Eight success habits for a fulfilled life
If you want to kick goals and create the life you've always dreamed of, you need to learn the routines that will build a success mindset. Here's how.
Here's eight success habits for a fulfilled life that the world's most influential people know.
Learning to meet your Vital Needs is the pathway to learning how to trust your inner world—to be able to look within for answers which is one of the most popular habits of successful people.
This is how you learn that you matter and that you’re worthwhile. These needs are the bridge to your mindful self—the part of you that is already alight with the truth of who you are.
Vital needs are not optional. They are the lifeblood of your self-esteem. If you're ignore them, you're telling yourself you don't matter.
There are four inner world vital needs and four outer world vital needs to teach your mind to work for you, instead of against.
Think of your mind as a flower. For it to be its beautiful best, it will need eight different nutrients. When any of these nutrients are neglected, the flower can’t reach its full potential.
Starting on the outer ring of what you need, are gratitude and stability. There must be an attitude of gratitude! Then, as you move in through the rings to the centre—your centred self—you come closer to creating successful habits, knowing yourself, what matters to you, how you matter to the world, and what gives you meaning.
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Inner World Needs –
Gratitude > Boundaries > Emotional Intimacy > Progress
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Outer World Needs –
Stability > Differentiation > To Matter > To Love
The eight success habits are formed through four inner and outer world needs partners:
Gratitude/Stability
Boundaries/Differentiation
Emotional Intimacy/To Matter
Progress/To Love
As you learn to meet each pair of success habit needs consistently, the next set of needs present themselves and become available to you.
Gratitude and Stability work hand in hand. The first is the internal need; the second is the external need. Having (internal) gratitude gives you (external) stability.
Next, we have Boundaries and Differentiation. Having firm boundaries (internal) allows you to differentiate your own individual self from that of your tribe (external). This is followed by Emotionality (or Emotional Intimacy) and to matter. At the centre is Progress and To Love.
Each pair of needs—an inner world need and an outer world need—work together to give you a centred approach to getting your success habit needs met. When one need is met to the exclusion of the other, you’ll be out of balance. You are not being truthful with yourself, or in some way you’re denying yourself what you need. Any area of denial, suppression, or indifference you feel is a wonderful indicator to you of where you could become more mindful and attentive.
For example, you can’t be emotionally unavailable to yourself or others and still expect to matter to others for who you are. You’re not being yourself, you’re not fully expressing yourself, and you’re presenting only certain aspects of yourself to them, this isn't a successful habit. Others may not fully realise that you’re not being your real, authentic self but you will know, and this tug of incongruity will prevent you from feeling genuinely connected to them.
Gratitude and Stability
Again, Gratitude and Stability are flip sides of the same coin.
Success Habit 1. Gratitude (Inner World Need)
Gratitude is the sun in the garden of your mind. If you consistently live this moment in preparation for another moment, or you’re trapped in a distant moment or a distant promise of happiness, then you will feel perpetually dissatisfied with yourself and your life.
You need to know that this moment, as it is, is enough
You can create a successful habit by feeling gratitude for this moment, for being alive, for caring about someone, for being loved, for being safe from war, for being able to think, for being able to feel the sun, for being able to eat without having to hunt for your food, for being able to learn. . .
Daily Practice:
♥ Decide in advance to be grateful for an experience or a conversation you will have today
♥ Express gratitude to someone for who they are
♥ Accept gratitude and appreciation from others
Success Habit 2. Stability (Outer World Need)
Stability is the soil you utilize and the weeding you do to help the garden of your mind be free to receive what it needs.
If you neglect your need for stability and structure, you place yourself under undue stress, which then distracts you from getting on with choices that can give you a more fulfilling life.
It’s the planning of it. The organization of the materials. The seasonal planting. The regular, scheduled maintenance. It’s what makes it a success habit and possible to have the flourishing garden next season.
This fulfillment of your need for stability and structure can take the form of organizing your week, including making meals and doing the washing so that you have spare time during the week to exercise. It could take the form of planning your budget, so you live within your means as you save for your independent future. It could mean that you invest time, focus, and energy today into your health, rather than telling yourself you’ll do it later. It could say, in a particular situation, be calm when you may have previously gotten flustered so that you’re able to be a source of strength for yourself and those around you.
