For you to be successful in creating success habits it is essential that you know what you want to achieve and why you want it. You need to committed to creating it and this requires you to understand why it is important to you. How it will change you and your life.

Of course you have created a plan and there is an end goal. However, it is crucial that you evaluate your plan every day to ensure that you are on the right path. There is no point continuing to aim for something that you no longer desire as you will lose the commitment and focus required to achieve it.

Success habits require commitment and focus. To maintain these, you need a positive mind-set and to be emotionally invested in achieving your goal. Without these you will lose interest and momentum. Eventually, you will allow negative self-talk and behaviors to interfere with your practice and plans.

If your end goal changes then put the new goal into your plan and re-check every step to ensure that you remain committed and able to achieve the goal.

It may be that your original goal was to wake at 6.00 am every day as this would give you 2 extra hours before the start of your normal working day’s routine. Waking early is a success habit adopted by the majority of successful people as they understand the importance of time and routine. You may find that 2 hours is not enough time to complete the tasks that you feel are essential for reaching your goal and that you feel stressed and inefficient instead of positive and well planned.

You could re-plan and go to bed slightly earlier so that you can get up at 5.00 am. This would give you an extra hour in the morning to complete the tasks you feel are essential for a successful start to your day.

Your day should start in a positive way. This sets you up for success from the start. You need to develop a morning routine that works for you. It should include a healthy nutritious breakfast as well as something that will provide positive motivation for the day ahead. This will probably involve you trialling different activities such as exercise, reading, listening to audio recordings, studying, yoga, self-hypnosis, visualization or using positive affirmations.

It is important that you find what works for you. This will take trial and error. It may also involve using different methods depending on the habit you are trying to create and the end goal you are aiming for. Being flexible is crucial. Flexibility ensures that when change occurs you view it in a positive light, accept it and go with it.

As you change and grow creating the success you desire you will want to evaluate which success habits you need. Don’t be afraid to change them as the changes you make will create more commitment and focus. For your ultimate goal to be achieved you need to undertake constant evaluation of your mind-set, your habits, strengths, weaknesses, motivation and goal. This constant re-evaluation will help you create success habits that work for you and not against you.

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If you want to achieve anything, then you have to know yourself. You need to self-knowledge and personal mastery.

When you are creating your plan for achieving a goal or new success habit you need to start with you. It is important that you look at your life as it is now. How it makes you feel. What your strengths and weaknesses are. What bad habits you have that can work against you and stop you making progress. You may need to go back and look at where these behaviors came from and why they developed.

Self-knowledge is powerful. It not only helps you understand who you are but it can help you create a strong vision of who you want to be.

Personal vision is a key component of creating success habits and forming goals. It helps guide you and can keep you on track. You are able to change your outlook on life and take a new approach. Removing old negative ways of thinking and instead becoming positive and confident.

Self-knowledge allows you to create positive change. You are able to think more clearly and creatively. You adopt personal responsibility acknowledging that you are the master of your own destiny. Your behavior will become more proactive instead of reactive.

The benefits of developing a deeper knowledge of yourself are:

Less stress because you are more flexible in your outlook and attitude. You are able to accept and deal with change.

Better decision making skills as you understand the importance of planning and goal setting. You know that choices have to be made and the more you practice the more adept you become.

Emotional intelligence grows as you have greater self-knowledge and can master your emotions as you understand them.

Removal of bad habits as you know yourself and can recognise the origins of bad habits and deal with them.

By introspection and gaining a deeper self-knowledge you create personal mastery. Success habits are important factors in creating and achieving goals. By knowing yourself you can identify which success habits you need to create. You also ensure that you are committed to achieving them and have the necessary vision, commitment and focus to achieve success.

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To discover what success means to you is a simple process. Follow the steps below and you can create a plan to achieve the success you desire in whatever area of your personal or professional life you choose. You will discover the success habits you need to build into your life to achieve your goal.

First, you need to decide what you want to achieve (your goal) to be successful. Write it down. Be very descriptive and use the present tense.

Write down why achieving this is important to you. What does it mean to you? How motivated are you to achieve this goal?

Then, write down how you will feel when you achieve your goal. How will your life change? Again be very descriptive and write using the present tense.

Next, write down your current situation and how that makes you feel. Although that is how you feel right now try writing it in the past tense. This will begin to change the way you think about your situation and move towards creating the success you want. Your mind will begin to distance itself from your current situation and begin to believe that you are moving towards your goal.

