Nine Things Successful People Do Differently

Why do some goals succeed and others stall?

Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren't sure, you are far from alone. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy at understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — talent, genius, luck — explains far less than most of us assume.

That is the starting point of social psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson's widely shared Harvard Business Review essay, "Nine Things Successful People Do Differently," which later became her book Succeed. Her thesis, grounded in motivation research: successful people reach their goals because of what they do, not because of who they are. The nine strategies:

What are the nine strategies?

1. Get specific. Vague goals ("be healthier") fail; concrete ones ("exercise three times a week") let you plan the when, where, and how.

2. Seize the moment to act. Deciding in advance exactly when and where you'll act on a goal — what psychologists call implementation intentions — dramatically raises follow-through.

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Regular, honest monitoring of progress keeps motivation alive. What doesn't get measured gets abandoned.

4. Be a realistic optimist. Believe the goal is reachable, but plan for the obstacles and the effort. Blind optimism crumbles at the first setback.

5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. A growth mindset — comparing yourself to your own past rather than to others — keeps you improving instead of defending an image.

6. Have grit. Persistence in the face of difficulty beats raw talent over the long run. The research on this is unambiguous.

7. Build your willpower muscle. Self-control works like a muscle: regular exercise strengthens it, and it tires with overuse. Don't schedule your hardest decisions at the end of an exhausting day.

8. Don't tempt fate. No one has perfect willpower, and overconfidence is a trap. Successful people avoid situations where temptation is likely rather than relying on discipline.

9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won't do. "I will eat more vegetables" works better than "I will stop eating junk" — the brain plans actions, not absences.

The comforting implication is that none of this requires being born special. It requires doing the unglamorous work of setting goals the way the research says goals actually get reached.