Looking For Career Success In 2020?

Start with your habits

Hoping to find career success in 2020? The latest research from VitalSmarts reveals how you can turn your hope into action. 

Success often feels elusive. We look at successful people and assume they must have caught a lucky break, or maybe they possess talents we’ll never have, and these are the reasons why success has landed at their feet instead of ours. 
 

But our recent study of more than 1,800 employees found that success doesn’t hinge on luck, talent, or even decision making. Rather, people attribute an average of 50% of their success to having the right habits—talents came in at 24%, decision making at 22%, and luck a distant fourth at 6%. Additionally, the more successful a person rated themselves at work, the more he attributed his success to having good habits. Bottom line: people’s simple, routine behaviors are the most critical factor in their success. 

And while there are likely keystone habits for success, what’s surprising is that many of the habits people attributed to their results are less heroic than they are simple. For instance, some of the career habits respondents felt made the difference between success and failure include: 

• Think yes before saying no. Be open to opportunities to grow and expand outside of your comfort zone.
• Trust your gut. Do your research but stop at 80 percent confidence rather than 110 percent.
• Be curious. Dedicate time each week to dreaming and researching. Know the dream is free but hustle costs extra.
• Do the hardest or most important thing on your to-do list first thing in the morning.

These habits are what we call Trigger Habits. While they seem small, they actually trigger a series of other powerful habits. For instance, “Thinking yes before saying no,” is likely to create a habit of being less impulsive, more thoughtful, and even more visionary and creative. In fact, many of the good habits successful people have at work carry over into their personal life.

So instead of agonizing over every decision, counting yourself down and out because you aren’t as gifted as the next guy, or even wearing your lucky socks to work each day, learn how to create new, simple habits that will jump-start your workplace performance. The skills to learn and adopt new habits are taught in our new training course The Power of Habit™, which is based on the New York Times best-selling book of the same title by Charles Duhigg.

3 Tips to Learning New Career Habits in 2020

1. Spot the lag: Identify the areas in your career where you’re not getting the results you want, then identify the habits that will produce those results. If you can’t see the lag or the desired habits, invest in 360 surveys to gather feedback, ask a mentor or manager where you could improve or find training and development opportunities that illuminate the skills needed to reach the next level. 

2. Make it a ritual: Create a ritual around the new habit by engineering your environment—time of day, place, people, objects, etc.—so that it’s conducive to doing the habit. Set up reminders, or cues, and arrange your world so that doing the behavior comes easier. For example, if you are trying to develop a habit of quickly processing incoming email, then disable social media, instant messenger tools, and other distractions on your computer so you can focus on the new habit.   

3. Reward yourself: Every time you complete your new routine, reward yourself—immediately. Maybe you indulge in a special treat, an activity, or delay indulgence in your favorite guilty pleasure until after you complete the new routine. This becomes your incentive—not the results you hope for. The results will follow but reward yourself immediately to fire up your motivation in the beginning.

No amount of luck, talent, brains or good decisions can compensate for your habits and your routines. And that is good news for anyone looking to make changes in 2020. Ultimately, you’re just a few habits away from success.

Author Bio