17 Things Successful People Don’t Do
More often than not we learn more from our failures than our successes. The mistakes, screwups, mess-ups, and blown opportunities.
Everybody fails and lands flat on their face at some point, but what separates the successful from the unsuccessful is what they do next.
Do they learn from their mistakes and correct their behavior or do they soldier on like nothing happened only to repeat the exact same mistakes later on?
We focus so much on the habits, routines, and skills that make people successful, that we overlook the more important lesson to be learned. It’s not what successful people do that separates them from the rest, more often than not it’s what they don’t do that makes them a success.
If you want to be great, look at the successful people in and around your life. Examine what they don’t do. Pay attention to what they say no to and the few things they say yes to.
If you want to be successful, take note of these 17 things successful people don’t do.
1. Successful People Don’t Waste Energy On Things They Can’t Control
“Why take on the burden of matters which you cannot answer for? You are only making unnecessary problems for yourself.” — Epictetus
What makes someone successful? The ability to recognize what they can and cannot change.
Successful people know their time and energy are a precious resource that must be safeguarded, thus they invest in things that can actually be affected.
Sometimes this means the only thing they can control is their attitude.
2. Successful People Don’t Underwhelm
Successful people not only set a ridiculously high bar for themselves, they constantly seek to exceed it.
In a recent podcast, James Altucher, came up with a great motto to live by, don’t under promise, over deliver, you should over promise and over deliver.
That is a life-changing standard to live by.
3. Successful People Don’t Rely On Feelings, They Rely On Logic
“Pay attention to nothing, no matter how fleetingly, except the logos.” -Marcus Aurelius
Successful people know the best decisions come with restraint.
They wait it out, see what happens, seek advice, and then they decide. Sometimes they do nothing at all, which is often the most logical decision to be made.
Unsuccessful people feed off their emotions.
Rather than sitting back and evaluating what has occurred they act immediately. They make rash, life-changing decisions when they’re in a highly emotional state.
4. Successful People Don’t Repeat The Same Mistakes
Successful people take accountability for their behaviors, actions, and mistakes. If they screwed up, they fix it.
As a result, they don’t repeat the same mistakes. They take note of the behavior and move forward.
5. Successful People Don’t Find Problems, They Find Problems and Provide Solutions
Pointing out problems is easy, providing solutions is much more difficult and ultimately the one that will get you places in life.
People love problem solvers. We gravitate towards them.
Look at some of the greatest problem solvers in our lives right now, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Bill Gates. They all realized there were problems at hand and went out to solve them.
Anybody can kick their feet up on the table and point out what’s wrong with something. Few can identify a problem and fix it.
Cut out the problem finders in your life and find the problem solvers. That way of thinking rubs off on others.
6. Successful People Don’t Live By The Motto, “It’s Not My Problem”
A few years ago I was walking down the hallway in my office when I saw a co-worker take an old box from a shipment he received and throw it in the hallway rather than place it in the recycling.
I was perplexed, the recycling was only a few feet away.
I let him know the recycling was just around the corner. His response, “it’s somebody else’s problem now.”
At first I was furious. I couldn’t believe this guy had a total disregard for other people. But then I stopped and thought about what I had witnessed. I was happy he did that in front of me because now I knew who he was.
By observing this seemingly unimportant action I knew everything I needed to know in life about this guy. His beliefs, his attitude, and how he treats people. Everybody in his life is a tool for him to extract value out of for his own personal gain.
Successful people don’t have two modes in life: what’s theirs and what’s not theirs. They treat everything as if it was their own and they do the right thing.
7. Successful People Never Pass Up An Opportunity To Learn
“Don’t pretend you have a particular skill if you don’t yet; yield to whoever has the requisite experience; and for your own part take satisfaction in an awareness that your persistence is helping you become expert in the subject yourself.” — Epictetus
The life motto of the unsuccessful: “This is how I do it.”
When provided an opportunity to learn, successful people never turn it down.
When an expert in a subject shows them there is a better way, their ears perk up. Conversely, unsuccessful people respond by saying “no, this is how I do it.”
Unsuccessful people view advice as a personal attack rather than what it actually is: a gift. The gift of avoiding the wrong way.
Successful people are humble enough to admit when somebody knows more than them. They are on a never-ending pursuit to find a better way to live, to be more efficient, and to be more effective.
If someone has a better way of doing something, they pay attention.
8. Successful People Don’t Thrive on Chaos
Successful people simplify life.
Unsuccessful people construct a world of chaos.
Their relationships, love, finances, business, career, and life are all chaotic.
They’ve learned early on that if something doesn’t stir up enormous emotions then it must not be right. In fact, when something lacks chaos, they find ways to construct it.
Subconsciously they make terrible decisions that end horribly. They are experts at self-sabotage.
Ever had a friend or known somebody that always seems to be in a frantic state? They construct a world of chaos just so they can feel alive.
Everything they do is in disarray. Their car is a mess, their house is a disaster, their finances are falling apart, and they befriend others that are chaotic.
