The 7 Habits of Highly Inspired People

Learning the success habits of inspired people is not hard; it is just a matter of practicing being who you aspire to be. It’s easier to turn the alarm off than to get up and go work out, but the person you want to be is already back from a run and making breakfast.

In this article we will look at the habits that make up the go-getters, the movers and shakers, and the early birds that are out there getting the worm before you. Let’s learn how to be motivated, disciplined, and inspiring to others.

7 Habits of Inspired People

1. Set SMART Goals for Yourself

A goal that is non-specific can set you up for failure. How will you know if you’ve achieved your goal unless you give it some details? That is what SMART goals are meant to do.

A SMART goal is:

Specific – It spells out what exactly you want to achieve

Measurable – You or someone else will know if you’ve gotten there because you can measure it.

Attainable -You know that it is within the realm of possibility to do this.

Relevant – It is important to you now and it will still be important to you in the future.

Time-bound – There is a deadline when you want to achieve this goal by

So an example of a non-specific goal might be, ‘I want to save money to go on a vacation.?’ A SMART goal would be ‘I want to save $3400 by May 1, 2017 for a vacation to Ireland.’

2. Take accountability

You alone, or maybe with the help of a couple of your best supporters, are able to accomplish what you want to achieve. Taking accountability means taking responsibility for your action or lack of action.

Whose fault is it that you didn’t go for a run when it was raining? Let’s look at your choices if your goal is to run every day and it’s rainy:

1. Get wet and run anyway

2. Exercise indoors

3. Make up the run on another day

4. Sleep in

The truth is that it was your own fault and no one else’s if you chose to sleep in. Accept that you made this choice consciously and now make another choice to choose differently next time.

3. Know yourself

When you know your likes and dislikes, you can help yourself to be successful. For example, if you know that you don’t cook at home very often because you hate planning and preparing meals, then get help with this step. If you know that you won’t workout unless you do it in the morning, make sure you get to exercise in the morning.

Avoid your known pitfalls, know what excites you and use that information to get yourself going. Say ‘When I achieve this goal I will be able to ____.’

4. Do what you are dreading right away

That one thing that you don’t want to do and have been avoiding doing? That’s the one you should be tacking first. Once it’s done, everything else will be easier.

Brian Tracy, author of Eat That Frog and more than 60 other books on success, productivity, learning, and more says ‘Mark Twain once said that if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worse things that is going to happen to you all day long. Your ‘frog’ is your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it.’

Procrastinating is part of why you have not reached your goal yet. The fear of the one activity or project hat you need to do is blocking your progress for the rest of the day. Rip the bandaid off.

5. Be more militant

Create some military discipline around your life by dictating how things must be in order for you, and the members of your team if there are any, to achieve the goals that you have spelled out.

Craft your day to build success and progress toward your goal. You might schedule a 12:00 meeting with yourself to check in and see how you are doing on your progress.

Make this an efficient, quick meeting by setting an agenda:

1. Ask yourself what obstacles are keeping you from making forward progress and make a decision to get rid of them

2. Say some motivating words to yourself

3. Get back to work.

6. Celebrate progress

If your goal is to lose 20 lbs then an inspired person doesn’t reward themselves with an ice cream sundae once they’ve lost 5 lbs. What you can do instead to reward yourself for this accomplishment is buy a new workout outfit or something that supports your goal and keeps you inspired.

7. Plan for setbacks and learn to avoid them

You are an inspired work in progress and each day is a chance to start over. Give yourself a break if you’ve slipped in working toward your goal and make a plan for how to prevent slipping in the future.

For example, if you forgot your gym shoes in your bag, set them out for the next morning. Make this a habit to prevent yourself from sabotaging your efforts to get healthy. Set yourself up for success by making it harder to fail next time.