Six key habits that create sustainable success
Just about everybody will experience some sort of success during the course of their life. However, there is a marked difference between the success that most people experience randomly and the sustainable success that some people experience regularly. The difference between the random and the regular is action. In other words, if we consistently do the right things we are more likely to achieve the right results and if we occasionally do the right things we may occasionally achieve the right results.
1. Surround yourself with the right people
One of the best and most impactful things that you can do is to associate with those who share your values and from whom you can learn the right habits. A good support structure will provide a valuable source of encouragement in difficult times as well as a sounding board to bounce ideas off when you are looking for a second opinion.
2. Make sacrifices
You cannot experience sustainable success if you are not prepared to make sacrifices, take risks and go the extra mile. The thing to keep in mind is that sacrifices are scalable (ie: the greater your ambition, the more you will have to give up). A willingness to make sacrifices increases access to opportunity and increased access to opportunity increases prospects for sustainable success.
3. Take responsibility
Success and trust go hand in hand. If you are going to be successful, you will inevitably need people to trust you. Nothing will do more to create a climate of trust around you than your willingness to take responsibility — particularly when things have gone wrong. Taking responsibility speaks to your credibility, credibility builds confidence and confidence builds trust.
4. Establish and maintain good routines
If you live ten minutes away from the train station, and your train leaves the station each morning at 7.00am, then you’ll need to leave home at least ten minutes early each day to catch it. By maintaining simple routines like this, you will be able to maintain a relationship with success.
5. Exercise patience
Even when everything is going well, the realisation of successful outcomes often takes time. However, when you throw frustration, disappointment and the prospect of failure into the mix, the journey to success can be take even longer. Always keep in mind that patient people don’t want it now; patient people want it when it’s ready.
6. Apply your mind to learning
To mature and grow in success you also have to grow in knowledge and understanding. It goes without saying that knowledge empowers you to make better choices, decisions and judgements. This in turn increases the frequency with which you are likely to experience successful outcomes.
I suppose the question we need to ask ourselves is this: “how do we want to experience success”? If, as I imagine, we all expect to experience success on a consistent basis, then we need to create the conditions for our expectations to produce consistent results.
