A lot is written about becoming successful; some of it good, much of it bad. Yet, a few habits that all successful people share are rarely spoken about.

Many years ago, when I was teaching English, I was always surprised at the widespread belief that success was tied to money. To many of my students, success was measured by the size and location of a person’s home, the car they drove and how much money they earned. The most successful people to them were the offspring of the large conglomerate owners (Samsung, Hyundai, LG etc.)

Yet, this is not success. Just because you were born with wealthy parents does not make you successful. Lucky? Perhaps, but not successful.

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When I was a teenager, I was a competitive athlete. I ran the middle distances (800/1,500 metres); my heroes were Seb Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram. I poured over books and articles on these heroes. While most people saw their winning exploits on the track, I was fascinated with what went on when the cameras were not rolling.

One story, told by Seb Coe, about his rivalry with Steve Ovett and his winter training in 1979 summed up the kind of things I was reading:

“It was a harsh winter (harsh enough to bring down a government) but I ran 12 miles on Christmas morning. It was a hard session, and I got home, showered and felt pretty happy with what I had done.

Later that afternoon, sitting back after Christmas lunch, I began to feel uneasy but was not quite sure why. Suddenly it dawned on me. I thought: “I bet Steve Ovett’s out there doing his second training session of the day.” I put the kit back on, faced the snow and ice and did a second training session. I ran several miles, including some hill work.

Not long ago, over supper in Melbourne, I told him the story. He laughed. ‘Did you only go out twice that day?’ he asked.”

Success at anything comes from three things: research, experimentation, and practice.

Research.

Deciding what you want to excel at and researching everything you can about that subject is the place to start. This is all about mastering your topic or area you intend to succeed. For example, if you would like to become the CEO of your company, what do you need to do to achieve that goal? Research the CEOs you admire and find out what they did to get there.

If you want to build a successful podcast, find the top ten podcasts in the world and listen to them. How long is a typical episode? How is the podcast structured? All these questions will help to give you a blueprint from which to work.

Experimentation.

Finding the blueprint is one thing. Copying it precisely is simply copying. The way to achieve your own success is to experiment with the blueprint. Try new things, make mistakes, and find a way that works for you.

When I began my business, I looked around for companies similar in nature to my niche and read as many articles as possible. I also went very deep into Tony Robbins’ website, as he was/is the number one teacher/coach and had built a multibillion-dollar business around teaching and helping people. That told me that there was a business model that worked. I then began experimenting with different approaches based on what I had learned from Tony Robbins’ website and the programmes he put out.

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Practice.

Once you have experimented with different approaches, you will find one or more strategies work best for you. From there, you need to put in the practice. Every day, do something that will make you a little better than you were before.

This is where it gets boring. You are developing processes and repeating those processes every day. This is also where your competition drops out. Most people enjoy variety and excitement, yet to become successful, you need to do the same thing daily and for a long time.

Steve Ovett and Seb Coe ran six days a week, often more than once. I remember from my research that these incredibly successful athletes would wake up in the morning, go for a long run (10 to 16 miles) and then do a track session in the afternoon that would leave most of us in the local hospital’s emergency room (8 x 400 metres in less than 60 seconds with a 60-second rest)

The problem with the practice stage is you don’t necessarily feel the improvement. Because improvement is slow (the 1% improvement every day), you don’t recognise you are improving, which makes it easy to feel disillusioned. This is why it’s essential to love the process. (It’s also why so many people will drop out at this stage)

Doing the same thing repeatedly allows you to master the craft of what you are doing. For example, successful salespeople follow the same formula every day. They never miss a step. From spending an hour or more every morning prospecting to making sure they have a set number of appointments each day.

Successful salespeople are not necessarily the most talented; the successful are the ones who have a formula that works that they follow religiously every day. They focus on refining and improving so they get better at what they do each day.

The truth is, achieving success at anything is not complex. The formula is easy to follow. In reality, achieving success is difficult because we are faced with so many distractions that the single-mindedness required to succeed is so easily interrupted by the latest shiniest thing. Whether you want to become more productive or win an Olympic medal, all it takes is the ability not to allow distractions to stop you.

If you are easily distracted — and many of us are — train yourself to be less easily distracted. When a message or email comes in, don’t open it immediately. Instead, pause for a few minutes. Focus on completing the task you are currently doing before opening the message. (Yes, that message/email can wait ten to fifteen minutes, really!)

When you see success, don’t feel envy or allow yourself to believe that somehow talent has enabled that success. Stop, dig a little deeper and look for the blueprint. Finding that blueprint will give you the knowledge you need to become successful at what you do.

Contributed by Carl Pullein

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