Habits of Highly Successful People
Successful people tend to have good relationships with themselves; many of them have an uncommonly positive relationships with themselves.
For example, one of the marks of a healthy relationship with yourself is that you don’t fall into self-criticism very often or too intensely. Successful people tend to be quite reflective and honest about their shortcomings. But they also tend to avoid the more unhelpful and destructive end of that continuum—self-judgment, rumination, negative self-talk, etc.
Of course, there are plenty of people who are very successful despite not having a great relationship with themselves. But the exception doesn’t prove the rule.
Whatever your definition of success is, here are psychological habits in highly successful people.
They acknowledge their emotions early
It’s hard to be successful in any part of life if you constantly get overwhelmed by painful emotions.
They think about their thinking
Aside from ignoring your emotions when they first show up, the other reason they end up ballooning into a giant, overwhelming feelings, is because we unintentionally feed them.
If you want to control your emotions, you must learn to manage your thinking.
They’re compassionate with their mistakes
There are two types of successful people…
· One type is very externally successful, but miserable on the inside.
· The other type is externally successful and also has a relatively calm and confident interior life as well.
It’s hard to be sustainably successful when you beat the hell out of yourself every time you slip up.
They listen to their emotions (but rarely trust them)
Most people’s relationship with their emotions falls into one of two extremes:
They’re dismissive and avoidant of their emotions. As a result, they don’t know much about them or how much those emotions influence them outside of their awareness (and they do!)
· They’re obsessed with and overly focused on their emotions. As a result, they frequently get lost in their feelings and are overly emotion-driven in their decision-making and choices.
They update their expectations frequently
If you insist on having expectations, you should insist on having realistic ones.
Successful people understand that to continue to make good decisions in an ever-changing environment you need to be regularly examining and updating your expectations so that they actually adhere to reality and move you toward your goals and aspirations rather than away from them.
They’re serious about self-care
Success depends on a healthy mind. And a healthy mind depends on healthy habits.
If you want to be more successful in any area of life, it’s important to cultivate a healthy relationship with your own mind.
From Nick Wignall (nickwignall.com)
