Personal Habits of Successful People

Success is different to everyone.  It also has many facets to it, not just monetary gain.  In this instance, I am specifically talking about success as a result of high productivity and hard work for pursuing a career, your dreams and the like.  I feel that successful people have a few distinct qualities that sets them apart from everyone else.  These qualities are not always intrinsic, they are exercised and learned skills.  It was important for me to write this because being young and ambitious, I have a few of these habits already but not all. People should always strive to be their best version of themselves right?  To me, the best version of myself is when I am productive with my time.  I wrote this list with some of my own knowledge, from books I have read, from observing and being around successful people, and from my father.  This is going to be a great reference for me to look back on and I hope it is to you as well!

• Constantly be doing things.
• Keep a clean and organised desk.
• Make a 'things to do' list for the day, week, month.
• Have an agenda or calendar of important dates and deadlines
• Write out a detailed list of short term and long term goals. Short term goals should always lead to long term goals.
• Schedule your day in blocks.  For instance, write out specifically what you intend to do in blocked time periods. 
• 7:30 AM - 8:30 AM -Breakfast 
• 8:30 AM - 11: 00 AM-Commute to work and respond to e-mails 
• ...and so on and so forth. 
• Have a people collection - contact information of your network and constantly follow up with them regardless of age, occupation or relation.
• Keep up with news and current events regardless of whether it is related to your industry of profession.  
• Have outstanding communication skills.
• Read books.  

Do you already possess a few of these habits?

Are there habits that you have observed and need to be on this list?  Let's share a few!

Finding Light in Darkness

In many ways, hitting rock bottom is the best place to be.  It really matters that you recognise you've reached your lowest point and its okay that you're there.  It's alright to feel a little lost, whether you: don't know what your passion is, know what your passion is but don't know how to get there, working hard but nothing is adding up.  Whatever the case is, know that an individual is always unique in their struggle and any negativity/depression that you feel is valid.

That being said, the most important part about all this is what you do next.  J. K. Rowling gave the commencement address at Harvard University (you might have heard of that university, maybe, its a small little thing :P) in which she said 'and so, rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.'  From my experiences, altering perspective to look at failure as an opportunity for development instead of a disappointment is the best way to be the best version of yourself.

This is why I wanted to write this post, to recognise the importance of failure in growth and to establish the key role that grown plays in reinvention.  To me, growth is like magic.  It's not the type of magic that comes in the form of spells and potions, blessings and saviours nor is it anything like love.  It's that one day you'll look at yourself in the mirror and not recognise who you are, the moment will take you by surprise, and you will realise that you're not who you used to be.  You haven't changed in your fundamental personality or character, you've simply grown as an individual.

As a pick me up, I'll do my next post in this series about growth but I did want to emphasise that once you find light in your struggle, it's just the beginning.