You now have your starting and ending points on your journey to success. Now you need to fill in how you are going to get there.

What needs to change to make your situation change and to get you from where you are to achieving your goal of success? Write down each step. You will find that you will need to look at your mind-set, behavior and habits.

Identify potential blocks to achieving your goal. Write them down and add how you will overcome them.

By completing the tasks above you are undertaking one of the key success habits; goal setting. You are also learning to know yourself better which is another habit for success because self-knowledge and positive mind-set will help you identify your goal, understand what success means to you and create a plan that will help you achieve it.

To achieve success you need to understand what success is, what it means to you and how you will achieve it.

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There are certain things you can do when this happens.

First it is important that you remember that most obstacles that will happen are created by your own limiting beliefs.

Think Positively

Positive thinking is a key success habit in itself. If this is not already a habit of yours then you should consider creating this habit first as it is crucial for all other habits and goal completion. All successful people are positive. They know who they are, what they want and how to get there. They are also willing to work to achieve their goals.

Relax

While it’s quite natural to become stressed when something unexpected occurs it is important that you have planned for this eventuality and have strategies in place that can help you deal with it calmly. Staying calm and relaxed is crucial. Breathe deeply, focus on yourself and the moment. Tell yourself it is just a blip and you can cope with it. Remember, that one of the key factors for success is flexibility. You must be open to change. Even unexpected change!

Take time out to do something else if you can. Perhaps listen to calming music or take a walk. Exercise releases endorphins and makes you feel good. Consider doing meditation, yoga, tai chi or self-hypnosis.

Persevere

You are in this for the end game. You are not a quitter as quitters don’t win. At the start of your journey to creating a new success habit create a positive affirmation to use for exactly a situation like this. That way when something unexpected happens you can use it to reinforce your determination and focus ensuring that you solve the problem and continue towards achieving your goal.

Actively Seek New Opportunities

When something happens that puts a spanner in the works and causes you to stop in your tracks, take the opportunity to learn from it. Is there something that needs to change or be done to get your plans back on track?

Re-evaluating your plans and strategies along the way is an important part of goal setting. Remember your plans should not be rigid and nor should your end goal. Are you still on the right path or is there something that needs to be changed?

Dream

Whether you think of it as dreaming or visualizing keep your goal in sight. Your journey to creating success and new habits started with a dream and you need to keep that in your mind.

Visualize yourself living the life you are working to create. See yourself using your new success habits to help you plan and create a new future for yourself.

Remembering what you are working for will help you stay committed, focused and taking action.

There will be times on your journey to success that you stumble or fall. It is essential to remember that these are temporary set-backs. Your attitude towards how you deal with them will be the key to whether you succeed or fail.

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Plan

Success habits don’t just happen by accident. They are created by design. Creating a plan will increase the chances of your successfully creating a new habit. Think of the plan like a roadmap. Include your starting point, the final goal and all the steps along the way. Don’t forget to note down potential stumbling blocks and how you will overcome them.

Many people include a vision board in their planning. This is a great way to see what your goal looks like and when placed somewhere that you will see it regularly can reinforce the goal you want to achieve.

Focus

You must be committed to your goal of creating a new habit. If you are not committed, then the chances of succeeding in attaining it reduce dramatically. It is important to believe that you will create your new habit and to be able to see yourself doing it.

Write down a positive statement that affirms you have created your new habit.

For example, if you want to create the success habit of waking early then you could write, ‘I wake at 5.00 am every day refreshed and ready to start my day. I use my extra time to run for 20 minutes and to eat a healthy breakfast. I spend 30 minutes reading a motivational book because I know that it helps me improve my knowledge and will inspire me. Before I start my work I make sure that I plan my day and make sure that I know which tasks are important for helping me to achieve my goal.’

Know Yourself

Self-knowledge is crucial to creating new habits, as well as eliminating old ones.

You need to understand your strengths and weaknesses. It is important to know where you are right now, where you want to be and what needs to change.

By knowing yourself you can create a growth mind-set. This ensures that you understand that action is important as by taking action you create change which leads to success.

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Once you have decided that you are not satisfied at the exact point you are at in your life then you will need to do something to change your life to get where you want to be. Your success will be achieving your dream.

To do that you need to create a goal and a plan for getting there.

This is what all successful people have done. They have taken stock of their life or work situation and decided where they wanted to be. They then devised a plan to get there. Each plan had a set of steps to follow.

