Rich Thinking is a habit, or rather, many habits. Rich Thinking habits establish a success-oriented mindset, something that is critical to, and a prerequisite to, the acquisition of success.
So, what are the Rich Thinking Habits?
I Must Improve Every Day
Being obsessed with daily self-improvement triggers all sorts of daily behaviors, or daily habits:
- Reading to Learn every day in order to acquire expert knowledge in your field or craft. This requires a thirty minutes or more of daily reading.
- Engaging in Deliberate Practice every day to help perfect and improve your skills. This requires two hours of more of Deliberate Practice.
- Curiosity. This requires seeking specific answers to things you know nothing about.
I Will Never Quit
- Emotional Stability is at the heart of this Rich Thinking habit. When things go wrong, as they mostly do during the success journey, Emotional Stability means avoiding the tendency to get down on yourself. When things go right, Emotional Stability means avoiding the tendency to become euphoric. Emotional Stability means never overreacting to defeat or success. You’ve seen this habit at work in high performers like Roger Federer, Eli Manning and Michael Jordan. You would never know either of them was winning or losing because they possess the Emotional Stability Rich Thinking habit.
- Managing Expectations requires setting realistic expectations at the very beginning. When you set realistic expectations, you avoid the ups and downs.When you set unrealistic expectations you are setting yourself up for disappointment, sadness or depression. When you set realistic expectations you are setting yourself up for satisfaction or happiness.
- Focus eliminates distractions. When you make focus a habit, you ignore the noise and distractions that take most people off task.
- Persistence means you continue to pursue your dreams and your goals no matter what happens in your life.
I Know Where I’m Going
Dream-Setting is about visualizing what your ideal, perfect life looks like ten or twenty years into the future. You create a blueprint of that life by writing a script about what your future life will look like. This habits requires that you continuously tweak your blueprint, you re-write your script, as facts and circumstances change. During the pursuit of success, some things will go right and more things will go wrong. Staying focused on the end game, requires re-writing your script when your circumstances change, while still maintaining your focus on where you want to end up ten or twenty years into the future.
I Will Maintain a Positive Mental Outlook
Gratitude is the gateway to a positive mental outlook, so it all begins with being grateful for what you have. This sets in motion all of the other positive traits you will need to succeed: optimism, enthusiasm, hope, passion and inspiration.
The most successful individuals have the ability to stay positive during stressful situations. They understand that positivity is the springboard of all creativity and insight, which helps you overcome obstacles and find solutions to problems.
I Will Adopt a Solutions Mindset
Successful people do not focus on finding problems, they acknowledge a problem and then focus on finding solutions.
I Will Become Process-Oriented
Everyone who pursues success makes mistakes. Those who succeed see those mistakes as learning experiences. They learn from their mistakes. Once they figure out what they did wrong, they develop processes that enable them to avoid making the same mistakes.
I Will be Patient
Success takes a long time. Those who succeed adopt the Rich Thinking Habit of Patience. They patiently persist, waiting for opportunities and luck to manifest themselves and then taking advantage of those opportunities and that luck.
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