50 Habits Of Successful People To Add To Your Life
Habits of successful people are great to implement into your daily life. These people are successful for a reason after all! Find out some great habits to add into your routine!
I love reading about the habits of successful people because if they’re successful then clearly they’re doing something right. I spent the time between Christmas and New Years not knowing what day it was because every day looked pretty much the same. I was either watching a Harry Potter marathon, or I was binge watching YouTube videos that YouTubers were making for the upcoming new year about habits and routines.
I watch videos and read blog posts like this throughout the whole year, and felt that I wanted to share what I have found to be the best habits for success in my research. I do many of these success habits in my daily life, and always notice a positive difference after implementing a new habit.
Listed below are habits for success that I found helpful for myself, and ones that I heard mentioned over and over again by different content creators, life coaches, and other successful people of influence so you know that they’re definitely effective and worth putting into practice.
So go grab yourself a drink, and dig in!
50 Habits of Successful People
Get Things Done With Time Blocking
Time blocking is such a simple yet powerful method to try. Set an alarm for 20 minutes and work on something for the full 20 minutes. This can be for a work project that you don’t enjoy, cleaning, working out etc. Keep your phone on do not disturb or on airplane mode and play some good music if that’ll help and just keep going for the full 20 minutes. First of all, you’ll be so surprised at how much you get done in that 20 minutes. Secondly, often you’ll find that it was getting started that was the hard part, and now you’ll probably be pumped up enough to get the whole task done if it isn’t already!
Break Your Big Goals Into Small Goals
When you have a big goal to focus on far into the future, when you look at the day to day it can feel so far away and unattainable. The way to get around that is to create small goals that are actionable to get you to your top goal. This way you have more mini successes on your way to the top, so it doesn’t feel like you’re not accomplishing anything. Plus these small goals are stepping stones to your big picture goal, so it makes it feel so much closer!
Focus On Mini Goal Setting
Focus on mini goal setting for yourself instead of the big end result. If you only focus on your end game, you’ll feel like you’re floundering and that’s going to result in you being unproductive and it’ll make it so much harder to get anywhere with your goals.
Celebrate Your Success
Touching on what I mentioned in the two above points, when you create small goals and you crush them, be sure to celebrate them! All success is worth celebrating, because it shows you’re heading in the right direction!
Have An Inspirational Mood Board
Sometimes you need a bit of a boost of motivation, so having a board to visually see that reminds you of what you’re working towards is a great way to keep you moving forward. This can be a physical board that you place images and words on like a vision board, or it could be a private Pinterest board where you pin things that raise your vibration and get you hyped to keep going! You can include things like motivational quotes, photos of your goals, positive affirmations, or just beautiful things that make you happy!
Learn From Your Failures
As a girl boss, you can’t be afraid to fail! Failure is inevitable, so the best thing you can do is learn from it. When something doesn’t work out, you have learned that your current method or path isn’t the way for you, so you can reevaluate and try a new way instead of wasting your time on the one way that happens to not be working. You can’t have success without failure, so embrace it! This is a tricky, but super essential one of the habits of successful people.
Find a Mentor
Finding a business mentor or someone to look up to in your field can be super helpful to help you pave your way to success. It’s great to find inspiration from someone who has done it before, and shows you that your dream can be achieved! Having a business mentor isn’t meant to be someone that you’re copying though. You can use them as inspiration for your goals, but put your own spin on things. Be authentic to yourself and your message.
Be Curious
When you’re curious you ask questions. When you ask questions you grow. Never lose your curiosity for your passion. Always strive to learn more.
Don’t Act Like a Know-it-All
Again, like mentioned above, always keep your curiosity and be willing to learn. You can always learn from people around you, books, internet, podcasts etc. Never believe that you know everything there is to learn.
Plan Your Day
I used to be so against this (I loved my lazy lifestyle). I figured since I was a work at home girl boss, I could sleep until whenever, and just work when I felt like it. Then I wondered why my business wasn’t scaling the way I wanted it to. It turns out that in terms of habits of successful people, it’s actually super important to keep a schedule for yourself! For example, if you’re a blogger, having an editorial calendar is important because it helps to keep your content consistent! If you’re just waiting for inspiration to hit while you’re catching up on Netflix reruns, not much is going to happen in your business – I speak from experience. Having a blog schedule, or a general business schedule, also helps you keep track of what you need to do to keep track of your goals so you don’t fall behind and it prevents distraction since your time is accounted for during the day. Check out this Erin Condren Life Planner to get started with planning!
