Sit down with yourself and ask yourself questions. Ask yourself how you truly feel about this change that could happen in your life. Whether it involves making a ton of money, quitting a job to be a stay-at-home mom, traveling the world, going back to school, etc. Whatever thoughts and concerns start to come clear, begin working through those one at a time and really dig deep into why you are feeling that particular way.
If you have this passion or dream that is ALWAYS on your mind, and you want it so bad, then you HAVE to be okay with change and things changing fast in the process. It’s scary but it’s worth it!
You need to step out of your current comfort zone and take action in the direction towards your goal. This is where you begin to grow and flourish! It is so important to connect a specific process/plan with your intuition to figure out if you are intellectually okay with this change. Or if you have to refigure out your mindset and beliefs in order to get yourself on board with this change.
3.) Be devoted to learning new things
Always be dedicated to learning new things and listening to your gut on what needs to be done to further enhance your success. Then, go out, and do it! If you are ever second-guessing yourself or telling yourself, “I don’t know how to do this,” that is one major sign that you are avoiding success.
Habitually remind yourself to be resourceful and resilient when going towards your goals! And if you have a question, simply research it! And if you need to learn how to do something, go out and learn it! Don’t wait for the answer to jump out at you out of the blue! Everything is available to you with a simple Google search!
In the book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, Dweck talks about a concept of the fixed mindset vs. the growth mindset.
Fixed Mindset:
Someone who has a fixed mindset is always worried about protecting their ego. They are not willing to put 100% of themselves out there or learn new things because they are not comfortable with who they are, what they’re good at, or where they are at in life! Ultimately people with a fixed mindset want to be good at what they are already good at, and they do not have any kind of motive to grow and expand their knowledge. They do not want to challenge themselves in fear of failure or in fear of other peoples opinions.
Growth Mindset:
Someone who has a growth mindset consistently challenges themselves. They are not afraid of failure and they are in love with the process that is getting them closer to their goal! These are people who are excited to grow and learn new things, and they use their mistakes as a learning tool and not as a demotivating setback. Those who have a growth mindset are willing to take these mistakes that they have made and look at them from a different perspective! People who develop this mindset learn what they like, what needs to change, what doesn’t or didn’t work well, and it helps them grow and build their success even higher in the long run!
So, really start to ask yourself: “How can I begin to adopt a growth mindset?” How can you begin to be bold instead of trying to always play it safe?
4.) You need to have resilience
You need to be able to get back up every single time you fall down. That is how average people have found abundant success in their lives. They did not have a bad week or bad month and say to themselves, “I stuck, I quit, I can’t finish it, I give up,” and so on!
There are so many people who are excited, optimistic, and highly motivated when they begin their journey to reach their goals. However, when they are not seeing results as quickly as they had hoped or they are not making money their first day or first week, they give up.
Success takes time!
It is not easy, it is supposed to be challenging! To quote Tom Hanks’ character in one of my all-time favorite movies, A Leauge of Their Own:
“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”
I know by this point this is a classic quote and it may sound cheesy, but it’s a classic quote for a reason! It’s true and speaks to so many people out there! You have to be willing to stand up, dust yourself off, have faith in yourself, and then move on and keep going! If success is something that you want, and if your goal is worth something to you! One of the most profound techniques that you can use to reach your goals is to STAND BACK UP.
Immediately.
What happens to those that do not reach success is that when fall, they stay there. They don’t get back up and try again because they put too much weight on their “failure” and they let those failures anchor them to the ground. If you are resilient enough to keep moving forward, and if you have full belief in yourself, then you will 100% reach your goals!
5.) Always take 100% responsibility
We are all responsible for our own thoughts and behavior, whether deliberate or unintentional! A responsible person makes mistakes, but when they do, they take full responsibility and fix it to make it right, 100% of the time. They do not point fingers at others and blame them for their own mistakes or disappointments! That is the difference between unsuccessful people and successful people!
Successful people know that there is always something else they can do to fix it themselves. Instead of blaming someone else for their failures or mistakes.
When you walk into any type of career, whether it’s your own business or not, and you take 100% responsibility for YOUR actions, then you can only bring positivity to any situation you are in!
This does not only apply to your career but it applies to anything that you do in life!
If you are in a relationship, for example, you are bound to argue at least once right?!
Well instead of getting so angry with what your partner is doing or saying, always know that you have the power to manage your own emotions, thoughts, empathy, and understanding towards them! And in any situation that life causes! Of course, this should definitely go both ways in the relationship!
If every day you came into this relationship 100% responsible for being the very best version of yourself and didn’t always rely on your partner to make you happier or guide you towards your goals, the relationship would be 10x stronger! And this applies to your entire life and career as well!
Like any successful person, it is so important that you are always 100% responsible for your own emotions, the words you say, the thoughts you think, the actions that you take, and the decisions that you make 100% of the time. Think of the great Sylvester Stallone quote:
“If you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that!”
6.) Learn to fall in love with the process. Not only the goal.
I briefly mentioned this in #3. But I want to talk about it in greater detail! We are talking about the fear of failure again, and falling in love with the process it takes you to reach your goals. And this is probably my favorite tip out of the 7!
If you want to get over your fear of failure, then you NEED to become OBSESSED with the process towards your goal. Not just the end goal alone.