It could mean being the person others count on when there’s uncertainty because you are the certainty.
Daily Practice:
♥ Be the source of calm and stillness when there’s drama
♥ Don’t create drama
♥ Have the simple things that you do each and every day organized in such a way, so you don’t have to think about them
Boundaries and Differentiation
Boundaries and Differentiation are vital pieces of the same puzzle. You want to know that you belong in a healthy, functional way to your group – it could be your family of origin, your new family, a community, a club – and at the same time, you need to know that you have a level of individuality that separates you from the group.
It’s through healthy boundaries that you know how close to allow people to get, based on their level of ability to love, care, and respect you and your preferences.
Differentiation gives you the pathway for healthy separation. It’s by knowing how you differentiate yourself that you get to express yourself – both to yourself and to others freely.
Boundaries give you the pathway to healthy belonging
Success Habit 3. Boundaries (Inner World Need)
Boundaries are the fences around the garden of your mind. They are robust enough to keep out what isn’t welcome yet have enough of a gateway to let in those you trust. Some people can visit your garden. Some can stay. Some will never be welcome there.
Healthy boundaries include knowing what you prefer and don’t prefer, what you feel is okay in relationships and what you feel is okay in your choices.
These are decisions you make for yourself about yourself, which then reflect onto your world. They are the healthy root system of your beautiful garden and one of the most important success habits.
Each of us needs to develop our own blueprint of what our values are and to live this truth to feel a sense of self-worth.
With your healthy boundaries, and only with healthy boundaries, do you know where you belong, who you love, and who loves you. Anything less than this is a compromise.
Daily Practice:
♥ Say “no” to something if it conflicts with something you have planned
♥ Express your preferences quietly and without fuss or drama
♥ Seek to understand the boundaries that the people in your life have
You are valued for the unique individual you are
Success Habit 4. Differentiation (Outer World Need)
Differentiation is what you plant and how you have styled the garden of your mind to suit yourself, your preferences, and your desires.
The successful habit is you needing to be seen for who you are, not for who someone needs you or wants you to be. This beautiful garden has had its weeds cleared out. Here you get to flourish in the space that’s been created for you, to be all of who you really are.
To be seen, validated, and accepted for your true, authentic self is a vital piece of your personal expression.
Daily Practice:
♥ Be okay that you’re not the same as someone else, even if they want you to change
♥ Seek to understand and be open to learning how others see the world
♥ Ask yourself often: What do I want in this moment?
Emotional Intimacy and To Matter
Your Emotionality (Emotional Intimacy) and To Matter are partners on the same journey. You may have a very distant relationship with your emotions. Perhaps you struggle to label them, notice them, experience them, and embrace them. Or maybe you’ve already learned the importance of emotional intimacy, and you recognize, label, embrace, experience and then release your emotions with a deep appreciation because you’ve identified how they constitute a large part of who you really are. Or perhaps you are the type to deep dive into your emotions and live there.
In any event, your emotional landscape is a vital piece of your mindful engagement and successful habits.
And we all want to know we matter. But we want to know that we matter for who we are, not for someone we’re not.
Sadly, many people seek to feel significant in the eyes of others, yet they’ve neglected their emotional self. Their ego is in charge, rather than their Centered Self. The need for approval, praise, and acknowledgment can be its own form of addiction when your emotional world is not fully realized, claimed, and acknowledged.
Success Habit 5. Emotional Intimacy (Inner World Need)
Emotional Intimacy (emotional range) is you watering and tending the beautiful garden of your mind.
Emotional Intimacy is the pathway to resilience, tenacity, and grit.
When you know you have access to your sadness, your anger, your joy, your happiness, you experience new moments without fear of being “found out” then that's when you have created your success habit for emotions.
