Note: This article is by Marc Chernoff, who discusses a set of practices that distinguish successful people from others.
I have researched numerous successful people's lives over the years by reading their books, watching their interviews, looking them up online, etc. I've discovered that the majority of them simply did and still do things to help them reach their full potential despite not being born into circumstances that were favorable for success.
12 things successful people do differently
1. Setting smart goals and striving to achieve them (Smart Goals)
Successful people are objective. They set realistic goals, know what they are looking for and why they are fighting for them, and set and pursue smart goals.
Smart Goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, and each of these features is summarized below:
Specific
If your overall goal is to have a lean body, the specific target is to join a health club and exercise 3 days a week for a year. Your chances of success increase when you have a clear objective because it establishes the conditions and constraints.
Measurable
You should have a logical way to measure progress on the goal. To determine if your goal is measurable, ask yourself: How long do I need? And what is the total for this time? How to know when I have achieved my goal? When you measure your progress, you ensure you stay on track, complete your tasks on time, and live the joy of achievement that motivates you to continue making the efforts required to reach your goal.
Achievable
You must set a goal you are willing and able to work towards for it to be achievable; in other words, the target must be realistic, and the essential question here is: How can the goal be achieved?
Relevant
Relevance emphasizes the importance of selecting critical goals. For example, an online entrepreneur may aim to make 75 tuna sandwiches by 2 p.m., which is a specific, measurable, achievable, and time-bound goal. Still, it lacks relevance to the entrepreneur's overarching goal of building a profitable online business.
Time-bound
The goal should be placed within a time frame. By giving the target a deadline, you can focus on completing it on or before the deadline, and the time frame prevents you from letting daily distractions divert you from your goal.
By establishing smart goals critical to you, you can cultivate the mindset, skills, and abilities necessary to succeed by becoming motivated to find solutions.
You can achieve almost any goal you set if you arrange your steps wisely and create a time frame that allows you to implement these steps. So, the targets that seemed out of reach become closer to you and are achievable, not because your goals are shrinking but because you grow and enhance your potential to match them.
2. Take Decisive and Immediate Action
Sadly, very few people can fulfill their dreams. The reason is the vast majority do nothing to accomplish their objectives. Knowledge does not necessarily equate to growth. When your knowledge is reflected in how you live, you advance. Many people experience total numbness throughout their lives. Since they never take the necessary steps to accomplish their objectives and pursue their dreams, they do not live real lives; instead, they merely manage.
It doesn't matter if you have a high IQ or a doctorate in quantum physics; you cannot change anything or progress on the ground without putting in the work. There is a big difference between knowing how to do something and doing it. Indeed, knowledge and intelligence are useless without work; it is as simple as that.
Choosing to live a real life and pushing yourself on the business journey based on your dreams and goals is all that is necessary for success. So make this decision.
3. Focus on productive work, not random preoccupation
In his book The 4-Hour Workweek, writer and entrepreneur Tim Ferriss says, “Slow down and remember that most of what we do does not make a difference. Busyness is often a form of mental laziness; lazy thinking and random action.”
In other words, work more efficiently and with less effort, which is one of the most common clichés in modern times, but like most clichés, it involves a great deal of truth, and few people adhere to it.
Take a quick look around, and you will find that the number of busy people far exceeds the number of producers, and the lives of busy people are in chaos. They are often late for their appointments and busy with work, conferences, meetings, social obligations, etc. They barely have enough free time for family meetings and rarely get enough sleep.
Despite all this, business emails continue to accumulate, and their daily work program is full of commitments, so their busy schedule gives them a sense of achievement, but all this is just an illusion; they are like a mouse on a spinning wheel, running and running without reaching anywhere.
The solution is to slow down and review your commitments and goals; that is, arrange your priorities and carry out your tasks individually, take a break every few hours, and always remember that results are more important than the time it takes to achieve them.
4. Make logical and conscious decisions
Sometimes, we do foolish things based on a fleeting resentment or enthusiasm. While our emotional instincts are critical in some fleeting situations, they frequently cause us to become distracted when making long-term, sustainable progress in any area of our lives. Decisions based on powerful emotions usually lack conscious thinking and are based primarily on momentary feelings rather than conscious awareness.
The best advice is not to let your emotions overwhelm your thinking, so slow down and think things through before making life-changing decisions.
5. Avoiding the Ideal Trap
Many of us set high standards for ourselves and work hard because we want to be perfect. We invest much time and effort into our work to uphold our high personal standards. Our relentless pursuit of excellence motivates us to exert extra effort without ceasing. As long as we do not exaggerate, this commitment to perfection undoubtedly aids us in achieving the desired outcomes, but what happens when we are perfection-obsessed?
We feel resentful and frustrated when we fail to meet the impossible standards we set for ourselves, which makes us reluctant to face new challenges or even finish tasks we have already started. Our insistence on focusing on the smallest details reduces our efficiency, hinders our progress, exhausts ourselves, and achieves substandard results.
Perfectionists frequently struggle to get things started and completed. I have a friend who has wanted to work in graphic design for several years, but she hasn't yet. If you look at all the excuses she gives, you'll find that they all center around her pursuit of perfection, which means that she doesn't think and never will think that she is competent enough to produce her design work.
Remember that the real world rewards those who complete their tasks successfully, not those who are fixated on perfection. The only way to complete tasks is to avoid aiming for perfection. Perfecting something requires years of practice and failures, so make your choice, get to work, take notes, and apply this strategy to all facets of your life.
6. Work outside the comfort zone
What hinders intelligent people the most is their reluctance to take chances only because they don't think they're ready. In other words, they feel uncomfortable and think they need additional knowledge, skill, and experience before they can participate in this opportunity appropriately. Unfortunately, this is the kind of thinking that hinders success and personal growth.
No one feels completely ready when the opportunity arises because most great opportunities in life force us to grow emotionally and intellectually and expand our capabilities and comfort zones, which means that we will not feel completely comfortable at first. When we do not feel comfortable, we do not feel ready.
Many essential personal growth opportunities and success will come and go throughout your life. Even though you won't ever feel completely prepared for them, you must take advantage of opportunities if you want to make positive changes and novel discoveries in your life.
In conclusion
In this part of the article, I have highlighted six of the most important things that successful people do differently that we can emulate and apply in our lives. I will continue discussing the other six in the second and last part, so follow up with me.
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