Successful people attribute habits that they follow as the secret to their success. In fact, that’s why it’s so common to come across lists highlighting these “habits of highly successful people.” In turn, accessing these lists can inspire you to develop these habits in your own life.
Rather than the habit itself, what matters most is how many successful people rely on habits to control aspects of their lives and achieve success. Take financial advisor Jeff Rose, the Wealth Hacker, as an example. After leaving a big brokerage firm to start his own firm, he still felt unfilled. This was despite bringing in six figures, having a nice home, and starting a family.
“I didn’t understand what I was missing, but I knew it was there,” Rose says. What’s more, he couldn’t describe how he felt to his wife, family, or friends. “So I began this journey of researching and looking at successful business leaders and entrepreneurs and just talking with other mentors and other successful business people.”
Rose says that he was “trying to unlock what it was that I was missing.” And, it was while he was on this research journey that he discovered that “there were some things, some commonalities that the successful people have, successful habits that they had implemented, into their daily lives that I hadn’t yet that I wasn’t doing.”
While skeptical at first, he made minor changes in his life to adopt these habits. Eventually, they did have a major impact on his personal and professional life. So, what were these changes that he implemented? Well, here are the 6 rich people habits that Rose promises will change your life.
1 Early to be, early to rise.
“Alright, so I’ve got to start in the bedroom because this was by far the biggest change out of all of them,” Rose states. But, what exactly did he change?
Rose, who was the father of young children at the time, had the habit of going to bed around midnight, one, or two o’clock in the morning. “I was researching on how to do online marketing, I was growing businesses like I was excited and I just got a lot of stuff done in the evenings or the later evenings after my wife went to bed, after my kids went to bed, just living that hustle, right? he explains.
“But the way that I woke up every morning, I didn’t even set my alarm,” he continues. “The way that I woke up was my wife would get up and when I heard her in the shower that’s when I knew it was time to get up.” He would essentially just roll out of bed every morning not knowing how counterproductive this was until he read Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod.
“I realized that if you start your day off, without intent, without purpose, you are missing out on so much,” Rose recalls. “You don’t realize how unfocused and uncommitted you are for that day.”
In researching other rich people and what their morning routines were, Rose began to wonder why he didn’t have one. “Why wasn’t I waking up with an intent and a purpose like other rich people?”
“For example, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple wakes up at 3:45 every single morning,” he states. “The Rock Dwayne Johnson wakes up at 4:00 a.m to do his crazy insane workouts.” And entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk gets up at 6:00 a.m every morning, although he probably didn’t go to bed at all. “But all these people, all these rich people that I read about, their morning routines were all they were getting up early and they were just rolling out of bed,” he adds. Getting up to read a book, to get some exercise was the intent. There is a purpose between that. “So I started doing that and I give credit to Hal Elrod’s Miracle Morning.
If you’re having trouble getting to bed in the first place, though, here are 8 things that you should do so that you wake up feeling energized.
- Don’t use technology at least 20 minutes before bed.
- Maintain a stress-free environment at night.
- Relax and wind down.
- Avoid eating or drinking close to bedtime.
- Set your phone to airplane mode or do not disturb.
- Stick to a consistent sleep schedule.
- Make a list of 5 things you are grateful for each day.
- Don’t forget to set an alarm so you have enough time in the morning.
2. Work out on a consistent basis.
The next change that Rose made? Make exercise a priority. Which, to be fair, isn’t all that surprising.
“Seventy-six percent of the rich aerobically exercise 30 minutes or more every day,” notes Thomas C. Corley, who studied the daily habits of 177 self-made millionaires for five years, in his book Change Your Habits, Change Your Life. Running, jogging, walking, and biking are all examples of aerobic exercises.
“Cardio is not only good for the body, but it’s good for the brain,” he wrote. “It grows the neurons (brain cells) in the brain.”
“Exercise also increases the production of glucose, he added. “Glucose is brain fuel. The more fuel you feed your brain, the more it grows and the smarter you become.”
Moreover, daily exercise releases endorphins that will improve your mood. It also will give you more energy, discipline, and potentially open the door to networking opportunities. And, exercise is another way to help you get a better night’s sleep.
What if you’re crunched for time? Well, you can make time for exercise by adding it to your calendar. This way it’s like any other appointment that you wouldn’t flake out on. Also, exercise should be part of your morning routine. And, during breaks at work, squeeze in a walk or jog.
[Related: Fat Tax – Is America About to Start Charging Businesses for Fat Employees?]
3. Meditate and/or pray.
Praying for others, listening to worship music, or meditating should be a part of your daily routine, such as being a part of your morning routine. As Rose explains, this gives you a chance to unplug and give your brain a rest. Furthermore, there’s evidence that through meditation, you’re allowing your brain to have active rest. As a result, you grow in compassion and creativity.
Additionally, this helps reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. And, prayer and meditation get us away from fight or flight mode.
“Prayer and meditation are highly effective in lowering our reactivity to traumatic and negative events,” says Dr. Paul Hokemeyer, a marriage, family, and addictions therapist. “They are powerful because they focus our thoughts on something outside ourselves.”
During times of stress, our limbic system, more commonly known as our central nervous system, becomes hyper-activated, which does two things: it thrusts us into survival mode where we freeze, fight or flee the situation, [such that] we move away from the present state of being into a future state,” Dr. Hokemeyer explains. “This also shuts down our executive functioning [and] prevents us from thinking clearly. This is why when we’re stressed out we can make poor decisions and act in self-destructive ways.”
4. Don’t just set and forget your goals.
Rose, like so many of us, would establish annual goals. At first, “I felt really good that I was doing this,” he says. “But the reality is that by the second month by February of that year, I would forget like what my goals were and I may reflect back on what those goals were at the beginning of the following year.”
A better approach? Review your goals on a consistent basis.
“Figure out a routine that works for you in which you can reevaluate your goals and approaches frequently,” advises Max Palmer in a previous Due article. “Otherwise, you can get caught doing the same thing without much growth for large periods of time.”
Constantly asking yourself, “do I still want to work towards this thing?” and “is my current approach the best way to do so?” will keep you on track. After all, it’s an uphill battle to accomplish goals that are more difficult than initially thought.
“Accordingly, it is easy to give up on a goal because we realize all of the effort that it is going to take,” adds Max. “In some senses, this is positive because you might realize that all of the time spent working towards something is not worthwhile.”
“On the other hand, though, it is easy to shirk away from the stress and effort despite long-term rewards,” he says. “In the case that you are thinking about giving up, think hard about why that is and how you feel at heart.”
5. Read more books.
Did you know that the rich would rather be educated than entertained? It’s true. In fact, according to Corley, 88% of rich people “devote thirty minutes or more each day to self-education or self-improvement reading” and that “most did not read for entertainment.”
“The rich read to acquire or maintain knowledge,” he said. But, what exactly do they read? Corley states that the three types of books that the rich read include: biographies of successful people, history books, and self-help or personal development books.
6. Make relationships a priority.
The final habit Rose has implemented is putting an emphasis on valuing relationships.
For Rose, this all began with a business coaching group. “To be able to surround myself with other successful entrepreneurs, small business owners that were all committed to growing,” he says. “Surrounding myself with them ’cause we just had so many similarities, so many growing pains that we could share, in that share in those struggles and sharing those wins and just having an outlet to go to.
You could also get more involved with your community or place of prayer, he suggests. You could also join mastermind groups. And, always, make your family and friends a priority. For example, no matter how hectic work is, try to be home by dinner so that you can have quality time with the fam.
