There could easily be a debate about what success means, and from a different perspective, how it is attained. Some will define success purely from a monetary lens, but as a concept, it is far more encompassing than this one dimension. Other areas that can be associated with success have nothing to do with a financial attainment level. One of these areas is an individual’s physical and mental health, and perhaps you have heard the expression “if you don’t have your health, nothing else matters.”
There are numerous categories which success can be measured, and they could be aligned with whether you have a successful family dynamic, what level of education you were able to attain, how much traveling you have had the opportunity to do, or how deep and extensive your personal or professional networks happen to be. Let’s also factor in whether you have you been able to master either a craft or develop an expertise in some area of your life. These are certainly not an exhaustive list of how one might define areas of success, but the real question we should be considering is the “how” did an individual attain the level they reached? A level which would collectively be considered successful by most potential measurements?
We know that certain individuals are more focused and determined than others. Perhaps more oriented towards a higher level of achievement than what would be classified as an average level of achievement for some. Are these people self-motivated, or have they learned to stretch and always go beyond the level others would find to be an acceptable level of achievement? Or, is something else at play and contributing to them being more successful in the area they are being classified as successful in?
Taking time to pause and unpack what makes some people more driven than others isn’t something we often take time to break down. Perhaps we would do this if we found merit in doing so, or had a fascination in doing so. Possibly we would do this because of our own circumstances being such that we believe we haven’t reached our own potential yet. Maybe we have heard others tell us this, or we know intuitively that we really haven’t given the full effort it will take to reach or exceed our potential.
As someone who has extensive experience with observing and interacting with highly successful leaders and sports coaches, I can assure you there is absolutely a common thread amongst them. One of them may surprise you, but it has to do with communication, and having the ability to clearly articulate what they expect from their own outcomes, as well as those they lead. They also follow through with what they tell you they are going to do, and I’m talking about doing this in a timely manner. Procrastination doesn’t even seem to be a word or action involved in how they operate daily. I don’t know about you, but I find these traits, or what I will refer to as habits very refreshing and reassuring too. There is something to be said for being able to depend unconditionally on someone, and this is absolutely a foundational quality and habit of a successful individual.
Other habits of successful people include having unwavering integrity. The kind of integrity level you hear about that involves doing the right thing even when someone isn’t watching. Although you may not agree with this, the sentiment that someone who has attained success in any capacity did so at the expense of not being a good person to others isn’t always true. However, you are more apt to hear about this type of person because their behavior was less than desirable, and potentially egregious. Let’s face it, we certainly don’t have an overabundance of news reports focused on what successful people are doing in favor of others, but unfortunately, we do hear plenty of examples of negative news reports on this.
I’m a firm believer that successful habits can be both innate, as well as learned. With this premise, below are some examples of what some other successful habits are. Possibly ones you will want to aspire to?
- No one is ever right all the time. Take ownership for your mistakes. Apologize for them and move on.
- Stop blaming everyone else for why you haven’t attained the level of success you are seeking. Yes, there may be circumstances beyond your control which prevented you from your attainment, but how about you pause and reconsider that you haven’t achieved them “yet”?
- Successful people don’t waste their time complaining. Instead, they do something constructively, and likely strategically too to change or alter the outcome of their scenario.
- Stop talking negatively about others. The old saying “if you don’t have something positive to say about someone, don’t say anything at all” still applies. If you find yourself speaking negatively about other people, consider why you are doing this? Would you want others to be doing the same thing in reverse?
- Help someone out that could benefit from your support. Yes, it might be inconvenient to do so, but building up your “karma bank” never hurt anyone. You likely won’t even know about the majority of “good karma” examples that successful people are doing on a regular basis. What can you do today to start doing this yourself?
- Are you tossing around “f-bombs” and other words which could easily be replaced with better expressive words? Or, have you considered how you sound to others when you are dropping words into your conversations that make you sound like your vocabulary is stuck in middle school? Foul language doesn’t sound intelligent, tough or attractive, and people at the highest levels of being successful will seldomly leverage foul language or do so casually. Elevate your bank of words by committing to dropping the foul language from every day or casual usage. Doing so will automatically make you appear to sound more intelligent.
- Stop interrupting others when they are speaking.
- Listen with intent, and make the conversation interactive, versus it being a one way conversation or monologue.
- Genuinely praise others and understand your praise as a leader has more weighted value, and can have a long lasting positive impact.
- Be respectful of other people’s time and be on time. It’s rude if you are not and shows a complete disregard for the value of other people’s time. If you are not 10 minutes early, you are late.
- Including others that might not be considered for inclusion, but that can offer tremendous new insights towards you or the team you are on is something you should begin to become comfortable with. At first you will likely resist attempting this, but consider this, the best leaders and most successful people are regularly giving others a chance, taking risks, and more often than not, rewarded for them. Yes, you can mitigate your risks, but the point is to at least take them, and get out of your comfort zone of doing the same thing, and with the same people you would have only included on your team in the past.
If some of the examples above are not being practiced by you or someone you know, and if you or they want to get to the next level of success, I hope you will at least commit to “test driving” some of them. Especially if you sincerely want to start embracing habits of successful people, leaders and sports coaches.
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