Fist off I wish someone had given me this list and said “Make these into habits and you’ll be successful”. Of course I had to learn the hard way.

There’s lot of lists like this around and I’ve even posted some here. Some are long, some are shorter. But I thought this one was a tell tale indicator for success with only 4 points. I’m going to be adding these to our hiring questions because I know if someone is doing them they’ll fit very well into our environment as well as accelerate success in our organization. And I know this based on my own habits…

Those Ah Ha Moments

I love it when I have “ah ha” moments, as in Ah Ha I Get It. This typically comes when something is in front of our face but all of a sudden something clicks and what was not visual before is now clear and makes sense. Often that “ah ha” moment is connected to something that will make a difference in your life and creates some what of a pivot point.

I had one of those when I first saw this list…

As I was talking with my copywriter, who’s building out the copy for a new product we’re coming out with, he was showing me his latest iteration of our script. In reading through the script he’d done a bunch of research on what makes successful people successful. In doing this he stumbled across a guy Dave Ramsey. Now I’ll be honest I don’t have a clue who Dave Ramsey is and haven’t done any research to find out at this point either. But he had done a bunch of research into habit of successful people and there was 4 that seemed to be the most powerful.

And here’s where the Ah Ha moment came. I realized I had developed these habits over years of getting to where I am today. Often times people ask me “what do you think the difference is that makes the difference?” As soon as I read these 4 things I went “AH HA” thats’ it in a nutshell. Do these 4 things and your chances of success skyrocket.

Now these aren’t things you start doing today and your life changes tomorrow. These are rituals or habits that you do every day.

To create a habit or a ritual you need to find a way to love and enjoy it. Or it’ll be like setting a new years resolution [insert quitter photo here]. If you don’t love it and enjoy it then it’s just work. And well most people work for money, not love (unfortunate but true). So if you’re not getting paid directly to do these things you need to find reasons to love them.

The Magical list of Rituals

According to financial expert Dave Ramsey…
• 80% of the wealthy are focused on accomplishing some single goal… while only 12% of the poor do this…
• 67% of the wealthy write down their goals vs. 17% of poor…
• 88% of the wealthy read 30 minutes or more each day for education or career reasons vs. 2% of poor…
• And 86% of the wealthy believe in lifelong educational self-improvement vs. 5% of poor…

I know you’re saying GREAT ANOTHER LIST OF CRAP. Yes but here’s where it’s going to get good.

As I said before, part of being successful is making things rituals or habits.

In order to make rituals sustainable you have to derive joy from them.

We as humans are pretty simple creatures despite all the contrary belief. Everything in our world is based on a pain pleasure ratio. What this means is the scales always have to tip in order for something to change.

The pleasure of doing something has to be much greater then the pain of not doing it.

As an example someone can stay fat and eat like shit their whole life. They know what’s right and know they’d have pleasure being fit. They’d get accolades from people, be more attractive to the opposite sex, etc. So why don’t they do it? Well the pain of doing it to them is greater then the pleasure of being lazy. Now if a Dr. said you need to lose 50 lbs. or you’re going to die in the next 6 months. Guess what happens most of the time? The scales tip!

But that’s enough about that we’ll save more elaboration for that until another post.

How to create the success Rituals

So we have a basic understanding of how we create a ritual. The scales of pain pleasure need to tip in the rituals favor. Simple enough right?

Now we have a list we know that makes successful people people successful. So sit down and put those rituals on a piece of paper. Split it into 4 quadrants and write each ritual on the top of each. Then start writing all the things that excite you as an opportunity to spend the time doing each ritual. Think big here…

Here’s an example:

Educational Self Improvement – Write down one thing you’d like to learn. Then why would you want to learn it? How would it change your life emotionally, physically, financially?

I highly suggest being very granular here. Meaning write down big goals and break them into smaller goals. This will give you that feeling of accomplishment.

Did you see that head fake? ( term from sports where someone looks one way but runs or throws another )

One of the things on the list you just started doing.

Setting goals… NICE!

Now I know you’ve read this and thought “oh I’m going to do that.” Tomorrow! Guess what the pain of doing it is not outweighing the pleasure of sitting on you but watching TV. First thing to build up the emotional reasons for is to get through this exercise and this list done.

I’m going to invite you to send me your list when you have it done. I’m happy to give feedback to you and see if I can help in anyway. Of course I run 6 companies so I’m a bit busy, but if you put in the work I’ll take a glance and give you some feedback.

I look forward to hearing form all of you.

*unedited due to time, sorry it’s a personal blog 😀