8 Unusual Habits of Highly Successful People
We make our habits and then our habits make us.
How we spend our days is what distinguishes the billionaires from the millionaires from the average Joe/Joanne. The super successful elite have learnt the skills of time management and prioritisation, as well as the biggest success secret of all — a winning mindset.
They practice, embrace failure, and have a powerful morning routine.
They have faith in their dreams and vision, and are innovators who solve problems.
Tony Robbins taught us that success is replicable, so below I summarise what I have found to be key themes in the lives of the world’s most successful people — like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Michael Jordan, Oprah.
I also need to stress the importance of energy work to you! You will need to envision, embody and “act as if” you are the person that you want to become. What do they think about? What do they wear? How do they behave? This will all help you to become an energetic match for the new life you desire.
So — what do highly successful people do differently?
Highly successful people know that time is their most valuable asset because it can’t be replaced, unlike money. Therefore, they will capitalise on time efficiencies and spend money on things that will save them time in the long term, rather than cash in the short term. This is the opposite of what many people do when they choose to do tasks themselves in order to save cash immediately. This distinction between long term and short term thinking is a key feature of the super successful. For example, they will hire cleaners, chefs and assistants in order to save time on low value-add tasks, even if it’s expensive in the short term. They know that — given time — they will compensate for this expense in the long term, leaving them with a net value gain.
They’re also masters at prioritising and will organise their daily tasks in order of what will bring the most value, rather than what will please other people or diminish their anxiety the most. They will have multiple streams of income, many of them passive, so that they can literally make money in their sleep and avoid limiting their income by only getting paid per hour that they’re working.
When reading autobiographies of the world’s most successful people, meditation is a noticeable theme. Before Apple was born, Steve Jobs went on a barefoot spiritual adventure to India where he walked 7 miles every day to get lunch for free from a Hare Krishna temple; he had just left college with no great fortune yet. This trip not only made him highly spiritual, but it also taught him to train his brain using meditation.
Even CEO’s who don’t identify as “spiritual” use meditation to calm their brain’s impulses, stay focused on their higher goals, and remain vigilant in their pursuit of greatness. If meditation is new to you and you struggle to keep your mind quiet, then using a meditation app or short guided YouTube video can help.
The game changers know that the world is malleable, so they don’t take the status quo for an answer. People like Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are far less suggestible than other people, and made it their life mission to carry out their vision for a new and improved world. They don’t allow themselves the time to indulge in a victim mindset, and will actively seek to change things that they don’t agree with. In a world made of energy where we all have access to the Law of Attraction, it is always possible for you to start changing your own world at any given moment too.
Without knowing where you’re going, it’s impossible to ever get there. Arnold Schwartzenegger attributes his lifetime of success to habit number 4. He said that having a deadline — in the form of weightlifting competitions — spurred him into action and left him without spare time for procrastination or buffering. He knew with conviction that he wanted to become Mr Universe, so he gave this goal 100% of his energy and focus until he reached it. Physically writing down your goals and creating a vision board will give you clarity if you’re feeling unsure or lacking direction.
Jim Rohn said we “are the average of the 5 people that we spend most of our time with“. Whether this is entirely accurate or not, the people that we spend our time with certainly influences our success. It’s important to point out that you are spending your time with these people — your most limited and valuable asset of all, so always spend it wisely with people who will lift you up and support you.
This habit is especially important if you’re empathic or highly sensitive. We are all sharing our energy and responding to other people’s during our interactions, so if you’re with negative people who don’t understand your vision or goals, then you need to start building a network where you can share and grow your ideas. It may feel like you’re alone now, but with the internet and 7 billion other people on the planet, there are more opportunities for meetups and finding like-minded souls than ever.
You all know that I rave about my 5am starts, and it turns out that I’m not the only one! Richard Branson also gets up at 5am to play tennis before dealing with Virgin business for the rest of the day, because successful people like him make time work as efficiently as possible for them. The author of Girl, Wash Your Face, Rachel Hollis, also gets up at 5am because she said that it’s the only time in a day that she finds to read and meditate between looking after her 4 children and multi-million dollar business.
If you think 5am is early — Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson have both said that they get up at 3.45am to work out before a day of filming on set. Not having enough time to be successful is an easily accessible excuse, but if you’d like to add extra hours to your day then I strongly encourage you to download the timetable and try this 5am routine to enjoy the results of making a real change.
Thinking of solutions to common problems is how most super successful people achieve notoriety, and to make this happen they need to have time to think. This means that they’re not spending their evenings watching TV or their days mindlessly scrolling on Facebook. Steve Jobs famously had very little furniture in house, and said that he’d never let his children have an iPad. Technology is a wonderful thing with loads of huge benefits, but if it comes at the expense of productive thinking time, then it will strangle your success.
A productive tool that we have control over is our bodies. What we input (in terms of food and exercise) will determine our output (in terms of energy and productivity). According to studies, regular exercise makes you feel more motivated and clear-headed, which is essential for fresh new innovative ideas to flow through to your awareness. When these great ideas come in, you’re then able to strategise and act on them to create the solutions for people which will bring you huge success.
“I’m here to tell you to avoid putting your ladder on someone else’s wall and then spending the best years of your life climbing it… Find your own wall, your own dreams, and your own goals, and pursue them.” — Tom Corley (author of “Change Your Habits, Change Your Life”)
We all have the power to create our own success by being unrelenting with our dreams and uncompromising with these 8 habits. As I always teach, whatever you choose to create is within reach. There is so much available at each step of your journey to support you; even when you feel completely stuck — stop, drop & meditate and eventually the path will become clear. You have all of the answers within you, and I can’t wait to see what you create.
To your continued success…
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