Getting What You Want: 3 Habits of Influential People

Ever wondered how you can secure whatever you desire than is actually happening now? Well, these three simple suggestions are in a class of their own because they do not take too much effort to carry out, yet they have the capacity to make the biggest difference to what you are trying to achieve. They are highly effective because, if they are done regularly, they automatically lead to other things that are often unexpected.

At first glance, they might not look so amazing, but their effectiveness comes in making them part of your daily routine; consistently putting them into practice, day after day, and watching their domino effects as they begin to work.

If you have been having too many disappointments in your efforts, perhaps you could do with a simpler more trustworthy approach. These three tips could work wonders in fulfilling your expectations.

1. Learn Something New Every Day of Your Life.

Mahatma Gandhi once said: “Live as though you will die tomorrow, and learn as though you will live forever.”

Those are powerful encouraging words for our development that demonstrate the importance of learning to improve the quality of our lives. Trawl the Internet for information, it is the greatest repository of trivia and facts in existence, and put that knowledge to good use. If you feed your body and consider it essential for your survival, why not your brain as well? It has to do most of the work to keep your body intact.

You might have heard that knowledge is power but, for me, that is not quite true. To have knowledge without doing anything with it might make you more aware, but you will be no better down the line. What is truly powerful is applied knowledge, acting upon that information to make it work for you, or others. While I was researching for my books, a great learning tool was seeing what other people thought about the subjects I covered; being able to reject, ignore, or accept their opinions, and to compare them with mine to give a balanced view. There is nothing to beat that when we are educating ourselves.

Recent research has found that people who read a lot and keep an active mind are less prone to Alzheimer’s disease. So keeping our brains stimulated obviously affects our bodies too.

2. Emphasise Your Strengths.

It seems easier to focus on what we haven’t got, than to be thankful for what we have. But keep away from focusing on your perceived weaknesses. BOTH your strengths and weaknesses give you that crucial balance in your personality and competence. Give yourself credit for everything you attempt, whether successful or not. At least you made the effort when you could easily have resisted or done nothing. By focusing on what you can do, your efforts are applauded instead of just the end product, while you rule out what won’t work.

Starting from a base of what you should, and can do also helps you to live within the bounds of your limitations, while gradually extending them in a comfortable way to discover new talents. Make a list of the things you do well, or want to learn, attempting one of them every day or each week. It is easy to forget the things you are highly competent at doing, especially when you get little positive feedback.

Continued frustration and having to attempt things we dread, or have difficulty with, can lead to feelings of inadequacy, especially when our success is dependent upon the approval of others. We then place all our value in their hands and sometimes wait in vain for their feedback. But if that reinforcement is not forthcoming from the significant others around us, and in the form we expect, it can destroy our positive feelings. Relying upon such feedback is what children do out of necessity, because they do not have the inner resources, maturity, and life experience adults have.

However, being older, we have to learn how to create and maintain confidence by emphasising the things we value and appreciate in ourselves, whether it is our own names, customs, achievements, or endeavours. Surround yourself with positive people because negative ones are unlikely to see your perspective. Their fear and anxieties will only drag you down in their own emotional mire and negativity.

3. Set Realistic Goals.

Live purposefully and with clear goals. Often fear kills our motivation when we decide to dream big, and so we become overwhelmed by the sheer thought of its development, and what it might mean to our lives. You should always start with the basics, very simply, and progress slowly in that way, unless you feel comfortable and competent enough to attempt the big dream from the beginning. It means setting realistic goals for YOU, no one else, because you are the one who will have to work at them and achieve them.

Set goals that will meet YOUR expectations, not someone else’s. Don’t try to compete with anyone else at this stage, or to impress them. Focus on getting that idea off the ground, in ways that make you feel capable of achieving it. Small incremental successes over time will gradually improve your capabilities, self-belief, and self-worth. Avoid making the same mistakes again by learning from them, while remembering that every setback makes you wiser and stronger. Above all, keep your focus on the substance, not just on the form, or the glossy frame.

Any disappointment or failure simply means you are not successful yet, but your turn will definitely come, if you do your best, with belief, faith, resilience and patience, and also take time out for regular self-appreciation and development.