Successful people are celebrated, written about and held in high esteem. What separates a successful person from an average person or an unsuccessful person? It starts with 10 critical traits.
1. They Challenge the Status Quo:
Successful people aren't fond of the status quo. They do not like rules. They challenge conventional wisdom, seek the truth and they revolt at the sign of mediocrity. They believe in the impossible and are driven by the words of those who say they can't do something.
2. They Don't Fear Failure. They Embrace It:
While most people fear failure, successful people embrace it. They know that failure leads to learning and learning leads to success, because the faster you fail the sooner you will find the path to success.
3. They Have a Strong Sense of Self:
It can be difficult to determine who you are and where you fit in the world. Not for successful people. They have a strong sense of self. They know who they are, what their purpose is, and they relentlessly pursue constant self-exploration as a means of measuring how what they do aligns with their sense of self.
4. They Desire to Improve Things:
Most people go through life and see problems that affect them and others around them. These problems could be as simple as a work-related efficiency issue or as complex as a global social epidemic. While your average person ignores things that need improvement, successful people seek to improve those things and take ownership.
5. They are Goal-Oriented:
Setting goals and sticking to them is very challenging for the average person. They allow the complexities of life to get in the way. Not successful people. They separate their goals between long-term and short-term, and they realize that incremental short-term goals help accomplish the larger long-term goal.
6. They Have Confidence:
Confidence shouldn't be confused with arrogance. Confidence is the belief and conviction in self and what you apply your time to. Successful people are great at this. While most people prefer to "stay grounded" or "stay down to Earth," successful people keep their head in the clouds, not necessarily as a means of feeling as though they're above others, but as a process for ensuring the world and everyone in it doesn't bring them down to their level.
7. They Have a Positive Relationship With Time:
For most people, time is a vicious enemy. It's something that they can never seem to have enough of and they're busy constantly trying to manage it, but are rarely successful at doing so. Successful people know that time can't actually be managed, because you can only manage something that you can actually change. Time does not change. It does not stop, pause or go backwards therefore it can not be managed. Instead, successful people prioritize the things that matter most, focus on those and leave the rest to be tackled on another day.
8. They are Optimistic:
In a world riddled with chaos, controversy, death and taxes, it can be extremely easy to develop a negative outlook on life. Successful people see through the noise and continue traveling forward. They don't concern themselves with the minutiae of these momentary disruptions. They see the glass as half full. They see light at the end of the tunnel. For successful people, this isn't just about wishful thinking, it's a survival mechanism.
9. They Embrace Challenges:
We live in a world where industries are constantly trying to make things easier, rather it's a get rich quick scheme or magic weight loss pill. This mentality makes the average person lazy, more risk-averse and complacent. Successful people see things like financial struggles or weight loss not as a burden, but as an incredible challenge to conquer. They create short-term and long-term goals to break through challenges and come out the opposite end victorious.
10. They Stay Focused on the Few:
Multi-tasking is an enemy of us all, yet we've been forced to embrace it by our employers and educators despite the fact that science has proven that the human brain cannot successfully do multiple things at once. Successful people frown upon multi-tasking and instead focus on the few. They focus on the few things in front of them and remove all other distractions. While in the middle of their work they turn off cell phones, notifications and they commit to only that which is in front of them.