5 Secrets of High Achievers in Life

Do you have goals? Do you have dreams? Do you have visions?

Everyone has them. Some have them more prominently than others. Some work for it, most don’t. Some are ready to go the extra mile, most aren’t. Some give it all they have, most make excuses. Everyone wants to part of the “some,” but end up being the part of the “most.”

How do you change that? How do you make the transition? How do you achieve all that you have ever wanted? How do you stay focused on your dreams?

There are traits that are common in people who have achieved success. Actions that they have taken consistently. They have made the leap that was needed. The reason why people tell you to read autobiographies of successful people is to realize that to reach the rainbow, they had to go through thunder. This teaches you important lessons needed for you to achieve the same. You realize what you are lacking and where you are falling short.

Today, I am going to be talking about five things that all high achieving people have in common. These are the areas you need to work on when it comes to you. Try understanding their importance and how they can be snow-balled towards your success once you embrace these things.

1. Make a decision / Take the leap

Making a decision – any decision – is one of the hardest parts of achieving something. Setting goals is the first step to achieving them. Deciding to do something is the start, and the beginning of anything can be difficult and frightening for most. Especially if that decision has the power to bring huge changes and change anyway makes people uncomfortable. People want change but are afraid of it. That fear leaks into the ideology of decision making.

But, when you want to achieve something that you know is big, then you have to realize that for big things to happen, big changes need to take place. A solid decision needs to be taken. You cannot keep flipping your decisions based on how difficult your day is. Suppose you leave your job to become an entrepreneur. Leaving the job was the decision, the leap you needed to make. Once you make that leap, sticking with it is very important.

2. Learn consistency

Consistency is very important. Consistency is the key ingredient to success. A person who is consistent with his craft has more power to succeed than a person who has talent but is inconsistent. Doing a little every day adds up to something big in the end. Say you decide to write a 300-page book. You have made the decision but are you ready to put in the work or are you just going to be putting it off in search of the perfect day to do it, is something that we are talking about here.

The book isn’t going to write itself, neither are you going to be able to write it in a day. What you need is a daily plan. A daily attack mission to tackle the goal. It doesn’t matter if you write half a page every day. The key is writing every day. It might take longer than someone else who writes four pages a day, but it still is more than a person who doesn’t write at all. If you keep up with your plan, then you will find it getting easier to increase your pace and also you will end up with a finished book that you otherwise wouldn’t have.

3. Choose to work

When we start, the push is there. Slowly the push fades off, and everything depends on our determination. It is easy to put off today’s work when we have no one to answer to. What is difficult is sticking to the schedule. Because we are scared of this new thing and any reason to put the work off is readily welcomed by us.

Say a friend calls up for drinks. It is easy to accept and put the work on tomorrow. What then happens is, this becomes a regular occurrence, and then your work starts pilling up. There comes the point when the backlog is so huge that moving forward seems a lot more difficult than it would have been. Make the difficult decision of saying no and choosing to work instead. Entertainment and a good time are tempting, but remember great time needs work. Be ready to make sacrifices!

4. Be persistent

Do you know when being persistent is the most essential? When you face a setback, a failure, when you see no way out, when giving up is easier – this is when you need this quality the most. It is always easy to give up, but the ramifications are not worth the ease. Yes, in most cases you won’t lose anything per se, but the emotional and mental toll it will take down the line is just not worth it.

By choosing not to put in the work now, by choosing not to fight now, you are setting yourself up for a bigger failure in the future. Now that you have given up, your mind knows it is easy to do so and can be done again. Now you don’t trust yourself to see a decision through. To achieve anything, it is important to trust ourselves, losing that very thing means no matter the amount of talent we have, success will be difficult to attain. When hardships come, when you hit a roadblock, when you face a setback – keep going. Remember, your future self will thank you for it.

5. Know when to give up

While consistency and persistence are important pillars of building your dreams, so is knowing when to take a step back. Yes, I just told you to keep going, but sometimes the circumstances are beyond your control. Moving forward can mean inflicting more damage than doing good. You need to be able to recognize which fights are worth fighting.

You need to be flexible in your ways. You don’t have to give up your dreams completely if you don’t want to. Take a step back, spend some time thinking over it. Give the instant feeling of failure and disappointment a little moment to rest. When you are a bit more clear-headed think about it again. Try finding out ways that work better. Gauging the situation and changing priorities is what makes people achieve things that others cannot.

My main takeaway

At the end of the day, it all boils down to how ready are you to put yourself out there and how ready are you to sacrifice comfort for the work you need to put in. Ask yourself if you want it badly enough to try all that you can. Everything depends on you. These traits aren’t something that can be taught. These are something that you bring about yourself. Trust yourself and trust the process, rest will follow!