Here’s to Success in the New Year!

No matter how you ended up your year, one thing is for sure. You can improve in 2018. If you’re coming off a good year, next year can be even better. If things didn’t go so well, you can change direction and strive for success. For many, the improvement will only come with change. Change a habit or two, change some behaviors, and you can change the outcomes.

Of course, we’re quite familiar with the coincidence of the beginning of the year with “resolutions” for change, often in the areas of health, fitness, and diet. But what if you are looking to make changes in your life that will affect your business success?

Fortunately, if there is one thing the internet is famous for, that would be information on the habits of successful people, winners, good bosses, killer entrepreneurs or just about any category you can think of.

Here are a selection of suggestions I’ve found – and they’re all good!

You might want to start by looking at an area that we don’t always think of as productive – sleep. It might seem that it’s hard to succeed while you’re snoozing, but examining the sleep habits of successful people, it’s pretty easy to see that getting 5 – 8 hours of sleep, and waking between 5 AM and 7 AM is characteristic of success.

If you think Mark Twain was a smart guy, and you should, take his advice and tackle your toughest task first thing in your work day. He referred to it as “eating a frog” but we get the meaning. The eating the frog concept is reprised in this list of 11 Ways Successful People Start Their Mornings, along with some other good day-starters, like keeping and reviewing a “to-don’t” list, and kissing your partner goodbye.

Apparently, wealthy people agree that watching TV (especially reality TV shows!) is a bad idea. And they like to read, although they tend to focus on self-improvement rather than reading for entertainment. And among the challenges successful folks learn to overcome (or ignore) are age, fear and other peoples’ opinions! Watch your mouth (!) could certainly be an anthem for success, as there are lots of opinions about what successful people never say (example: no gossiping).

If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you’ll gain the habits of focus, perseverance and leaning when to cut your losses. Other entrepreneurial tricks – warning some of these are radical – include going for a hike, getting rid of your smartphone, and “thinking binary”.

The lists are nearly endless (including this last gem) and the nine references I’ve provided today include dozens of things you can put into practice (or strive to avoid). The best advice I can give you is to choose two or three that you know deep inside would help you the most, and get started.

Have a great year!