12 habits of high achievers who always move forward in life

What sets high achievers apart?

Is it their character? Their personalities, or even their diets?

Maybe it’s just luck.

Or perhaps high achievement comes by doing things, building behaviors, and refining habits to direct all of their actions toward positive results.

After all, people of all types and born from all walks of life can end up achieving great things, so achievement must have a lot more to do with what you do than who you are.

So, let’s look into some of the behaviors shared by high achievers and see if we can’t learn things from them and even develop them in ourselves.

To that end, here are 12 habits of high achievers who always move forward in life.

1) Setting clear goals

If you want to achieve things, you need to know what you’re aiming at.

And the only way to do that is to set yourself clear goals that you can keep in your sight at all times.

Most people like to use the acronym SMART to refer to goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Taking the time to really define your goals will save you lots of time and energy. Anytime a task or opportunity arises, you can ask yourself, “Does this take me closer to my goals?”

If the answer is no, then you probably shouldn’t do it. If the answer is yes, it will take you one step closer on your path to achievement.  

2) Keeping positive

People who achieve the highest of heights have something very important in common.

They don’t wallow in negativity.

That’s not to say that bad things don’t happen to them. Of course, they live their lives and run into trials and obstacles, as we all do.

But they maintain a positive outlook, which colors their experiences and helps them see obstacles as challenges they can feel great about overcoming.

3) Continuously learning

Think you know it all?

If you do, you’re holding yourself back from high achievement.

The world is vast and complex, and there’s a nearly infinite number of things to learn and experience within it.

Never mind outer space!

High achievers always move forward in life because they know that they can always learn new things to improve their lives. 

They gain experience and knowledge that can help them in future situations. They also get pleasure from learning new skills, and that’s an achievement in and of itself.

4) Performing self-care

If you think that high achievers work their fingers to the bone and burn the candle at both ends, think again.

It’s always better to work smarter and not harder, and these people also know that if you wear yourself out, you’ll never be able to make it big.

That’s why they invest time in themselves by practicing self-care.

This can include anything from a morning skincare routine to doing yoga or meditation to relieve stress and clear their minds.

They also exercise, eat well, and get the sleep they need to keep their bodies healthy so their brains can perform at their peak.

5) Taking risks

You know that old saying “nothing ventured, nothing gained”?

High achievers sure do – these are words that they live by.

You might think that what you’re doing with your life is good enough, and if you keep banging away at the same old thing, you’ll find success.

Maybe, but unlikely.

Instead of this kind of static thinking, high achievers take risks by doing new things and trying out new ventures.

But the key is that their risks are calculated.

They look at opportunities and decide how much they can afford to risk (in time, money, or energy) to try to make these opportunities work.

Of course, they’ll experience failure sometimes, but they’ll also experience successes, which will be worth it.

6) Staying motivated

One habit that high achievers love to cultivate is intrinsic motivation.

This means motivating yourself instead of being pushed on by other people or external factors.

If you’re only going in to work because you need the money or you’re afraid of your boss yelling at you, you’re being influenced by outside forces.

But if you’re working so that you can move up, get ahead, and reach your personal goals, you’re motivating yourself.

That motivation and drive are things most people have to build for themselves, and this is based on the life goals that they can see in front of them.

7) Learning from mistakes

As I said earlier, high achievers fail.

Everyone does.

But if you fail and then get upset about it and feel defeated, you’re not looking at failure from the high achiever’s perspective.

To these people, making mistakes is a part of life and an integral part at that.

If you keep in your comfort zone and never try to push yourself, sure, you’ll probably never make any serious boo-boos. But how will you also achieve big things with that mentality?

If you push yourself to do new and challenging things, on the other hand, you’re going to necessarily do some things wrong.

For high achievers, that’s just the way it goes. But once they make mistakes, they try to learn what they can from what went wrong so that next time, or the time after that, they’ll succeed.

8) Keeping things organized

Chaos can sometimes spur creativity.

That’s my excuse for why my desk is such a mess, anyway.

But organization can spur success.

Knowing where things are, what you need to do, and when you need to do it is simply efficient.

Lots of high achievers take just a few minutes in the morning to plan out their to-do list for the day so that they don’t forget anything crucial or waste their time on unimportant things.

Others keep themselves organized using digital tools like planning apps and programmed reminders.

They find tools that work to keep themselves prepared and their lives structured so that they can take on all the tasks they need to perform.

9) Defending boundaries

High achievers know how to say no.

But isn’t that negative?

It’s a negative word, I’ll grant you, but being able to say no to others is actually a very positive thing.

It means that you have personal boundaries and you respect yourself enough to defend them.

When someone asks you to do something that you’re not comfortable with, you should be able to turn them down out of respect for yourself.

What if someone asks you to do them a favor, but you simply don’t have the time?

If you say yes, you’ll get swamped and stress yourself out. So, while it might be hard to refuse, a high achiever will still be able to say no because they understand what’s best for themselves.

10) Taking on criticism

Nobody’s perfect, and high achievers almost never believe they are.

Instead, they constantly look for ways that they can improve, and one that they frequently leverage is criticism from others.

When someone tells you how you can do better, you can respond in different ways.

You can ignore them and believe that you’re already hot stuff. You can get angry and offended that they’d dare to criticize you. 

And, of course, you can choose to listen attentively to what they say and try to find suggestions for improvement.

That’s what high achievers do.

11) Rejecting procrastination

“Do it – do it now!”

This could be the unofficial motto of the high achiever.

That’s because procrastination is one of their main enemies, and they simply don’t entertain this behavior.

They make hay while the sun shines and do what they can today instead of putting it off until tomorrow.

They know that every task you avoid today is one more thing for the future you to do.

So, if you want to keep moving forward in life, do your future self a favor and quit procrastinating.

12) Leveraging others

So many people are extremely talented and have incredible skills.

But something that can keep even these gifted people from achieving soaring heights is trying to do everything themselves.

You might be the most brilliant singer the world has ever seen, but why would you think that you’re also the greatest sound engineer, producer, and music marketer out there?

When you’re trying to make your start, it’s easy to fool yourself into thinking you have no choice but to do everything yourself.

The truth is, though, that if you’re looking for achievement, you should focus your efforts on what you’re great at and let others do the things for you that they’re great at.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve found these 12 habits of high achievers who always move forward in life inspiring.

The key now is to take them away with you and see how you can cultivate them in your own life.

Start with one or two easy ones and build from there until you start to find yourself achieving great things in life, too!