Keep Tidy
You might not have expected something like cleaning to show up in a post on habits of successful people, but it actually makes a lot of sense! Spend a few minutes every day tidying up your space. When your surroundings are cluttered, you mind gets cluttered which makes is so much harder to stay focused on your work. You’ll feel better overall when you have a clean environment to work and live in. By tidying every day for a few minutes, you prevent a big mess from starting up, so when you go around to do a full clean, it won’t take any time at all!
Exercise
Exercising is definitely an essential part of the habits of successful people list. Exercise helps to keep your mind and body healthy, especially if you sit a lot while you work. Doing even 10 minutes of stretching, or a quick brisk walk can be so helpful. Sometimes I find it helpful to do a walk half way through my work day because it helps me clear my mind. Then when I get back to work, I feel refreshed and am approaching things with a fresh set of eyes, and since I have detached for a bit, it can be very helpful to solve a problem you may have been stuck on.
Get Enough Sleep
Getting enough sleep is so important if you want to be an effective entrepreneur. Being well rested gives you a huge advantage to get things done because you have the energy for it. It also means you have less chances of making mistakes, because we make more mistakes when we are tired. Also having enough sleep is important for your overall health.
Mediate
Meditation helps with stress and anxiety, which seems to be on the rise these days. Being a business owner can definitely be stressful, and adding meditation into your routine can be very helpful to alleviate that stress, and help you tackle some of your more difficult tasks with ease.
Repeat Positive Daily Affirmations
Positive daily affirmations work with the Law Of Attraction to bring you what you want and put you in the right mindset to receive it. This is part of the habits of successful people for good reason. You can turn your goals into affirmations to help the process along, as well as saying positive affirmations about yourself daily to help bring up your vibration to match the vibration of what it is that you want to bring into your life (business success, financial success, great clients, etc.)
Plan the Night Before
It’s really helpful to make a to do list the night before you have to do them. Through the evening if you think of things that need to get done tomorrow, be sure to write them down. This way you aren’t wasting any time when you start your work day the next morning, you can jump right into your to do list first thing in the morning.
Create Smart Goals
SMART goals are goals that are bound for success. If your goals don’t fit into these categories, then chances are they may fail. For a goal to be successful, it should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound. Having these qualities in your goals is what makes them more likely to become a success, otherwise it’s more of a dream that you want to have happen “someday” instead of a goal that you’re taking action towards achieving daily.
Beat Procrastination
Be prepared with everything ahead of time. Plan the night before as I mentioned a few points up. Make things easier for yourself by breaking bigger tasks and goals into smaller tasks. Start with your most hated task to get it out of the way, then it’ll be easier to get through the rest of your tasks. Turn off your phone, disconnect wifi on your computer if you don’t need it, sign out of accounts like Facebook so you don’t mindlessly travel over there. When you want to be successful, you have to know where your weakness of procrastination begins, and take action to combat the urge to get off track.
Eat Healthy Foods
Food is fuel, and to keep going you want to have good fuel to push you forward. You can’t kick butt as a girl boss entrepreneur if you feel lethargic or unwell. My favorite way to incorporate more nutrition into my day if I find I haven’t had enough is to make a smoothie! I always have frozen berries in the freezer and I’ll add my favorite protein powder, collagen, and sometimes I’ll add some kefir to make it more creamy, but it’s definitely not needed. I find this is a great pick me up, but it’s also super important to eat healthy too. You won’t make up for a bunch of unhealthy meal choices with a smoothie. You need to have energy to create a successful business, and you simply won’t have that energy if you aren’t keeping yourself fueled well.
Stay Hydrated
It’s so important for every human to stay hydrated, so as a reminder for you busy boss babe entrepreneurs out there, DRINK YOUR WATER! It’s pretty self-explanatory but you’ll be healthier and more productive if your body is getting everything it needs, water included. If you struggle with getting enough water, get yourself a cute water bottle! Sometimes it’s something as simple as that, that can help.
