You can thrive, achieve, and enjoy success by making these smart decisions every day.
Let’s face it: There are a million and a half things that will be out of your control daily. Whether it’s a grumpy boss or a late subway, a lot of your day-to-day living is completely left up to chance.
However, while you can’t control your environment, you can control how you respond to it.
Ultra-successful people thrive, achieve, and enjoy success because they make smart decisions every day, no matter what life throws their way. They know their time on earth is limited, and that every choice they make today can impact their future, for better or for worse.
As Tony Robbins put it, “Your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent, and committed decision.”
These individuals live a life free of regrets, because they know they reacted to their station in life in the best way possible. Even if they encounter road bumps, they make smart choices to lay the groundwork for success the next time, no matter how tough it gets.
Without further ado, here are some of those decisions. If you incorporate them in your daily life, success will never be far away:
Choose to not cry over spilt milk.
If you’re waking up every morning thinking about what went wrong the day before, you’re going about your career the wrong way.
Corcoran Group founder and Shark Tank mogul Barbara Corcoran spoke the truth when she said,
“The difference between successful people and others is how long they spend time feeling sorry for themselves.”
Learning from your mistakes is Entrepreneurship 101. But the ultra-successful take it a step further by remembering the lessons and then forgetting the rest. Their philosophy and your new one: the past is the past and it cannot be undone. Learn from it and move on.
Choose to feel good about yourself.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Like many other success stories, Roosevelt realized that she couldn’t choose who was happy with her and who wasn’t (and there were certainly plenty of people pretty unhappy with her).
Although she couldn’t control what people thought of her, she could control the way she thought about herself. Remember, no matter what life throws your way, this is something you can decide daily. So choose to realize your greatness. Don’t regret the choice of letting others influence your self-esteem. A baby step you can start today is to leave yourself positive notes daily.
Choose to surround yourself with positive people.
Just like a bad cold, negativity can be incredibly contagious. Although it might temporarily feel good to listen to others venting, don’t regret wallowing in a pity party.
“If you are successful, it is because somewhere, sometime, someone gave you a life or an idea that started you in the right direction.” — Melinda Gates
While it’s nearly impossible to rid negative thoughts, people and situations altogether (we’ll always have good and bad days), we can choose to strip away the parts our life that bring us down and instead refocus that energy towards being the best versions of ourselves.
You can and should choose to surround yourself with passionate, motivated, and aspirational people. I do, and I know it challenges me (instead of dragging me down) daily.
Choose to set specific goals.
Successful people don’t start with a million aspirations and attempt to work on every single one of them all at once. Pop icon Madonna hit the spot when she said, “I’m tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a [expletive], okay.”
To the successful, an aspiration is not vague, but rather it’s a specific, well-conceived desire. You can do this today by turning your dreams into specific, time-sensitive goals, and placing them near the top of your priority list.
Choose to work hard instead of dream.
Yes, it feels nice to daydream and imagine the great things that could happen when we finally achieve what we’ve been longing for — from opening a business, to finally fitting in a dress two sizes smaller.
However, as the iconic author and poet Maya Angelou said, “Nothing will work unless you do.”
Dreams don’t come true just because you spaced off during the workday. Successful people don’t only know this, but they use it to push themselves forward. Rather than regretting “what could have been,” they know they’ve made a concrete effort to move forward daily.
They realize they’ll achieve their dreams eventually, but they don’t get discouraged when it takes a whole lot of elbow grease to get there. You can too — a great way to start is by evaluating your progress every month.
Choose passion.
Some of us get excited about an idea and try to do everything in our power to make it a reality. But oftentimes, when the going gets tough, we lose the fire and our dream fizzles into thin air. Successful people are different.
Fashion designer Eileen Fisher said it best: “Life-fulfilling work is never about the money — when you feel true passion for something, you instinctively find ways to nurture it.”
Obviously, knowing your runway and having your financial ducks in a row are vital. But entrepreneurship never involves a steady paycheck or constant clear skies.
That’s why you need to use your passion to keep yourself motivated, especially when the road becomes rough and your destination seems far out of reach.
Choose to enjoy life.
“It makes no difference how many peaks you reach if there was no pleasure in the climb.” — Oprah Winfrey
You don’t run a marathon by thinking “only 46,111 footsteps to go!” after the starting gun goes off. Similarly, to be successful in business, you need to adopt Winfrey’s mentality and appreciate the small victories. You need to learn to love the journey, not just the destination.
Because your success won’t happen overnight, but it will happen eventually.
Have you made any tough choices to improve your life? I’d love to hear about them — reach out to me on Twitter and leave a comment!
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Originally published at medium.com