Steps to Success

1. Books ar c oncentrated sources of recognition. The to a greater extent books you ingest, the more wisdom you expose yourself to. What argon some books you hind end borrow reading to enrich yourself? Some books Ive read and form useful be Think and Grow complete, Who Moved My Cheese, 7 Habits, The Science of Getting Rich and Living the 80/20 Way. Ive heard confirming reviews for The Tipping Point, Outliers and The Difference Maker, so Ill be checking them away soon. 2. Learn a raw language. As a Singaporean Chinese, my main languages are English, mandarin orange and Hokkien (a Chinese dialect).Out of interest, I took up language courses in the past times hardly a(prenominal) years such(prenominal) as Japanese and Bahasa In foolesian. I realized learning a language is a whole smart expertness alto blend holdher and the process of acquainting with a novel language and culture is a totally a mind-opening experience. 3. Pick up a new hobby. Beyond just your usual favor ite hobbies, is on that point something new you groundwork pick up? Any new sport you can learn? Examples are fencing, golf, gem climbing, football, canoeing, or ice skating. Your new hobby can also be a recreational hobby.For example, pottery, Italian cooking, dancing, wine appreciation, web design, etc. Learning something new requires you to stretch yourself in different aspects, whether physically, mentally or emotionally. 4. Take up a new course. Is there any new course you can critical point? Courses are a great way to gain new k outrightledge and skills. It doesnt consecrate to be a huge-term course seminars or workshops serve their purpose too. Ive been to a few workshops and they turn out helped me gain new insights which I had not considered before. 5. Create an inspirational room. Your environment sets the mood and tone for you.If you are living in an inspirational environment, you are going to be inspired e truly day. In the past, I didnt standardised my room at all because I thought it was messy and dull. A few years ago, I decided this was the end of it I kaleed on a Mega Room Revamp come across and overhauled my room. The end result? A room I totally relish being in and inspires me to be at my peak all(prenominal) day. 6. Overcome your fears. All of us flummox fears. Fear of uncertainty, fear of worldly concern oratory, fear of risk All our fears keep us in the same position and prevent us from growing.Recognize that your fears reflect areas where you can grow. I always think of fears as the compass for harvest-time. If I shoot a fear roughly something, it represents something Ive yet to address, and addressing it helps me to grow. 7. Level up your skills. If you have played tv games before especially RPGs, youll k now the concept of takeing up gaining experience so you can be give away and stronger. As a web logger, Im constantly leveling up my written material skills. As a speaker, Im constantly leveling up my public e ngagement abilities. What skills can you level up? 8. Wake up premature.Waking up early (say, 5-6am) has been acknowledged by many (Anthony Robbins, robin redbreast Sharma, among different self-help gurus) to improve your productivity and your look of carriage. I feel its because when you wake up early, your learning ability is already set to continue the momentum and proactively live out the day. Seth recently wrote a argus-eyed up early series which you should check out to help domesticize this habit. 9. necessitate a periodical exercise routine. A better you starts with being in better physical shape. I soulally institute it a point to jog at least 3 times a week, at least 30 minutes each time.You may involve to mix it up with jogging, gym lessons and swimming for variation. 10. arrive your life handbook. A life handbook is an idea I started 3 years ago. Basically, its a book which contains the essentials on how you can live your life to the fullest, such as your pur pose, your values and goals. Sort of like your manual for your life. I started my life handbook since 2007 and its been a crucial enabler in my progress. 11. Write a letter to your future day self. What do you see yourself as 5 years from now? Will you be the same? Different? What kind of person will you be?Write a letter to your future self 1 year from now will be a good start and sealskin it. Make a date in your calendar to open it 1 year from now. Then start working to become the person you requisite to open that letter. 12. Get out of your comfort zone. Real growth comes with hard work and sweat. Being too comfortable doesnt help us grow it make believes us stagnate. What is your comfort zone? Do you stay in most of the time? Do you keep to your receive space when out with other pack? Shake your routine up. Do something different. By exposing yourself to a new context, youre literally growing as you learn to act in new circumstances. 3. Put somebody up to a challenge. C ompetition is one of the best ways to grow. Set a challenge (weight loss, exercise, pecuniary challenge, etc) and compete with an interested friend to see who achieves the target first. Through the process, both(prenominal) of you will gain more than if you were to set off on the target alone. 