Invest in Yourself
You’ll hear this a lot when looking up habits of successful people, it’s so important when you have a business to continue to invest in your business, yourself, and your education. Take courses or workshops that can help you learn more to up level your business, invest in having a website, and anything else that can help grow your business! Whether you invest in something as small as a book, or as big as hiring a coach, this is super important if you want to grow and be successful in business.
Keep a Journal
Journaling can be very therapeutic. It’s great to have a space to unload all of your thoughts. Journaling is also a great way to document things for the future. So not only can it be a great mental relief to fill out a journal, it’s also a great way to document the growth of your business. If you begin tracking what you’ve been doing and tracking your numbers, you will begin to see a pattern which will help you to see what’s working and what’s not. It’ll be fun in the future to read back on some of your first journal entries and see how far you’ve come! Things that once stumped you will probably be second nature to you at that point!
Batch Tasks
I’ve recently just learned about batching tasks and it’s been a game changer for my productivity. so I’m definitely making sure to include it in this post on habits of successful people. When you’re planning your day out, plan to do similar things all at once. You can set aside time for replying to all emails, then don’t worry about wasting your time throughout the day by going back 5 more times when you could be spending your time on other projects. If you blog, you can set aside a chunk of time to research keywords for multiple blog posts instead of just one, or creating images for Pinterest for multiple posts vs. just one. Until recently, I spent so much time writing a post, then searching keywords, then doing pictures and so on. Next thing you know my day was gone. Plus I’d take little breaks here and there for emails, or to read articles which made it take that much longer. Setting aside specific times for similar tasks helps you stay focused on what you’re doing which actually results in you getting more done in a shorter amount of time.
Network
Networking is so important especially if you’re a solopreneur. When you live and work from home and you work for yourself you can get stir crazy pretty quickly. When you network you can make valuable contacts in your field that you may be able to work with in the future. It could also result in making friends in your field which can be amazing because you would finally have someone to talk to about things that your other friends and family members don’t fully understand.
Keep Your Finances in Order
Finances are super important to keep on top of when it comes to habits of successful people! To really rock your girl boss lifestyle, it’s important to have a good grip on your finances, both in your personal life and for your business. It can be distracting to anything you do in life if your thoughts are constantly going to financial worries. You want to make sure you’re spending less than you earn and be sure to put aside money in a savings account that earns interest. It’s good to have an extra savings account for an emergency fund, plus any other personal saving goals you may have like for a vacation, home, or just to play with at a later date. It’s also great to have a savings account for your business so throughout the year you can put money aside to pay for web hosting, domain renewals, any subscriptions you may have like to a scheduler like Tailwind, email services etc. There’s nothing worse than getting an alert in your email that you have a yearly bill due, and you have no money available for it!
Take Time Off When You Need To
Sometimes it can be really hard to pry ourselves away from our work, especially if we love it, and also financially depend on it. That’s also why it’s good to have some money in savings, so if you feel like you need to take some time off, you have more flexibility for that. If there’s an emergency, you get sick, or you just feel burnt out, it’s great to take time off if you can to rest because you can’t be very productive if you have other serious things going on like that.
Make a Vision Board
You might be surprised that making a vision board would be on a list of habits for successful people, but I swear it’s helpful. Having a vision board is a great way to keep what you want in focus. You can have a vision board focused around all of your business goals, you could also have one focused on your personal goals, or you could combine two into one. There are really no rules with having a vision board as long as it makes you feel happy. This is like a mood board in that it raises your vibration and makes you happy to focus on what you’re working towards. The difference is how you focus on your vision board. As you look through your photos and repeat your affirmations, really put thought into acting as if these things are already in your reality.
Reward Your Success
As mentioned earlier, it’s important when it comes to habits of successful people to celebrate your successes no matter how big or small they may be. Doing this helps keep the momentum growing and helps to keep you on track to your biggest goals. One way of celebrating your success is to give yourself something when you hit your goals. This doesn’t have to be something huge, but having a little something to look forward to can make a big difference in making your goals. If you have a productive day, maybe you’ll treat yourself to some Netflix binging in the evening. It gives you the motivation to work hard during the day so you have the free time that evening to watch some guilty pleasures!
