Have you ever wondered what those highly successful people have that you don’t seem to?
Or maybe you are one of the successful people and you’re curious as to how your personal habits and outlook have influenced your success.
Some of their success may be due to luck, but much of it comes from cultivating winning habits and keeping a laser focus on the ultimate goal. So instead of standing on the sidelines viewing with envy, here are some habits of highly successful people that will help YOU write the Success Story of Your Life.
Habits of Highly Successful Authors: Independence, Interdependence, and Dependence
Successful people tend to know the difference between these three concepts and recognize that interdependence is the key place to be. Too much independence can inhibit success because inevitably we need others to help us on our way. Excessive dependence prohibits success, too, but in a different way. Dependence means total reliance on others, which can rapidly turn you into a burden!
In contrast, interdependence is the healthy recognition that you need others to succeed – you need for people to buy your product, or approve your work, or give you some much-needed encouragement. But interdependence recognizes that you have an active role in your success. Interdependence is not passive.
Habits of Highly Successful Authors: Implementing and Taking Action
Highly successful people tend to be proactive. They don’t spend all of their time coming up with ideas and forming personal ethics and principles and then stopping there. Being successful means getting something done, so eventually, those ideas and principles will need to be put into action. People who succeed think through their goals first, but they get beyond the thinking stage and move into the proactive realm.
Habits of Highly Successful Authors: Making Goals and Staying True to Them
Setting out to accomplish something without a goal in mind is not very conducive to success. As noted above, successful people do think things through before taking action. So setting goals and seeing that they are doable is a good first step toward success. It’s also important to note if those goals really fit what you value personally. You may lose your motivation to succeed if you aren’t working toward something you value.
If the act of goal making makes you feel like you need to run in the other direction, just know it doesn’t have to be grandiose or complicated. Start by writing down 3 of your Most Important Tasks (MITs). These need to be To Dos that move your business, writing or book promotion forward. Achieve these three and write down three more. Keeping it around 3 makes it less overwhelming and more manageable.
Habits of Highly Successful Authors: Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize
Yes, successful people know how to prioritize. Putting “first things first” helps propel people toward success. There is, after all, an order in which things are done most effectively and efficiently. Successful people recognize what’s really important, and concentrate their energies there first.
Time Management guru and CEO, Rita Davenport, shared her powerful “3D’s of Time Management” many moons ago in one of her many books and audio training. Rita, a Hall of Fame Keynote Speaker, author, mom, wife, and regular TV and radio host, knows what it takes to effectively manage her days and prioritize her projects.
Drop it: Take a hard look at the things you are spending your time doing every day. Is it really necessary to read all of the junk emails that hit your inbox, or say “yes” to every invitation that comes across your desk? Your time can be drained away by these trivial and ineffective tasks, so learn to identify them and drop them like a bad habit.
Delegate it: Most busy authors need to learn how to delegate in order to free themselves up to do what they do best; make money for their business. Make a list of tasks that are critical to the function of your business, but pull you away from the main goal of your business: writing books. Those are the tasks to delegate immediately, thus freeing you up for more important things.
Do It: Don’t allow yourself to fall into the procrastinating trap; just DO the task and move on with your day. Chances are you spent more time worrying about doing the task than you did performing it anyway.
Cultivating Empathy and Understanding
These days, many people are slow to seek understanding and quick to “flame” others. Sources say that success depends, in part, on seeking to understand others before you try to get others to understand you. This is probably because people appreciate being “heard” and understood, and will be much more likely to help you in your efforts.
Remember, you need others to succeed!
What factors, traits and Habit of a Highly Successful Author to you feel YOU have? Share in the comments below.
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