The correct habits can make you more successful. Success habits are not necessarily ones that come naturally to any of us but they can be learned. Remember it takes at least 21 days to create a new habit as they need daily repetition to become ingrained and automatic.

If you want to be successful then you will need to develop the following habits:

Determination: do not give up at the first hurdle; keep going. The pain or struggle is temporary and will go to be replaced with something much better. Give up and the pain and struggle will continue indefinitely as nothing will have changed. Develop the habit of identifying potential problems and how you can overcome or deal with them before they even happen.

Self-confidence: it is frequently our own limiting beliefs and low self-confidence that holds us back from achieving our goals. Believe in yourself and your abilities. Develop the habit of positive self-talk every day. Use affirmations regularly.

Life-long learning: the most successful people believe in life-long learning. They read every day and are constantly updating their knowledge. Develop the habit of reading for a minimum of 30 minutes every day and consider listening to audiobooks on your commute.

Early rising: by getting into the habit of getting up early you will give yourself time to create a morning routine that sets you up for success each day. Use the time to eat a healthy breakfast, fit in a workout or do some reading. Starting your day in a positive way is hugely motivational and sets your mind up for success. Get into the habit of planning out your day, listing all the important things that must be done for you to achieve your daily goals as well as to move you closer to your ultimate goal.

These four habits are some of the most important ones to create success. You will be amazed at the difference you can make in all aspects of your life and work by making these small changes. Once you have these success habits in your life then you can create your vision for the future and work out your plan to get there knowing that you are already part way there.

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The good news is that the success habits of these people are habits that anyone can adopt in their own lives to achieve the success that they desire. After all many of these highly successful people started out from places similar to where you are. They just took action to change their minds and their lives.

If you are completely happy with every aspect of your personal and professional lives, then you will probably not want to make any changes. However, it may be that if you look at yourself really closely that you will find something that you want to improve.

Ask yourself the following questions. Be totally honest with yourself in your answers.

Is your life fulfilling?

Do you feel happy and contented?

Do you live comfortably with enough to save for retirement and unexpected emergencies?

Are you really happy in your job or is there something else that you really want to do to earn your living?

Where do you see yourself in 5 years, 10 years or even 20 years?

Is that where you want to be?

If you answered ‘No’ to any or all of the questions above, then you are ready to change your mind and your life by developing success habits.

By deciding to take the initiative and develop new habits dedicated to success and change you will be able to create the life and future you want.

What are the success habits that you could develop?

Prioritization: knowing what tasks are important and doing those first. Keeping lists can help you prioritize.

Goal setting: identifying goals and knowing what to do to achieve them.

Waking early: getting up even half an hour earlier each day can help you create a more effective routine and start to your day. Many of the most successful people get up 2-3 hours before starting work each day.

Visualization: being able to visualize what you want and what you and your life will look like when you achieve it is a powerful habit for developing success.

Exercise and diet: eating healthily and developing an exercise regime is another key habit for success. The mind and body are inter-connected.

Self-knowledge: knowing yourself really well is an essential habit for success. Understanding your strengths and weaknesses is important. Eric Thomas, the Hip Hop Preacher, said, “Ask the real you to stand up.” By knowing yourself you can then identify the future you really wish to create.

Networking: meeting people who are successful in the area you wish to develop success in can help you gain knowledge, tips and insight. You will also create friendships, partnerships and surround yourself with positive role models.

Success habits are not exclusive to the rich and famous. They are valuable habits that can enrich your life regardless of age, gender or ethnicity. If you want a happy and fulfilling personal and professional life then you need to start cultivating these habits today.

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It is a well-known fact that habits take at least 21 days to master and to become automatic. Of course the exact timing depends on the complexity of the habit you wish to create (or break). Repetition and practice are crucial.

The following is a simple outline of a 9 step habit creation plan that will help you create your new success habit in 21 days.

Step 1: Identify your goal. What is it that you want to achieve? Write it down. That is the end point and where you want to be at the end of the 21 days.

Step 2: Identify the components of your habit. Every habit is made up of three key components.

The Cue: sometimes called the trigger. This is what sets off the habit (good or bad).

The Behavior: this is what happens when the cue occurs.

The Reward: this is the result gained from the behavior.

For example: Procrastination –

Cue: being asked to do a task that you perceive may be boring or time consuming.

Behavior: you make excuses not to do the task, you put it to one side saying that you will tackle it later.

