Over the last year i’ve been thoroughly intrigued by successful people. What are the habits and traits these people share? and how can we learn from, and apply their strategies to our own lives?

Whether it’s leading a national movement like Martin Luther King Jr, or revolutionising business like Elon Musk, or just obtaining smaller and more personal goals – I believe all us can achieve anything we set our minds to.

Successful people have a lot in common, and that’s the aim of this post… to discover commonalities and share with you 10 Success Principles which i’ve found to be extremely helpful in my own life. I hope you’ll find them useful too…

1) MAKE A WANT LIST

You don’t just wake up with a fit and healthy body or with a million pounds in your bank account (unless you win the lottery!). If you don’t know what your aiming for you’ll never achieve your goals because you don’t have any!

First of all write down 20-30 things you want e.g. a fitter looking body, a new sports car, bigger house, a holiday, a family experience, to be able to complete a Tough Mudder, or do a bungy jump, or learn how to ice skate! etc, etc.

2) YOU ARE THE CAPTAIN OF YOUR SHIP

A coach once said to me “you can have RESULTS or EXCUSES but not both!”. So many us (me included!) have plenty of reasons why we can’t do something but ultimately these excuses are preventing us from achieving what we want. As Jim Rohn once said “You can’t hire someone to do your pushups for you”. Hold yourself accountable, take responsibility and make some good sh*t happen.

3) GOAL SETTING STRATEGY

People who..

• Think about their goals
• Write down their goals
• Share them with a friend
• Asses their goals weekly

Are 76% more likely to achieve them and earn 9x more over their life times! – Statistics taken from Jack Canfield book

4) WHAT YOU DO TODAY IMPACTS THE REST OF YOUR LIFE

A lot of things you experience today is the result of choices you have made in the past. You can’t change the past but you can start positively impacting the rest of your life from this day forth. Make a commitment to yourself and don’t look back.

5) FIND YOUR WHY…

What do you want to achieve and WHY? Finding out your reason WHY is just as important as setting goal(s). Most of us want a better body and to be fitter and healthier but WHY do we want this? Is it to look and feel more confident? or so we can live longer? or run around the park with our children? The deeper your reason(s) for wanting to change the higher likelihood that you’ll be successful.

A great exercises to do is grab a piece of paper and write down your goal, then below your goal write down why you want to achieve it, write down 3-5 reasons WHY.

6) THE HOUR OF POWER

• 20 mins of visualisation & meditation
• 20 mins exercise
• 20 mins reading inspirational stuff

Complete the above 5x per week and you’ll feel amazing. If you genuinely don’t have an hr do each for 10 mins a day (30 mins in total).

7) VISUALISE YOUR FUTURE

Martin Luther King Jr had a dream, and that dream became a reality in his head long before it became a reality in real life. There’s a saying “what the mind can conceive and believe the body can achieve”.

As we get older our brains become hardwired and its easy to become unconscious of our thoughts and actions. Our opinions, judgements, and beliefs become automatic and we have a perception of how we think the world works. We create personal identities and set limitations on what we can and can’t achieve – based on memories of our past experiences.

One amazing way to rewire your brain is to spend time visualising what you want more of. Everyday either when you wake up or when you go to bed (or both!) spend 5-10 minutes with your eyes closed and visualise how you want your life to be. If you want an amazing body, close your eyes and imagine how you want it to look, and how it would feel in possession of this new body, think about all the new clothes you could buy, and the new found confidence you’d have going out on dates!

8) DON’T BE INSANE! 

Many of us have aspects of our lives which we want to change but we don’t actually change anything! Einstein said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different outcome”. You have to change your mindset and habits in order to become successful and achieve your goals.

9) DO THE BIGGEST TASK FIRST

Typically at the end of the day we’re more tired than when we started! Our will power may have been depleted and our motivation wanes. It’s easy to tick off all the small things on your to do list but neglect the bigger and more important tasks. Do the biggest task first, when you’re fresh.

10) PLAN OUT YOUR DAY THE NIGHT BEFORE

This strategy is particularly good when you need to be productive and creative. For example I typically write my blogs on Thursdays (on my day off!) I basically decide what topic i’m going to write about on Wednesday evening, then go to sleep. This allows my subconscious mind to conjure up ideas and thoughts relating to my blog topic whilst I’m sleeping. I’ll then wake up with loads of ideas popping out of my head!

Thanks for reading,

Nick 🙂