Does acting like a successful person lead to a successful business?

24/08/2011

Some people look like they have it all, the perfect work/life balance, a profitable business and everything they try is a triumph - what makes them so successful?

There's more to life than striving for success, right? Right. But wouldn't it be nice if you could tap into the reasons why some people are more successful than others, it might be the ideal way to give your business the boost it needs. Well, here are just some of the reasons...

Act now

There's always something more important to do, such as reply to emails and respond to customer enquiries - but does that mean there's not a single second to do anything else? Could you squeeze five minutes out of your day to work on your marketing strategy or accounts?

Being successful means grabbing every opportunity to work towards your goals and schedule some time in your diary to do so, if necessary, as a constant reminder to keep at it.

Be realistic

When setting your goals and working out how best to achieve them, you must remain realistic. Break the goal down into manageable steps and complete one before moving on to the next.

Your achievements will motivate you to move on, but keep your feet on the ground and never underestimate your efforts, or how difficult it might be to reach those goals.

Focus on the journey

Change the way you think about achievement - do you want to be good at something right away, or do you want to improve the way you go about it?

Getting better at something, whether responding to your customers' enquiries, providing a more efficient after-care service or nurturing your company's social media strategy, is a journey not a destination.

High-achievers recognise the importance of improving, if you work at being better at your objectives, their outcomes are likely to improve naturally.

Believe in yourself

It might sound like a cliché, but successful people don't get results by thinking they would never amount to anything.

Embrace the fact that you know how to succeed, set your realistic goals in place, work towards them slowly but surely and enjoy the process of improving your skills.

Have self-control

Practice self-control, force yourself out of your comfort zone by doing tasks you don't enjoy on a regular basis. Do you neglect your accounts? Set aside 15 minutes first thing each morning to tackle the task and don't budge. Never schedule anything in the first 15 minutes of your day and when you feel like skipping the accounts one day, don't. Sit down and take control, have a back-up plan for when you start to falter and stick to the plan.

Don't do too many things at once

Achieving your goals is a challenging task, so don't make too many big changes at once. Focus on one thing at a time and try to avoid temptation. Promised yourself you'd write a blog post every Friday afternoon? Then don't take a long lunch and skip it, even once. Successful people know there's no point in making the journey more difficult than it already is.

Focus on the positives

Replace bad habits with good ones and tell yourself what you will do from now on, instead of focusing on what you want to change. So instead of thinking 'I must stop letting my emails get out of control', tell yourself what you will do to change the behaviour. Set aside an hour each day to respond to enquiries and take a positive step towards changing your behaviour.

The people you perceive as successful are unlikely to have followed a list of ways in which they can improve, but taking inspiration from the way they think is certain to set you off in the right direction.

Adapted from Heidi Grant Halvorson's post on the Harvard Business Review.  

previous article next article