Reward: you do something else instead that you enjoy.

Step 3: Create cues (triggers) for your new habit that you want to create.

Step 4: Identify potential road blocks and set-backs and how you will deal with them. By doing this in advance you will be able to push on through them. Remember you need to practice your new habit every day for a minimum of 21 days to succeed.

Step 5: Visualize yourself achieving your goal and being successful. By envisioning yourself successfully using your new habit you will create a positive connection in your sub-conscious mind and it will become more real.

Step 6: Make time every day to practice your new habit for a minimum of 21 days. You will know when you have successfully learned your new habit when you do it without planning or having to consciously think about doing it.

Step 7: Make yourself accountable to someone else. By doing this you are reinforcing your desire to achieve a successful outcome. Depending on your chosen goal it may be that you decide to get a coach or mentor.

Step 8: Take positive action. Identify the steps you need to take and take them. Be positive. If you are not positive and committed to your goal and new success habit then you are less likely to succeed.

Step 9: Reward yourself. Build in a reward for when you have achieved your goal and created your new habit. You will look forward to earning it if you make it something you really want; it will act like a carrot!

Creating a new habit has to be an intentional process. You must be committed to achieving your goal. By creating a plan you are increasing the level of success you will have because you are taking action.

You don’t have to create your plan on your own. You may use an accountability partner to help you or decide to use a coach or mentor with experience in the type of goals and success you are seeking to achieve.

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Being too Rigid: if you are too rigid in your thinking and attitudes then you are setting yourself up for failure.

While success requires planning you need to constantly evaluate the plans and change them as your goals and priorities change. Successful people understand the importance of change. They accept it and go with it instead of fighting or ignoring it. By being flexible they lessen the stressful aspect of change. They also adopt more creative ways of thinking as they develop ways to adapt plans.

If you fear change and refuse to review and adapt your goals and plans, then you are setting yourself up for failure and to be unsuccessful.

Being Fearful: fear is a negative emotion. Successful people understand that and develop a positive can-do attitude. They also have self-mastery; a complete knowledge of themselves. This helps them know their strengths and weaknesses.

A personal vision can guide them and keep them on track. It enables them to change their outlook on life and create new approaches. If you understand that fear is negative and can only hold you back, preventing you from achieving your goals, then you can learn to replace it with positive thoughts and attitudes.

Lacking Self-Confidence: the key to success is positive action and belief. If you believe you can and act as if you can then you will find that you can do it. Success habits require action because that leads to change which in turn leads to success.

If you want to be unsuccessful then let yourself believe your negative self-talk and image. This will allow fear to creep in and you will ensure that you will not achieve your goals.

However, if you want to be successful then you must be positive in mind-set and attitude. You must be willing to take action, to plan and to believe in yourself and your success. Use self-hypnosis, visualization or positive affirmations to help you create a more confident you. Invest in a coach to help you grow.

Lack of Planning: without a plan you are setting yourself up for failure. You cannot achieve anything if you don’t plan for it as you won’t know what you want, how to get it or why it is important.

Successful people plan. They plan for success. They plan to create the success habits that will help them achieve their goals. They understand themselves, their strengths and weaknesses. They evaluate themselves, where they are and where they want to be. Their self-knowledge enables them to create a plan that will work for them.

Adopt False Beliefs and Negative Self-talk: if you want to be unsuccessful then adopt false beliefs and negative self-talk. An example of this is to allow yourself to think that you cannot be successful or that you cannot earn six figures a year. These are just two examples of false beliefs that may be holding you back from success.

Successful people are positive thinkers. They do not allow false beliefs and negative self-talk to hold them back. Instead they identify these behaviors and replace them with positive ones. Again, this is where self-knowledge and self-mastery are key.

Not Taking Personal Responsibility: if you want to be unsuccessful then don’t take responsibility and ownership of your actions and their outcome. Blame others when things go wrong.

Successful people take ownership of their actions and the consequences. They accept failure as part of the growth process and see it as a learning tool. During the planning process they try and identify potential pitfalls and road blocks so that they can plan how to deal with them and overcome them.

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” – Michael Jordan

If you want to be unsuccessful then you simply have to let those six actions guide you to the inevitable failure that follows. However, if you want to succeed then adopt the success habits and allow them to create the success you desire.

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Creating new habits has to be an intentional process and generally takes 21 days for the new behavior to be assimilated into daily life and routines.

