The one habit that EVERY successful person knows (and every unsuccessful person ignores)

It doesn’t matter how you define success, what you are about to read is going to be true.

Think of every successful person you know about. What do they do that unsuccessful people do not do?

The answer is simple… perhaps more frustratingly simple than you would want to believe.

 

 

The most successful people in the world take action.

They act.

They move forward.

They do something.

They don’t sit still.

They don’t wait until everything is perfect.

They don’t wait until they know EXACTLY what they should be doing.

They have a plan but they don’t wait until all the pieces are in place.

They don’t wait until Monday to start.

They just take one step and move forward right now.

Unfortunately, many people don’t do these things… and that’s why many people aren’t successful. They don’t act and therefore, they wallow in mediocrity and don’t achieve the greatness that successful people achieve.

Here are some examples that are all-too-common in life:

• How often does someone decide to diet… but they’ll start tomorrow (instead of starting right now)?
• How often does someone decide to start exercising… but they’ll start on Monday (instead of starting right now)?
• How often does someone decide to quit smoking… but they”ll make it a New Year resolution (instead of starting right now)?
• How often has someone wanted to quit their job and start a business… but they don’t have the “cushion” money or the plan (instead of starting right now)?
• How often has someone created a list of dreams or ideas in life… but all the pieces weren’t in place to start (instead of starting right now)?

It happens so often. We know we need to act but we often delay that action until some other thing is true (like the day of the week to “make a fresh start” or some cushion money just in case our business fails). Successful people know that the best time to achieve success is right now.

And here’s the one reason why this works for them: It eliminates the possibility of other things getting in the way. (Let’s say someone wants to start a diet on Monday… they eat poorly for the days leading up to Monday as a pre-diet indulgence. And if they can’t start Monday for some reason, they decide to start NEXT Monday. Successful people, on the other hand, see every single day as a starting point, giving themselves seven times more starting opportunities!)

The best advice we can learn from the most successful people is:

Leap… then look

Start now and take action. Yes, it’s scary and you’ll make mistakes but successful people willingly accept these risks because they know that action breeds positive results and they learn from their mistakes anyway.

On the other hand, the people in life who are less successful — who don’t achieve their goals and dreams — are those who don’t take action. They have goals and dreams but they don’t move forward on them and they can find a million and one reasons not to.

If you have a goal that you haven’t started, I’d like you to stop reading this blog post and do one thing to move you toward that goal right now… even if you’re not sure what the step after will look like.

Posted on January 28, 2012