Five Habits Every Successful Person Has

The title of this blog post is ridiculous to me. There are as many ways to be successful as there are people. Listicles such as these draw people in and lead people down a path of inauthenticity. Are there things we can all do to improve our chances of success? Absolutely. Are they one size fits all? Absolutely not. For example, I have clients that the fastest way for them to fail is asking them to make a plan that is highly detailed, while others desperately need a highly detailed plan just to get through the day. Listicles that decree that there is one way to do things for everyone do not serve you, but they do get clicks because we all want the simple answer and to know why others are succeeding when we are not.

In fact, one of the questions I am asked most often is why do my peers have so much more than I do. I always tell my clients that we don’t truly know what another person has. The old adage “you never know what someone is going through” always rings true to me. There have been times in my practice that I have worked with clients who envy each other’s lives. Any life can look amazing from the outside, just as any person can look like they have it all together. This is true even when life is not ideal and our internal life is chaos. For me, success begins with knowing yourself and what you want and what you are willing to do to get it. If you are living an envy filled life, ask yourself: what is your envy allowing you to ignore?

I am always surprised by how often the brain chooses envy to distract us from our path and our purpose. Comparison is a distraction. It is a place to hide and shuts down productivity. When you feel envy, a desire for a life hack, or brain hack, ask yourself what truth you are avoiding. If you are alive, you are not a failure and have time to restructure your life so that you can enjoy your success and reach your goals. Spending time reading listicles based on pop psychology is a form of spinning your wheels. The next time you find yourself ruminating on what others have that you do not, take a moment to reflect on what you do have. Everyone has something to celebrate, even if it is simply that you are alive: that gives you time to make the most out of today. If you cannot make the most out of today, what can you do to make tomorrow a little bit better? Sometimes the smallest changes reap the greatest rewards.