Know When to Say No
In business, you have to know when something is right or wrong for you. For example, if a brand reaches out to you and it has absolutely nothing to do with your business niche or what you stand for, it’s probably best to turn down the offer and say no thank you. Otherwise your audience may get confused and wonder if they can really trust you. Another example is sometimes you may have too much going at once, and someone invites you out for the evening. You don’t want to let them down or hurt their feelings, but you’re feeling burnt out. It’s okay to say no thank you. You have to listen to what feels right for you.
Know When to Say Yes
You don’t have to say no to everything of course! If you get an offer for something that is on brand and excites you, then by all means say yes! Again, you have to do what feels right for you, and if something feels right, then charge on forward!
Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
This is something I personally still have to work on (the comfort zone is just so cozy!) but when you think of the habits of successful people, a huge game changer is you stop out of your comfort zone. You can discover so many new things outside of your comfort zone such as new sights, new people, new opportunities. As it’s said, “life begins at the end of your comfort zone”. When you take a chance on new opportunities, you will come across so many new and amazing opportunities that you wouldn’t have experienced otherwise!
Eliminate Toxicity
Anyone or anything in your life that brings you down and doesn’t serve you shouldn’t be in your life. End of story. Distance yourself from negative people, and completely get rid of people who put you down, make you question your worth, or who hurt you in any way. There is no room in your life for anything or anyone like that.
Support Other Boss Babes
Do your best to help lift up other boss babes who are living their entrepreneurial dream. Whether that’s you shopping from small businesses (whether male or female owned… let’s help everyone where we can!), liking pictures, sharing content etc. Send out the support that you would like to see in your own business.
Reading is Knowledge
Keep reading! This is definitely one of the top habits of successful people out there. Reading is such an affordable way to expand your knowledge. Reading personal development books, self help books, books specific to your business, books on social media, the list goes on. You can find books at your local bookstore or online stores like Amazon, but you can also find so much information in ebooks written by experts in your field! I’ve had great success with all of these. Also, if you have a lot on the go, you can also get audiobooks to listen to on iTunes, Audible, etc.
Learn From Podcasts, YouTube, TED Talks
This is a great way to learn about your field from people who know it well, as well as learning random things like how to improve your overall quality of life, daily routines, successful habits (like this post) and more. Podcasts, YouTube and TED Talks offer such an abundance of knowledge, that you can never really run out of helpful content! YouTube is also a great place for tutorials if you want a visual and audio way to see how to accomplish something in your business. For example, if you hit a snag on your blog and want to learn how to set up a specific plugin, YouTube would be great to show you how!
Eat Your Frog First
If you haven’t heard this saying Eat The Frog before, you’re probably really confused by this subheading! Basically it means to do your least favorite task first! This is a pretty simple one of the habits of successful people. Once you get the worst thing out of the way, you won’t be spending a bunch of time dreading it, and the rest of your day will go much more smoothly!
Turn Your Notifications Off
If you find that you get distracted by your phone notifications, it can be really helpful to put your phone on either the settings do not disturb or airplane mode… Or you could always turn it off. I also find that I can’t be trusted even if I have no notifications so it’s also helpful to put your phone out of reach so you don’t give into the Instagram scroll temptation.
Create a Morning Routine
Having an effective morning routine can be so helpful to set your day up for success! You have to find a routine that works best for you, but if you search on YouTube you’ll find a lot of great examples. A lot of people who use habits of successful people are huge supporters of waking up early and getting a workout in, then getting started with your day.
Wake Up Early
So like with the morning routine we just spoke about, waking up early is another of the most popular habits of successful people. When you get your day started earlier it literally adds hours to your work day that can be so beneficial to fitting more into your day and accomplishing your goals sooner. If you don’t want to work more hours, it can also be a good way to leave more time for your self care routine, or time with family later in the day since your work day could end sooner if you’re sticking to an 8 hour day.
Create a Night Routine
Not only is it important to create a morning routine when incorporating the habits of successful people, it’s also great to make a habit of having a night routine. Again, what this looks like for you will be different than what it looks like for someone else, and there are great night routine examples on YouTube, but a lot of people choose to make a routine around their self care regimes. Also winding down with self care in the evening is a great way to prepare yourself for a restful sleep so you’ll be ready to get up early easily the next morning (or at least a bit more easily… mornings can be hard).