Whether it’s their relationships, business, or careers they make the choices that are always dumbfounding.
9. Successful People Don’t Live For Today
They look down the road to see the long-term consequences of their choices and look past immediate pleasures.
Unsuccessful people live for today and today only.
Nothing gets stashed away, there is no rainy day fund, and there is no backup plan. They treat their body like shit and ignore all the warning signs of failing health.
They have taken the advice, live like today is your last day, literally. Really what this means is they have nothing to live for.
Their solution to all their problems is to bury their head in the sand.
A jog or a smoke, a difficult conversation or their phone, a savings account or a new pair of shoes? Which of these do you think a successful person chooses?
10. Successful People Don’t Let Their Habits Control Them, They Control Their Habits
A disclaimer about the statement above, if you have an addiction to something go get help.
Successful people know their weaknesses and construct environments that keep them from failing.
Unsuccessful people have zero willpower to avoid the things that they know are not good for them: booze, drugs, cigarettes, TV, phones, food, toxic relationships, etc. Whatever it is, they are at the mercy of their temptations.
The only habit and skill they’ve built is the ability to cave in to their lowest instincts and desires.
11. Successful People Don’t Seek Pleasure, They Seek Purpose
“And why were you born? For pleasure? See if that answer will stand up to questioning.” -Marcus Aurelius
Successful people have mastered the art of delayed gratification.
Delayed gratification, in fact, is one of the strongest indicators of future success.
In the 1960s, a Stanford professor conducted an experiment testing children around the ages of 4 and 5.
The test was designed to determine if there was a correlation between delayed gratification and success in life.
To conduct the test, a researcher would bring a child into a private room, sit them down, and place a marshmallow on the table in front of them. The researcher then offered the child a deal.
The researcher told the child he was going to leave the room and if the child didn’t eat the marshmallow while he was away, he would be rewarded with a second marshmallow. If the child ate the marshmallow before the researcher returned then they would not be rewarded with another marshmallow.
As it turns out, after checking in with the participants of the study years later, the children that were able to resist eating the marshmallow before the researcher returned had a greater probability of success later in life.
Those children with greater delayed gratification had higher SAT scores, better schooling, and an overall healthier life. (Follow up studies have achieved similar results which you can see here and here.)
If you want to be better in life, stop doing what you want to do all the time and dedicate a little bit of time to things you should do. Watch what happens.
12. Successful People Aren’t Defiant
Successful people know being defiant is just a waste of time and energy.
We all know that person in our office that refuses to be managed by their boss.
Rather than being proactive, thoughtful, and doing a great job they divert all their energy towards sabotaging projects, doing a lousy job, and conjuring up ways to ruin their boss. They waste precious energy constructing roadblocks for their boss rather than helping them out.
What happens when their boss is displeased with their work? Well, of course it’s because their boss is impossible to deal with.
Successful people know it takes much less energy to be helpful than it does to be a problem.
13. Successful People Aren’t Busy
“Make sure you guard against the other kind of confusion. People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time — even when hard at work.” -Marcus Aurelius
Successful people have a lot going on, but they don’t use “busy” as their yardstick for success.
The truly successful know in order to come up with world-changing ideas and businesses, they must create time and space to think.
Bill Gates, for example, has a think week each year where he holes up in a secluded location to spend time reading, strategizing, and thinking about what lies ahead with his business. No more, no less, and no distractions.
Busyness is a massive opportunity cost. If you are constantly busy then you aren’t coming up with solutions to the greatest problems in your life.
14. Success People Aren’t Stuck In The Comfort Zone
“A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” — Tim Ferriss
Ever seen what happens to muscles after being confined to a cast for a month? Unless muscles are subjected to a heavy load and willingly forced to exert energy, they quickly wither away.
Successful people learn to adapt, grow, and place themselves in uncomfortable situations constantly.
Change isn’t something to be avoided, it something they seek because they know life is change.
15. Successful People Don’t Externalize, They Internalize
Successful people always look within.
When something doesn’t go right they ask themselves “what could have I done differently to change this outcome?”
They refuse to believe that it was because of something or someone else that they experienced misfortune.
Unsuccessful people externalize everything in their life.
Their shitty job, their bad relationship, their lack of opportunity, their crappy lot in life is all due to someone or something besides themselves.
Rather than looking within, they spend countless hours fabricating all the reasons and excuses for why things haven’t gone the way they want.
16. Successful People Don’t Pursue Many Things, They Pursue The Vital Few
They live by the motto less but better.
Successful people pick a few vital activities and place all their time and energy against it.
By doing less they make significant steps forward on those activities rather than spread themselves thin across many things making little progress.
17. Successful People Don’t Let The Poor Standards Of Other People Affect Them
“Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter.” — Marcus Aurelius
Successful people know their values and have a clearly defined standard they live by.
No matter what others do or how many others follow a certain fad, if it isn’t up to their standard, successful people don’t do it.
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