Daily Practice:
♥ Acknowledge to yourself, with compassion, how you feel
♥ Let yourself laugh out loud
♥ Be present to someone else without overwhelming them with your views on their emotions
Everyone needs to be taken seriously; this includes by others and by ourselves
Success Habit 6. To Matter (Outer World Need)
To know you matter is the fertilizer of the garden of your mind. It’s the source of encouragement; the boost you want to propel you onto new ways to embrace your Centered Self.
The success habit is formed if you continuously demonstrate self-care, compassion, and encouragement to yourself, you attract and are attractive to people who will take you seriously.
There is a part of you, and all of us, which craves and needs to be part of a broader collective. And you want to and need to feel connected and important to your group.
It’s not enough to have a certain number of people in your life. You must know that, in their eyes, you are significant, and that you matter. That you are important to them. In your Centered Self garden, this is the fertilizer that nourishes you.
I’m sure you’ve had the experience where you’ve turned up at a dinner party and felt it wouldn’t matter whether you were there or not. That the people there – and this could be your family – seem indifferent to you and your life.
And I trust you’ve had the experience where you’ve shown up at some other dinner party, and at least one person has shown an interest in and been delighted to hear about you and what you’ve been doing. You recognize that if you hadn’t shown up, you would be missed – that your Centered Self is significant in their eyes, in their minds, and in their hearts.
You can also understand that you matter when you contribute to causes larger than yourself, the members of which are unknown to you personally or your circle of family, friends, and acquaintances, or though through kind acts to others who don’t know you.
Daily Practice:
♥ Be with people who accept you for who you are
♥ Be kind to unkind people
♥ Contribute to something beyond your own life and that of your family
Progress and To Love
These two final needs, Progress and To Love, are how you know fulfillment. They are at the core of this journey to your Inner World. They’re how you know you’re on a path you care about. This is about giving of yourself without hesitation.
Again, one of these needs without the other will bring imbalance, which will cause you pain. I know too many people who believe they’re “progressing” because they’re reading lots of books on their “problem,” yet they see no measurable improvement in how they love themselves or others.
When we wallow, we wither; progress is essential for your Centered Self to flourish
Success Habit 7. Progress (Inner World Need)
The progress success habit is the upkeep and the improvements you make to the garden of your mind because you know that to stagnate is to allow the habits of disillusion to creep back in.
When you obsess about something you don’t like about yourself, without making a new choice or developing new and healthier habits, you poison your perception of yourself. If you become rigid and unyielding to the possibilities, you shut off compassion to yourself and others.
As we’ve explained before, rigidity is toxicity. To be stuck in your “comfort zone”… To be stuck in procrastination… To be stuck in a “rut”… These are all examples of a lack of commitment to your own progress.
If you relate to this, then the impact on your neurology is very real. You stagnate. You defend a status quo that doesn’t fulfill you, and you reject moments that could be filled with beauty, love, happiness, spontaneity, and wonder.
A sense of progress… of growth… is vital for your self-esteem and for restoring your Centered Self. Again, it’s the upkeep of your garden and this allows the garden to flourish.
To do this you must be willing to challenge your own mindset about what you believe, what you think matters, what you focus on, what you do, and the decisions you make.
Give up being right and surrender to the infinite possibilities ahead of you instead.
Daily Practice:
♥ Take one idea from this book and bring it to life today and every day
♥ Acknowledge where you have grown from yesterday
♥ Seek to explore new ideas that are contrary to or outside of your own experience
It’s the unconditional love that is the point of the whole journey
Success Habit 8. To Love (Outer World Need)
To Love means to tend daily to your garden… the foundation of the garden of your mind… it holds your future in its hands.
The success habit for Love is not about someone loving you – this is what boundaries and differentiation instill. To Love is about unconditional love for what is present right now, who is present right now, and how you are showing up…
Right Now.
This is the self-realization that it was always you who created your experience and it’s you who is shaping this moment, right now. It’s the love that is fulfillment, knowing that you’re making progress and loving who you’re becoming.
Daily Practice:
♥ Cultivate a feeling of surrender to the moment
♥ Love where you’re at and fully immerse in this moment
♥ Be loving in this moment, and to who is here with you
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