How to Make Success a Habit

Once you experience success you will be able to look back and realize that you achieve all success pretty much the same way. You set a goal, follow through on the tasks needed to be done for achieving results, keep an open mind, learn from others, track your successes and learn from failure. It’s the same thing, over and over again. And it works.

If you want to create a pattern of success in your life, you can start now by learning the secret that successful people know. Successful people are only special because they are doers and follow through. They are not smarter than others; in fact it is entirely possible you are smarter on paper than they are. You just don’t follow through.

#1: Become a Goal Setting Expert

Start at the top and learn how to craft the best goals for yourself. Know that the goal is something that can be accomplished and know that the goal is measurable before you finish writing it. Most of all, make sure it’s a goal that you really want to achieve.

#2: Schedule Everything

People who achieve are doers. If you want to get something done, schedule it no matter how silly it might seem to you. If you put it in a schedule at a particular time, and not just on a generic “to do” list, it will be more likely that you get it done.

For instance, if you have set a goal to write a 80,000 word novel by a certain date, then you should know how many pages you need to get done each week and which days you can work on it, which times, hours, and how long it takes you to write a page. Successful writers write; they don’t wait for inspiration to strike. They schedule it, and do it. The same can be said for anything you want to achieve. You don’t wait until you want to do it; you do it on schedule.

#3: Automate the Mundane

There are a lot of things that need to be done but that can escalate easily into “busy work” which doesn’t get you closer to a goal. Bookkeeping for instance is something that can be accomplished today, with the right software, almost automatically. You can schedule payments to happen automatically; you can also use software that enters everything for you in the ledger. Freeing up time to focus on your scheduled activities that must be done to achieve the goal is a more productive use of time.

#4: Get Outside Expert Help

To be a success doesn’t mean you have to do everything yourself. You’re not on your own. The best scientists, professors, doctors, lawyers, and CEOs have assistants who help them look great. You too can hire outside help and contractors to help you do the tasks needed to reach your goals. Other than doing exercise for you and thing you must do physically for yourself, there isn’t much you can’t outsource today.

#5: Stop Reinventing the Wheel

In most cases, someone has already done it before you. Someone has already worked out the kinks and devised a plan of action that will work for you too with hardly any tweaks. Learn from other people’s mistakes and realize that you can gain valuable information from what others are already doing.

#6: Never Stop Learning

They say it takes ten thousand hours of reading about a topic to become an expert on any subject. Keep this in mind as you look toward your future and set your goals. If you want to be an expert, you’ll need to start today building up those ten thousand hours. Even if you know nothing about a topic today, you can be an expert in just ten thousand hours.

#7: Know Your Core Values

As you set goals to create a pattern of success, it's imperative that you know what your core values are in terms of family, personal, financial and your physical life. Everyone has different areas they need to work on more than others – you need to know what your areas are to set realistic goals that you want to meet.

#8: Track, Assess, Repeat

Nothing is ever done without the paperwork, as they say. Well, that includes creating a pattern of success. Only by setting goals, then tracking and assessing the results of the goals, and then repeating what works will you create a pattern of success.

Creating a pattern of success requires knowledge of goal setting, and goal achieving, and an in-depth knowledge of yourself. Starting today you can gain that knowledge and create a real pattern of success in your life.