10 Powerful Habits Of The Highly Successful People

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I’m Harsh Agrawal

Blog Scientist & a passionate blogger. Love minimalist life & talk about things that matter. Adventure from heart & doer by action.

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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:

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.

We-are-what-we-repeatedly-do

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

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

keep-calm-and-live-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:

– Stephen R. Covey.

They understand first, then they are later understood.

They are Proactive

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

dont-fear-failure

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

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 think

hard-work-beats-talent

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.

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

Do not Follow the crowd

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

Sometimes a break is all you need

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

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: Habits of successful people

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.

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.

Here are more hand-picked posts from our LIfe-hacks category:

What do you think about these habits of the highly successful? Would you like to add your thoughts and ideas? Feel free to share them below.

25 comments on “10 Powerful Habits Of The Highly Successful People

  1. I am a regular reader of shoutmeloud…From all articles written here this articles written by Srikanth AN Inspired me a lot…Great work Srikanth..Keep it up…

  2. their is two way to live a life. one is follow the crowd and second is make a path and let make the people become the crowd behind you.
    All the 10 points are so true that no one can ignore them to successful

  3. Awesome article…..how you get this…i think….when your mind said that a particular task…i can do it better way so go do it…..never give up….because in the form of failure success is behind the failure……

  4. Hi Srikanth, I am a great follower of Shoutmeloud. When I get time I read articles from here. Today I read this influential article. It really inspires us when we feel down or frustrated. Thank you so much for sharing such a wonderful article…..

  5. This is a great post. I have been studying the book by Napoleon Hill for the last 6 months, as well as others like the 4 hour work week and I can thoroughly agree 100% with the information that you shared here. Some great advice here!

  6. Indeed a great, inspirational article:)
    Thanks for this article because I learned something that is very interesting from this article!!!

  7. Hello,
    All of your articles are really inspiring. Last time I read about Jack Ma, that was also amazing. There is a quote by our Former Prez. Abdul kalam
    ” You cannot change your future but you can change your habits. And surely your habits will change your future”
    Its one my favourite quotes. You’ve put here a good inspiring collection of quotes.
    Thank you, keep sharing such articles to inspire all of us…

  8. This is very beautiful post as this encourage me a lot. Thtat’s why commenting on any website I always mention my website there but not there, again such a great post

  9. Hello sir,
    I came here when I was gathering information about blogging.i went through the above article 10 habits of the highly successful people.It was a fabulous inspiring article which truly inspired me to grow my work.I m a developer in webaddiction company,established by a group of friends.Our web site is webaddiction.in .The above habits that u discussed will surly going to help us to grow.It will be a great pleasure to us if you suggest something for our work.
    thank you sir.

  10. Hi Srikanth,

    I dig the Mark Twain add! Resting is as key as working, if you plan to be successful. Much of my success occurs away from the laptop, meaning the first 25 minutes of my day is the most important part of my day. I meditate, I stretch, and I jump into an icy cold shower. This practice raises for my vibe for the day, which helps me write and publish an eBook every single day. Today I have 127 products in my Amazon library, having written some 80 eBooks, and now I’m converting them all to paperback and audio. Taking those breaks and working on my mindset has been critical for me, to keep my vibe high, to write so many books.

    Thanks for sharing!

    Ryan

  11. Great post mate,
    Great people are really just like every other person out there but they do things differently than others. That’s why they said that “Great people are ordinary people that do things in an extra ordinary way.

    They don’t let small hurdles to stand on their way towards achieving their aim. They don’t give excuses.

    I really love that quote by Aristotle “We are what we repeatedly do therefore, excellent is not an act but a habit”. I first read that quote in the book “Think and grow rich” by Napoleon Hill and since, I’ve never forgotten it.

    This is really inspirational mate.
    Thanks for sharing

  12. Awesome post!

    I discovered shoutmeloud about 3 weeks ago when I was conducting an online research and it’s being fun studying your site.

    Yes, I have being studying your site!

    I have always being an antagonist of the croud mentality.

    I love doing my things in unique ways totally different from the norm and this article has re-affirm my believe that am on the path to greatness and success.

    Thank you Srikanth An for this amazing piece.

  13. Hay Srikanth,
    This is an great, amazing & inspiration post for me. I’m regular visitor on this site because I’ll get best & perfect post on ShoutMeLoud.

    Thanks for share

  14. Yup, you are right most failures due to the absence of the END which is wondrfully depicted by you which reminded me of the 2nd habit of the 7 habits.
    Good post. … I must say

  15. hey SRIKANTH AN, i am regular reader of shoutmeloud thanks for sharing your thoughts in this wonderful post to inspire and motivate new blogger.i learned and enjoyed your post buddy.

  16. yup u r right because for get success u have to follow your desire with single target in your mind…

  17. Very inspirational , If anyone wants to achieve success must follow these steps. Thank you for the article

  18. Hi Harsh,
    I want to request you please add a separate category for Srikanth’s articles. I am a die-hard fan of his writings. Each word he writes touches the soul and heart.

    Srikanth, thanks for another great write-up. You always inspire me.

    Thanks
    Nikhil

  19. Hello Srikanth…. I have become a fan of your inspirational writing after reading your posts on shoutmeloud. Keep inspiring and keep sharing.
    God bless you !

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