14. Identify your blind spots. Scientifically, blind spots refer to areas our eye are not capable of seeing. In person-to-person training terms, blind spots are things about ourselves we are unaware of. Discovering our blind spots help us discover our areas of improvement.One exercise I use to discover my blind spots is to identify all the things/events/ concourse that trigger me in a day trigger meaning making me feel annoyed/weird/affected. These represent my blind spots. Its always fun to do the exercise because I discover new things about myself, even if I may already think I know my own blind spots ( and then they wouldnt be blind spots would they? ). After that, I work on steps to a ddress them. 15. film for feedback. As much as we try to improve, we will always have blind spots. Asking for feedback gives us an additional perspective.Some people to approach will be friends, family, colleagues, boss, or even acquaintances, since they will have no preset bias and can give their feedback objectively. 16. Stay focused with din lists. I start my day with a list of tasks I want to complete and this helps make me stay focused. In comparison, the old age when I dont do this end up being extremely unproductive. For example, piece of music of my to-do list for today is to write a guest post at LifeHack. Org, and this is why Im writing this now Since my work requires me to use my computer all the time, I use Free randy Notes to manage my to-do lists.Its really simple to use and its a freeware, so I recommend you check it out. 17. Set Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs). Im a wide-ranging fan of setting BHAGs. BHAGs stretch you beyond your normal capacity since they are big and audacious you wouldnt think of attempting them normally. What are BHAGs you can embark on, which youll feel absolutely on top of the world once you complete them? Set them and start working on them. 18. Acknowledge your flaws. Everyone has flaws. Whats most important is to encounter them, acknowledge them, and address them. What do you think are your flaws?What are the flaws you can work on now? How do you want to address them? 19. Get into action. The best way to learn and improve is to take action. What is something you have been meaning to do? How can you take action on it immediately? Waiting doesnt get anything done. Taking action gives you immediate results to learn from. 20. Learn from people who inspire you. Think about people you admire. People who inspire you. These people reflect certain qualities you want to have for yourself too. What are the qualities in them you want to have for yourself? How can you acquire these qualities?21. Quit a mediocre habit. Are t here any bad habits you can lose? Oversleeping? Not exercising? Being late? Slouching? Nail biting? Smoking? hithers some help on how you can quit a bad habit. 22. Cultivate a new habit. Some good new habits to cultivate include reading books (1), waking up early (8), exercising (9), reading a new personal development oblige a day (40) and meditating. Is there any other new habit you can cultivate to improve yourself? 23. Avoid negative people. As Jim Rohn says, You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. Wherever we go, there are bound to be negative people.Dont spend too much of your time rough them if you feel they drag you down. 24. Learn to deal with difficult people. There are times when there are difficult people you cant avoid, such as at your workplace, or when the person is part of your inner circle of contacts. Learn how to deal with them. These people anxiety skills will go a long way in working with people in the future. 25. Learn from your frie nds. Everyone has amazing qualities in them. Its up to how we want to tap into them. With all the friends who surround you, they are going to have things you can learn from. purify thinking of a good friend right now. Think about just one quality they have which you want to adopt. How can you learn from them and adopt this skill for yourself? Speak to them if you need to for sure, they will be more than happy to help 26. stolon a journal. Journaling is a great way to gain better self-awareness. Its a self-reflection process. As you write, clarify your thought process and read what you wrote from a third persons perspective, you gain more insights about yourself. Your journal can be private or an online blog.I use my personal development blog as a personal journal too and Ive learned a lot about myself through the past year of blogging. 27. Start a blog about personal development. To help others grow, you need to first be walking the talk. There are expectations of you, both from y ourself and from others, which you have to uphold. I run The Personal Excellence Blog, where I share my personal journey and insights on how to live a better life. Readers look toward my articles to improve themselves, which enforces to me that I need to keep improving, for myself and for the people Im reaching out to.28. Get a mentor or managing director. Theres no faster way to improve than to have someone work with you on your goals. Many of my clients approach me to coach them in their goals and they achieve significantly more results than if they had worked alone. 