The goal is someday. But the process is today.
If you are the one who persistently tells yourself, “I will be happy when I make this much money.” Or “I will be happy when I accomplish this goal,” or “I will finally be happy when I am at this specific weight.” Whatever you keep telling yourself. Stop.
Because your goal could be 5 years away. It could be 1 year away, or a couple of months away. That is a long time to waste your days thinking “someday…I will be happy.” Stop focusing on someday and start focusing on today.
If you have to understand that you are not going to be perfect. You don’t know all of the answers. Nobody does! The only way forward is through trial and error. Ask any successful person! You will stumble and fall, it may hurt, and you may cry. But stand back up and keep going! An error, a failure, a mistake, or a fall is NOT the end of your life!
If you keep asking yourself, “but what if I fail,” let me tell you this!
You are going to fail along the way.
You are going to make mistakes. But it’s those mistakes and those failures that make you so much stronger. If you can rise above them and keep going. It does not have to be as dramatic as you may think!
This idea of always having to get it right or always having to make it perfect is a lie. The problem is, that you are so obsessed with the goal that any little bump or obstacle along the way becomes a huge catastrophe. I totally understand! The goal is amazing, it’s beautiful, it’s unbelievable, but, the steps it takes to get there are the opposite of appealing. And that’s what we need to overcome!
If you really want to pursue a different life, a life that you love, a dream that you want, then you have to know that the process of getting to that end goal, is going to suck!
You’re going to fall down, you’re going to get dirty, you’ll get angry, upset, and you’re going to have to stand back up when nobody else would stand back up. BUT, if you really want success and if you really want to get over that fear of failure; then you NEED to fall in love with the process.
Fall in love with the everyday journey that it takes you to get to your end goal. Because like I said, the goal is someday, but the process is today.
If you can’t be happy and find joy in TODAY, then you do not stand a chance when you achieve that goal!
No matter how much money you make, or no matter how successful your career or life becomes. If you can’t become happy right now, in your life today, then you will not be happy “someday.”
Become obsessed with the process and the journey that is taking you to your goals! Replace the fear of failing and hard work with excitement! Get excited about tiny successes that move you closer to your end-point!
Celebrate your small wins and break down that big dream into tiny, celebratory increments!
Get excited when you finish a new course that taught you more for your upcoming business, or if you lost 5 pounds or 5 inches, or if you passed that college class that you worked so hard in the past 15 weeks!
I always tell my clients at the gym to celebrate the small “off-scale victories.” This means, celebrate the tiny things that get you closer towards your dream. If your goal is to lose 100 pounds, you cannot do it in a month! It’s not healthy and it’s not possible! So fall in love with the process it takes to get you there!
If your goal is to lose 100 pounds and in the first month you only lost 7 pounds, BUT you lost 3 inches off your waist and you didn’t miss a single workout. Then THAT, my friend, is an “off-scale victory!” Celebrate and obsess over the small progressions that lead into the BIG goal!
7.) Believe in yourself. Always.
Nobody else is going to believe in yourself for you.
You have to know that you CAN do this. Because if you don’t, you are not going to grow in life and in whatever your goal is! If you can’t believe in yourself, then you are never going to be able to put yourself out there in the world with true confidence.
At the end of the day, if you do not believe in yourself then you are sabotaging any chances that you have to become successful!
If fear of judgment is holding you back, then read on…
Whether you are not sure about starting a new path towards success in fear judgment or of “what they may think of me” then consider this from a different perspective.
The people that you are worried about judging you are not the ones that ultimately have to live with your regrets. You do.
You are giving these people so much power in your life, and they’re not even asking for it. What is happening is that you’re assuming these people are taking your power, but yet, you are the one giving it to them! The second that you say “I want this thing,” but you do not take a step in the right direction because of the fear of what someone may think of you…
Then you have handed over all of your power.
When you create this false story in your head of what someone may think of you, then you gave away your power before you even tried!
Do NOT let anybody stand in the way of your dreams! The only people that are judging you, are the ones who are insecure of themselves and insecure with where they are at in their own lives. Somebody else’s opinion only has meaning IF you give it meaning.
My girl crush Rachel Hollis says it best,
“Someone else’s opinion of you is none of your business.”
It is none of your business. Leave it there. Let them believe what they want to believe, and you move on and keep going! Allow your actions to show them otherwise! Even if you feel that no one believes in you, use that as motivation to accomplish your goal even more!
Humans are only motivated by reason and passion! So if you do NOT believe that you can do whatever it is that you want to do in your life, then chances are, you never will do them. Develop that sense of belief by challenging yourself! Get out of your comfort zone, put yourself out there, count to 3 and just do it!
When you see that you CAN do these things and that you CAN succeed at them, it will give you even more encouragement to DO MORE! Not to mention you’ll have MORE faith, and have MORE BELIEF in YOURSELF! Than you ever thought possible!
Please know that I believe in you!
There are so many people that believe in you, and you may not even know that they do! But either way, no matter what, always believe in yourself. That is the number one thing that you can do to achieve success!
I hope that you found these tips useful and educating, and I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
What is the goal or ambition that you are working towards right now??
Let me know in the comments below! Until next time!
xo, Cydney
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