Successful people tend to adopt the same habits. These success habits become part of their daily lives and help to keep them successful as they understand that the journey to success is not final. It continually moves as they need to keep growing in terms of achievement.

An entrepreneur may set his goal of achieving success at selling services worth 5 figures in one year. However, once that goal has been achieved he will re-evaluate his definition of success and set another goal for the following year.

Generally, the following five habits will be key to gaining success and maintaining it.

Positive Mind-set: having a positive mind-set can be learned. It will require mental programming (changing your thinking patterns). There are various ways to create a positive mind-set including using positive affirmations, visualization, self-hypnosis or coaching.

One of the most crucial factors in succeeding in anything is to believe that you can achieve it.

Exercise and Healthy Eating: taking care of the body through exercise, diet and good sleep routines is another crucial component. Research has shown a strong mind-body connection. By taking care of your body you are preventing ill-health from causing you problems on your way to achieving your goal.

Prioritization: successful people plan and they prioritize. They decide what the essential elements or tasks are each day and act on those first. By knowing which tasks will help them achieve their goal they are continuing to act on the plan for success that they created.

Delegating inessential tasks ensures that they get completed but do not detract from your ultimate goal.

Goal Setting: identifying the end goal and creating a plan is another essential habit. Without a goal you won’t know what you are aiming for. All successful people know what success means to them and plan how to achieve it.

Life-long Learning: whether it is reading, taking a course or listening to audio recordings, successful people understand that knowledge is power and a crucial aspect of helping them to achieve their goals. They stay up-to-date on relevant industry information, new trends and innovations. This is built into their daily routine.

These are just five of the key habits of successful people. By adopting these success habits into your daily routine you will be creating a stronger, healthier and more successful version of you.

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By setting up a plan for what to do if the original plan fails, we take away excuses. Without the plan, we would simply pass it off as trying. With a failure plan, we now have exact steps to take.

One question you may be asking yourself is how do you come up with a failure plan? Try to find others who have gone through the process of developing the habit you are trying to develop yourself. Ask them if they were successful in developing the habit and if they hit any roadblocks along the way. Ask what they did to overcome those roadblocks. That, in essence, becomes your failure plan.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep those same people in the loop as far as your progress. They can act as a kind of support group and can serve to keep you on track. This not only helps you achieve your desired results but it has the potential to build up some friendships as well.

Too many people look at failure as a losing entity when in fact it should be looked upon as the opposite. If you peel back the layers of experience of many successful people, you will see those layers filled with failures. It’s how they handled those failures that led to their success. It’s what you do with the failures that define whether you will eventually succeed. The only surefire way to truly fail is to give up completely.

You may also wonder what happens if the failure plan doesn’t work out. There is nothing stopping you from having multiple failure plans in the event one of them didn’t help you achieve the results you were looking for. Having multiple alternate plans will give you the confidence that you can succeed and will show you that you are committed to doing so. This greatly increases the chances of success because failure is no longer an end game, it’s a new starting point.

Any plans you do come up with, write and print them out. Refer to them whenever you are trying to accomplish what’s on those plans.

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A qualified mentor will be able to set up a program that is specific to your needs. They will get to know you and what you are looking to accomplish and structure a plan. They can also be helpful in keeping you on track.

This is the idea behind weight loss centers such as Jenny Craig and others. When you join these kinds of programs, you are assigned a counselor that works with you. This is similar in concept to a personal trainer when you join a gym. The trainer will structure an exercise program that is specific to you.

There are other types of habits that may lend well to having a mentor. In fact, you can hire someone to be a life coach. This person will structure a plan in several categories of your life that you are looking to improve. Obviously, you want to find someone who is qualified. The best way to go about this is word-of-mouth references. This type of coaching is expensive so you don’t want to rely solely on a Google search to find a qualified mentor.

Try to find a friend or colleague who has gone through a similar program and ask if the mentor they used actually helped them out. Try to notice if these people have improved their lives. Do you see noticeable changes in these people? If you don’t see changes, this could mean the mentor wasn’t much good or they simply reverted back to their old habits. Either way, that could be a red flag.

In order for a mentor to structure a program towards your needs, you need to prepare exactly what you want to get out of the program. You should ask many questions about what is going to be expected of you and what kind of time you are going to be required to put into making the necessary changes. You also want to find out what type of support is available during the program as well as when it is complete. Ask about a guarantee as well. You are paying for results so you want it to actually work for you.

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