Habit #1
First and foremost, adapt and adopt the powerful habits of successful people, and always establish a definite purpose or principal objective in whatever you do.
Having a definite purpose in life and work will give you a sense of direction.
With purpose, you can move forward much more confidently.
Habit #2
Invest in self-directed, life-long learning:
Continually acquire new knowledge, skills, and competencies throughout your working lives to meet the ever-changing challenges.
You must embrace the practice of lifelong learning for lifelong employability.
Lester Thurow, the author of Creating Wealth, said that the three most important things needed for the Knowledge Economy are:
“Skills, Skills and Skills”.
You must therefore create your own learning journey for the rest of your life.
You have to keep on learning new things and set new directions for yourself, all the time in a rapidly changing world.
You can start by drawing up a learning agenda, in tandem with your long-range goals and objectives.
Habit #3
Stay ahead – and stay alert; embrace change and learn to tolerate complexity as well as ambiguity:
Indeed, technology is advancing so rapidly on so many fronts that the main constraint on productivity today is not so much your capacity to come up with new ideas, but your ability to keep abreast of and integrate the latest developments from fields outside your own particular specialty.
As a matter of fact, the overwhelmingly largest determinant of success today for you is the speed with which you can accept, learn, and work with technological change.
Prosperity today belongs to the person that learns new things the fastest.
Habit #4
Always be curious about the world around you, and don’t be afraid to ask some dumb questions!
Walt Disney, whose world-renown animation movies & theme parks – were started by just a little mouse, once gave this advice to budding entrepreneurs:
“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious.
Curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
Albert Einstein never stop working till he died, and he said:
“The most important thing in life is to keep asking questions.”
Implicitly or explicitly, creativity always begins with a question.
And in both your business and personal lives, the quality of your creativity is determined by the quality of your questions.
Habit #5
Constantly challenge your own personal assumptions, and continually expand your habitual domain:
I have this inspiring wall poster in my home office as a constant reminder:
“If you always keep on thinking what you have always thought, you will always keep on doing what you have always done, and you will always keep on getting what you have always gotten.
It’s time to change!” (Anonymous)
Habit #6
It’s OK to be skeptical, but be mindful at all times. Don’t simply reject weird ideas prejudicially.
Explore, play and experiment with them.
Just remember what Albert Einstein once said:
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
Habit #7
Don’t be afraid to get out of your comfort zone, and be prepared to take some risks:
It is the natural inclination for all of us to stay in our comfort zone.
Once in a while, just move to the edge and enter the stretch zone. You will be thrilled as well as amply rewarded in the long term.
It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before… to test your limits… to break through barriers.
I always remember Helen Keller’s famous quotation:
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
Habit #8
Collaborate and network with people; build and enhance your relationships, especially with those who are smarter than you and/or who demand more out of you:
No matter what you and I do in the Knowledge economy, we are still in the people business.
Together, knowledge and relationships are the only true sources of sustainable competitive advantage.
Moreover, knowledge itself is all about relationships between people.
Henry J. Kaiser, an American industrialist who is recognized as the father of modern shipbuilding, once said:
“I make progress by having people around me who are smarter than I am and listening to them.
And I assume that everyone is smarter about something than I am.”
Habit #9
Take personal accountability for all your choices, decisions, and actions;
Don’t play the Blame/Justify game!:
Being accountable helps you achieve what matters to you most. Get things done.
What you want to get done, don’t let fear get in your way.
Don’t be a victim. Don’t blame others. Don’t justify.
Don’t be afraid to fail or succeed.
Actions have consequences.
When you try to justify or blame others, you give up your power to change.
Habit #10
Be a generalist; read, read and read widely (covering mainstream as well as fringe stuff!):
Always remember: ‘Specialisation is for insects only.’
Joel Arthur Barker, one of my favorite authors, said in the Afterword of his book, Future Edge:
“The cheapest, most powerful way to stretch your paradigms and improve your strategic exploration skills is to read.”
Habit #11
Always think about new ideas (including weird ones!); jot them down and work out the Next Steps!
“Thinking is hard work, and that is why very few people engage in it.”
Thanks to Henry Ford for saying that.
Thinking of new ideas often will give you a new and broad perspective to look at the ever-abundant data around you in order for you to gather valuable information for planning and decision-making.
Always remember this, ideas must come first.
Thomas Edison, the famous inventor, once remarked:
“Make it a practice to keep on the lookout for novel and interesting ideas that others have used successfully.
Your idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problems you are working.”
Robert Kiyosaski, author of ‘If You Want to Be Rich & Happy Don’t Go to School: Ensuring Lifetime Security for Yourself and Your Children, gave this simple advice to all those who want to be rich:
“It’s what is in your head that determines what is in your hands.
Money is only an idea.
If you want more money, simply change your thinking.
Money never starts an idea. It is the idea that starts the money.”
Habit 12
Don’t just talk only, take immediate – MASSIVE and CONSISTENT – action and exercise self-discipline at all costs!
All the thinking in the world is of no use unless it finds application unless the ideas are transformed into action.
To take action in a rapidly -changing world, where it is all too easy to cling to the status quo and do nothing, you need the courage to take action – not make decisions.
Knowledge and learning levels are typically measured not by what you have learned and know, but by your productivity – what you do and what you don’t with what you have learned and know!
Action creates consequences and feedback.
I recall Robert Ringer, author of the best seller ‘Look Out for #1’ & ‘Winning by Intimidation’ who said this:
“Nothing happens until something moves,”
which also happens to be the title of one of his great books.
As a matter of fact, the key to success in any field of endeavor is the ability to act and get things done.
I am not sure whether it was Denis Waitley, author of The Psychology of Success, who defines ‘self-discipline’ as “doing the things you don’t want to do, but when they are done, they bring rewards.”
Habit #13
Persevere in the face of constant change, stress, and difficulty, and be persistent in all your endeavors:
Persevere and persist, and you will find most things that are attainable, and possible.
Dale Carnegie once said:
“Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs.
Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger.
If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.”
Helen Keller had wisely put it:
“We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.”
Interestingly, just think about the postage stamp:
Its usefulness lies in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there!”
Enjoy your reading, exploration, and assimilation.
Best wishes and Good Luck on your continuing high-performance pursuits!