Successful Habits to Develop

Success doesn’t happen overnight. But of course you know that, you’re advancing your education and career at EBI already. While education and resource are absolutely important for success, they don’t guarantee it. The most successful people in the world will tell you that their achievements were not entirely earned in the classroom. They worked hard to cultivate the proper habits that would support the level of success they dreamed of. The trick to these successful habits is that the earlier you begin developing them, the more they will help you in the long run. Identifying such habits and then implementing them into your life are the first two steps.

Be Proactive

Start training yourself to stay two steps ahead of whatever priorities occupy your life. Rather than having a reactive attitude – responding to events after the fact or waiting for work to be put on your plate – be proactive. Plan out your next two months to the best of your ability, start working on the next lesson of your toughest class, pay your bills well before the deadline, get your vehicle’s oil changed at 2,000 miles instead of 3,000. These are merely examples, but the point applies across the board. No matter the task, begin practicing a proactive mindset. From the simplest everyday things to planning your future, start practicing now. Enforcing a proactive mindset is a behavioral change that will take time and diligence, but is one of the most profound things you can do for yourself.

Challenge Yourself

You might have heard comfort zones are the enemy of progress. For the most part, this is true. The focus here is not to challenge yourself just for the sake of taking on challenges. The focus is to enjoy challenging yourself. The more challenging tasks you take on and successfully tackle, the more confidence you will gain and the more you’ll enjoy being challenged. Once you’ve achieved that mindset, you’ll find taking on more work, and increasingly difficult work, enjoyable as well. There are no shortcuts here. As you progress through your academic program and everyday life, do things that scare you, things that you don’t know if you’ll actually be able to do. Of course you will fail sometimes. It’s the intent and effort that count. Put your all into those daunting challenges and you’ll soon see more successes than failures.

Surround Yourself With The Right People

Greatness is rarely achieved alone. Whether you realize it or not, the people around you heavily influence your life, achievements, and overall mindset. If your current or old friends don’t share your ambition or career interest, do your best to go out and find those people. If you’re in school this should be easy, just form study groups with fellow students in your program. This is not to say you have to do away with your old friends, only make new ones.

Stay Healthy

A healthy body stimulates a healthy mind. Go the extra mile to ensure you’re staying on top of your health. Eat right, exercise when you can, and never ever take sleep for granted. You’ll find working toward your goals is much easier when you’re not constantly tired and out of shape.

Track Your Growth

Once you’ve hit it big, you’ll probably want to see how far you’ve come. Until then, tracking your progress throughout your education and career will help motivate you to keep pushing forward. There are many ways you can track your progress. You can (and should) maintain a detailed agenda or planner for starters. Another good idea is to save all projects you work on in school or on the job so you have something tangible to look back at. A more obvious method is to continuously earn and collect certifications, awards, and anything else marking your progress.

Read More

This habit applies to every single person in any given career path. Reading is the single easiest and most beneficial thing you can do for yourself. Books, online articles, white papers, study cases, and anything else you can get your hands on will do nothing but make you more intelligent. Preferably you will read materials directly related to your profession, but any kind of reading – fiction, fantasy, mystery, thriller, poetry – will expand your mind.

These habits are only the beginning. As you progress through your career and education you will undoubtedly form habits of your own. Just make sure they’re positive to your overall goal – success.