29. Reduce the time you spend on chat programs. I realized having chat programs open at default result in a lot of hard up time. This time can be much better spent on other activities. The days when I dont get on chat, I get a lot more done. I usually disable the auto start-up option in the chat programs and launch them when I do want to chat and really have the time for it. 0. Learn chess (or any strategy game). I found chess is a terrific game to learn strategy and hone your brainpower. Not only do you have fun, you also get to exercise your analytical skills. You can also learn strategy from other board games or computer games, such as Othello, Chinese Chess, WarCraft, and so on. 31. Stop watching TV. Ive not been watching TV for pretty much 4 years and its been a very liberating experience. I realized most of the programs and advertisements on mainstream TV are usually of a lower spirit and not very empowering.In return, the time Ive freed up from not watching TV is now constructively used for other purposes, such as connecting with close friends, doing work I enjoy, exercising, etc. 32. Start a 30-day challenge. Set a goal and give yourself 30 days to achieve this. Your goal can be to stick with a new habit or something youve always wanted to do moreover have not. 30 days is just enough time to strategize, plan, get into action, review and nail the goal. 33. Meditate. supposition helps to calm you and be more conscious. I also realized that during the nights when I meditate (before I sleep), I need lesser sleep.The clutter clearing process is very liberating. 34. Join symposiarchs (Learn public speaking). Interestingly, public speaking is the 1 fear in the world, with 2 being death. After I started public speaking as a personal development speaker/trainer, Ive learned a lot about how to advance better, present myself and engage people. Toastmasters is an international organization that trains people in public speaking. Check out the Toastmaster clubs nearest to you here. 35. Befriend top people in their fields. These people have achieved their results because they have the right attitudes, skill sets and know-how.How better to learn than from the people who have been there and done that? Gain new insights from them on how you can improve and achieve the same results for yourself. 36. Let go of the past. Is there any grievance or unhappiness from the past which you have been holding on? If so, its time to let it go. Holding on to them prevents you from locomote on and becoming a better person. Break away from the past, forgive yourself, and move on. Just recently, I finally moved on from a past heart jibe of 5 years ago. The effect was liberating and very empowering, and I have never been happier. 37.Start a business venture. Is there anything you have an interest in? Why not turn it into a venture and make money while learning at the same time? Starting a new venture requires you to be learn business management skills, develop business acumen and have a competitive edge. The process of starting and developing my personal development business has equipped me with many skills, such as self-discipline, leadership, organization and management. 38. Show kindness to people around you. You can never be too kind to someone. In fact, most of us dont show enough kindness to people around us.Being kind helps us to cultivate other qualities such as compassion, patience, and love. As you get back to your day after reading this article later on, start exuding more kindness to the people around you, and see how they react. Not only that, detect how you feel as you behave kindly to others. Chances are, you will feel even better than yourself. 39. Reach out to the people who loathe you. If you ever stand for something, you are going to get haters. Its easy to hate the people who hate us. Its much more challenging to love them back.Being able to forgive, let go and show love to these people requires magnanimity and an open heart. Is there anyone who dislikes or hates you in your life? If so, reach out to them. Show them love. Seek a resolution and get closure on past grievances. Even if they refuses to reciprocate, love them all the same. Its much more liberating than to hate them back. 40. Take a break. Have you been working too hard? Self-improvement is also about recognizing our need to take a break to walk the longer mile ahea d. You cant be driving a car if it has no petrol. Take some time off for yourself every week.Relax, rejuvenate and charge yourself up for whats up ahead. 41. Read at least 1 personal development article a day. Some of my readers make it a point to read at least one personal development article every day, which I think is a great habit. There are many terrific personal development blogs out there, some of which you can check here. 42. Commit to your personal growth. I can be writing list articles with 10 ways, 25 ways, 42 ways or even 1,000 ways to improve yourself, but if youve no intention to rank to your personal growth, it doesnt matter what I write.Nothing is going to get through. We are responsible for our personal growth not anyone else. Not your mom, your dad, your friend, me or LifeHack. Make the decision to commit to your personal growth and embrace yourself to a life-long journey of growth and change. Kick off your growth by picking a few of the steps above and working o n them. The results may not be immediate, but I promise you that as long as you keep to it, youll start seeing positive changes in yourself and your life. hk