The feeling of wanting to achieve
success and not being able to achieve it can be overwhelming. Although
there is no “secret to success”, there are some habits to achieve
it that have scientific explanations and that, by putting them into practice,
could help us have better professional performance.
Of course, it is not easy to put all of them into practice. We
are all different and what is easy for some may be difficult for others. The
same thing happens with the effectiveness of these habits, for some it is very
difficult to meditate and feel that this generated a benefit, but it is
essential for them to make a list of tasks when they have many things to do.
However, for other people it is essential to start the day
meditating and lists will not help them at all. Let's see what are some of the
habits to achieve professional success.
1. Meditate
For many people, meditating is not only effective, but
necessary. According to the Mayo Clinic, some
of the benefits of meditation are managing stress better, improving
concentration, and helping you stay calmer.
There are different ways to meditate and it is important to find
the one that best suits you. One of the alternatives is to listen
to music and practice conscious breathing. Others
are the repetition of mantras and the practice of mindfulness, which
tries to help us concentrate on the here and now.
For something more active, yoga can also bring many benefits
both physically and mentally.
2. Have a growth mindset
Experts assure that there is a force that pushes those
who think they can improve and who take actions to achieve it. This
means not believing that the skills and knowledge we have are given and fixed. On
the contrary, we must think that we can develop our skills. Once
we understand this we have to think about what skills we want to improve and
establish a plan for how we are going to do it.
With this new way of thinking we will face our projects with
greater positivity and motivation. So one of the habits to achieve
professional success is to think that it is possible to grow.
3. Live with
courage and passion
Success is not achieved only if you are the best, sometimes
it is achieved when you feel passionate about something and are persistent
to achieve the goal. An example that you hear many stories
about is in football, where the best do not always get to play in the first
division.
Sometimes, someone who was very good as a child was not really
motivated or did not have the necessary support and as a teenager they gave up
or got tired. While someone who maybe wasn't that good, but loved to play
and had the support necessary to keep trying, achieved his goal and became a
professional player. That is why it is important to
find what you are passionate about, because you will have more courage and
desire to work hard when you believe in what you are doing.
4. Sleep
well, one of the most important habits to achieve success
When we sleep poorly or little, the
brain suffers the consequences. It is more difficult to concentrate and
mental performance decreases. Therefore, even if you have a lot of work
behind you, if you feel sleepy, it is better that you go to sleep and resume
your tasks the next day. You will feel renewed and you will be more productive.
5. Focus on the process
and not just the results
It is important to learn to enjoy small achievements and
not just think that it is important to reach the final goal. Without a
doubt, this is one of the habits to achieve professional success.
When
we learn something new, when we solve a problem or achieve a partial goal, the
body receives higher levels of dopamine. This
increases motivation levels and gives us energy to continue working and trying
to achieve more goals. So if you're only enjoying yourself when you're
done doing work, chances are you're not doing what you should.
6. Work on your
confidence
When you trust yourself, you feel comfortable with who you
are, whether they are strengths or weaknesses. That helps keep self-doubt at bay,
so it's easier to focus on work.
The key point to keep in mind here is that trust should not be
built solely on the approval of others. You must develop your own sense of
self-worth and ensure that what you do is aligned with your own expectations.
7. Visualize
your success
You can do it in two ways, it depends on what is best for you. One
approach is to shut your eyes and envision your desired outcome. The
second is writing it on paper. It is important that you be detailed and describes
what your objective is.
What's the rationale behind this that's difficult to accept? It
is assumed that in this way information passes from the conscious side of the
brain to the subconscious. The subconscious wants to believe
the information it receives, whether positive or negative, and will do whatever
it takes to turn the orders into reality. This is a
technique widely used by elite athletes.
8. Read a book
Reading
has many benefits. In addition to increasing your
intelligence, it provides tools to understand and empathize with other people. It
is also proven that it reduces the risk of suffering from Alzheimer's, helps
you stay calm and do it before going to sleep, makes it easier to fall asleep
and have a better rest.
You don't need to have a lot of free time to read. It is
enough for you to read a couple of pages a day. The crucial aspect is to
establish the routine.
9. Write daily
Writing opens the way to
creativity. Other benefits of writing daily are that it improves your
communication skills and helps you remember important things.
A good habit to achieve professional success then can be writing
a diary. Some prefer to write at night before going to sleep, while others
find it helpful to write for a few minutes each morning before starting work. You
can write whatever you want. One option is to write about what
you want to achieve that day or your dreams and goals.
A highly recommended technique is to write lists of ideas and
projects. This makes you exercise your brain and develop creativity. It
doesn't matter if they are big (how to save the world) or small (how to stop
your coffee from getting cold so quickly), the important thing is to look for
new ideas to solve different situations. And if you have a
good one, it could serve many more people, and there will be your million
dollar idea.
10. Make a list of what
to do for the day
Speaking of lists, another habit to achieve success
is to make lists with the tasks you must do during the day.
This habit brings some benefits. The first is that it helps
you plan your day. Another benefit is that knowing what tasks you need to
do will make you more focused, and you won't be going around and postponing
important things because you don't know what you need to do.
It
is important to keep your to-do list small, so you will feel like you can
accomplish everything and not feel overwhelmed by everything you have to do. You
can do it in a notebook or in a cell phone application. Or
even on a post-it type paper, which due to its size will force
you to include few tasks.
11. Take
breaks during the day
Taking small breaks
during the day will help you avoid burnout syndrome. In addition, it
allows you to maintain concentration and avoid boredom.
There are different techniques and recommendations. Some advice taking 5 minutes of rest
every 25 minutes of work and 15 minutes of rest every 4 cycles like the
previous ones. Others will say that 10 minutes every hour is better. The
important thing is that you find what best suits your energy and work, but rest
no matter what. Once you define the best technique for you, incorporate it
as a routine and habit into your work.
You can also vary what you do during the break. Take a
walk, make a coffee, listen to music and talk to someone about a topic that has
nothing to do with work, or take a short nap. There are studies that show that a nap of between
20 and 30 minutes can improve your mood, allow you to be more alert and
increase your performance.
12. Make fewer decisions
Throughout a day we make thousands of small decisions, most of
them are so automatic that we don't realize we had to decide. But as time
goes by, so many decisions accumulate that we begin to not pay attention to the
ones that are important.
Scientists have
shown that making many decisions decreases physical endurance, causes less
persistence in the face of failure, increases procrastination, and reduces the
ability to perform arithmetic calculations. So
we can conclude that by reducing the number of choices you have to make each
day, you can limit these negative effects of “decision fatigue,” as this
phenomenon is known.
Maybe you ever read that Mark Zuckerberg dresses the same every
day. His explanation is simple, knowing how he is going to dress he avoids
having to make a decision every day. What decisions could you avoid?
13. Focus on one task at
a time
The famous multitasking,
which at some point began to be seen as a skill that employees should have, is
actually not a positive thing.
A study by Stanford
University found that multitasking makes
you less productive than you would be if you did just one task at a time. Additionally,
research found that multitaskers cannot pay attention, remember information, or
switch tasks as quickly and effectively as someone who finishes one job before
starting another.
There are many more habits that we could recommend to you but,
as we read, it is important that the lists we make are not too
large and that we focus on what is manageable. We hope
that you can put most of these habits into practice to achieve success, and
that you feel the change.
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