Choose a Specific Time for Emails
It can be too easy to lose ourselves in our emails through the day and that takes away from other tasks that would be more worth our time. Set aside a specific block of time to go through and clear the clutter and respond to the emails that remain, then leave your inbox again until your next scheduled time (you may only have to check your email once per day)!
Have Plants or Flowers Around
If you’re able to keep some plants alive, having some plants in your space can really brighten up your work area. Plants also help naturally purify the air in your home. If you’re more of an – unintentional – plant killer, maybe getting some flowers or succulents for your space will be a bit better for you. You don’t need anything expensive, some grocery stores have cute bouquet options for as little at $10. Having fresh flowers around can make such a huge difference in the feeling of your office or work space.
Practice Gratitude
Practicing gratitude for what you have is a very beneficial practice when it comes to not only habits of successful people, but for any person ever. It’s so important to give thanks for where you currently are in life and for what you have. This is how you’re going to be able to bring more of what you want into your life, and it also raises your vibration because it’s hard to feel super unhappy or unmotivated when you’re busy focusing on the great things you currently have going on.
Take Responsibility for Your Own Life
You will never get anywhere if you blame other people or circumstances for your current situation. If something isn’t going well, take responsibility for your part in it, then figure out a way to move forward in another direction to try to get the results you want. This isn’t just a boss habit, this is an everyone, every day habit.
Be Consistent
Consistency is a huge key to success! Very rarely does something happen overnight, and when you speak to other successful people and ask about what caused their success, often they speak about doing specific, smaller actions consistently to reach their goals. Be consistent in everything you do, don’t slack, and please don’t give up.
Surround Yourself with Supportive People
Surrounding yourself with people who support you, not only in your entrepreneur life, but in your daily life is really important. You want people who raise you up, not drag you down. It’s also great if you can surround yourself with likeminded people as well. It’s great to have people around you who support you and have common goals and values as you do. There’s a saying I’ve heard so much lately which is “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” People can tell a lot about you by who you spend your time with, and you want to make sure you’re hanging out with people who will push you to be the best you can be, and people that you can learn from.
Know Your Worth
There are many ways that you can undervalue your worth, and when you’re running your own business you can bet that you’re going to come across people who will want to undercut you and try to get things sometimes even for free! When you’re first beginning, this can be tricky to navigate, but you have to remember that the work you put into projects is worthy. Your time has worth. If you don’t feel good about what is being offered your way, remember it’s okay to say no!
Focus On One or Two Big Goals Maximum
It can be easy to get distracted by new things in business, especially as you begin to learn things as you expand your knowledge. It’s important to stick to one or two main goals through the year that you want to accomplish. If you keep adding more goals in that are different, you’ll have a bunch of projects started and none of them will get finished, and you’ll be wondering why you aren’t achieving your goals! Under these main goals, you can then make mini goals that will lead you directly to your top goal, then just focus on those.
Create Deadlines for Yourself
If you’re self employed then this is a big part of the habits of successful people that you have to focus on. Sometimes it’s tempting to just go with the flow and only work when inspiration strikes. If you run your business like this though, you won’t get very far. You have to make deadlines for yourself, and stick to them. You have to treat your business like a business if you want to see some success with it.
Be Positive
You have to believe in yourself and your goals to make them happen! If you aren’t going to believe in yourself, how can you expect anyone else to believe in you? Plus positivity and having a belief in something goes hand in hand with the law of attraction. If you’re being negative about something, the Universe can’t bring it to you. If you’re positive and believe in yourself and your abilities at being a kick ass girl boss, then that’s what the Universe will deliver.
Stop Jealousy
If you’re someone who sees others succeeding and feel jealous, you’ll need to switch your mindset. You shouldn’t be comparing yourself or your journey with anyone else. What you can compare is your own growth. Have you come farther than yesterday, last week, last year? That you can measure successfully. When you see another boss babe doing great things, remember to support her, wish her well, and remember that there is enough success to go around for everyone, her success doesn’t equal your failure. There’s no room for jealousy when it comes to the habits of successful people.
I really hope you found this post of habits of successful people helpful for you and your journey. There are a lot of options of habits of successful people to implement into your life to try to improve your quality of life and your time management and organization in your business. Take the girl boss tips that resonate with you and that excite you, and feel free to leave whatever doesn’t excite you. Are you planning to incorporate any of these boss babe habits into your business? I’d love to hear which ones were your favorite!
