The Three Habits For Success
Last week, I wrote about how the biggest difference between owning no investment properties and owning 10 didn’t come down to knowledge, opportunity, or even dare I say it, income.
It was all about personal habits.
It’s that that got me reflecting this past week … thinking about which of all the habits I’ve built over the last 15-20 years, had the biggest impact?
There are plenty I could point to. Some have helped me become a better investor, some a better leader, and others a better husband, father, and friend.
But there are three habits that stand out above the rest. These three are also habits I’ve consistently observed in people who have achieved more than I have.
Do something hard every day
‘Hard’ will mean different things to different people. It doesn’t need to be extreme. It simply needs to be something that makes you uncomfortable.
For some, that’s exercising when they’d rather stay in bed. For others, it’s having a difficult conversation, making phone calls – who makes phone calls in 2026, right? – or tackling a problem they’ve been avoiding.
For me, it’s usually one of two things:
- Exercising; or
- Starting my day with the task I want to do least.
Success comes to those of us willing to do the things others find easier to avoid.
When you make a habit of confronting difficult things early and often, it builds confidence. And the thing about confidence is that it tends to lead to more action, which in turn leads to greater confidence, and as such, the momentum builds.
Just as wealth compounds financially, confidence compounds personally.
Learn something new every day
Learning is a habit.
For me, the source of learning that has had an outsized impact on my life has to be reading (or listening if that’s more your jam).
It’s remarkable how many life lessons are hidden inside a $20 or $30 book. People spend decades building a life, accumulating experiences, making mistakes, overcoming setbacks, and eventually sit down to document everything they’ve learned.
That’s an incredible return on investment.
There is an old saying ‘if you’re not learning, you’re not earning’, I’ve certainly found that to be true.
Your ability to grow your income, wealth, skills, and opportunities is closely tied to your ability to continue learning.
The moment we believe we’ve got it all figured out is often the moment we start going backwards.
Sweat the small stuff
The third habit might sound a little strange because we’re often told not to do this – and that is sweat the small stuff.
In the context of achieving big goals, I’ve found the opposite to be true.
What I mean by this is the act of breaking large goals into small milestones, then focusing relentlessly on those bite-sized milestones.
Too many people become overwhelmed by ambitious goals and that’s because they’re fixated on the summit rather than the path to the summit.
Building better relationships, generating more wealth, getting a promotion at work and running a personal best. All these things feel daunting when viewed from the finish line backwards.
Success rarely belongs to the smartest or most talented. It’s usually the people who became obsessed with taking the next step and do so consistently.
Final Thought
I’ve built dozens of habits over the years and I’m still working on new ones today as I continue to chase the limits of my potential.
That being said, if I had to identify the habits that made the biggest difference, these would be at the top of the list.
If you follow along with my blogs and took anything away from last week’s, perhaps this is the next step for you.
Don’t just set one big goal. Build the habits that make achieving it inevitable. Starting with one of these or another habit that you can commit to every day for the next 30 days.
You may be surprised by how dramatically your life changes when success stops being an event and starts becoming a habit.
