Author: Evan Hoeflich

Everyone wants to be a millionaire but not all are lucky enough to inherit wealth or win the lottery to become one. Believe it or not, more than eighty percent of millionaires are self-made, according to the renowned millionaire researcher, Thomas J. Stanley. All these wealthy people have certain common habits that have assisted them to come all this way.

“Your habits are the reason why you’re rich or poor,” writes Tom Corley in his book Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals. This is because our daily habits both shape and dictate if we’re going to be successful or unsuccessful in life. And the good news is that habits can always be adjusted or changed.

Here are eight rich habits of successful millionaires that you can start implementing as soon as today:

1.) Get Enough Sleep:

Early to bed, early rise, actually makes a man/woman healthy, wealthy and wise. Successful people do not binge on Netflix all night. They ensure to get adequate sleep for a more productive, active and definitely more pleasant day ahead.  People who sleep well tend to have more creative minds than those who are sleep deprived, hence are more likely to succeed.

To make sure you can fall asleep at a reasonable time, get to bed earlier; make your bedroom sleep friendly and environment comfortable enough for sleeping; fix the temperature; cut out any caffeine, alcohol and cigarettes before sleeping and take your evening bath maybe an hour earlier than normal.

2.) Wake up on time

Most millionaires hit their alarm clock as early as six AM. In Corley’s study, about fifty percent of the millionaires woke up about three hours prior to when their actual work day began. Waking up early gives you the confidence of having your life under control.

It is actually a great strategy to deal with unexpected and inescapable daily disruptions such as long meetings, being stuck in traffic or having to pick up your sick child from school. These disruptions make one believe that they don’t have control over their life. But getting up early in the morning to plan/tackle our top priorities that we want to accomplish in the day, helps us direct our life.

3.) Exercise

It is as simple as this: Exercise is not just good for the body but also for the brain. And a healthier brain means a smarter you.  “Seventy-six percent of wealthy people exercise at least thirty minutes every day. The exercises may include anything cardio such as walking, running, jogging, biking or even dancing. etc.” says Corley.

Having a consistent exercise routine calls for commitment, endurance, time and energy, which are quite the same characteristics required to achieve your seven-figure financial goals.

4.) Read books 

Millionaires are readers and not the kind of reading which involves entertainment like on Facebook or Twitter but biographies of successful people, personal development, history books etc. The rich would prefer to be educated over entertained. As Corley puts it, “Millionaires spend thirty minutes or more each day to self-educate.” According to his study, about eighty-five percent of the world’s millionaires read two or more books a month. This habit automatically sets you apart from the competition as most people do not read.

5.) Have a Mentor

One common thing in almost all millionaires is that they all had someone strategically mentoring them and teaching them successful habits. In Corley’s study, ninety-three percent of self-made millionaires associate their wealth with having mentors. Finding a true mentor can actually put you on the fast track to success.

6.) Create ‘To-do lists’

Prioritizing goals and tasks and listing them down into smaller action steps is always a winner. Creating to-do lists is a well-known trait of successful and rich people as it prevents you from getting sidetracked. As stated in Corley’s study, “eighty-one percent of the millionaires, who do plan their day, maintain a daily to-do list. Less than one percent of the poor use a daily to-do list.” The key is to consistently cross off tasks at the top and add new ones at the bottom and secondly keep it at the forefront in order to stay focused. Make your to-do list and paste it somewhere you can easily see all the time. You can even put in on the background of your computer or mobile phone as there is no getting away from technology, hence your list.

7.) Have multiple streams of income

Millionaires don’t have a single source of earning. “Millionaires develop multiple streams…sixty-five percent had at least three streams of income that they created prior to making their first million dollars.” Corley writes. E.g. they would invest in a side business, buy shares in a company or save up and invest in real estate.”

8.) Network

Wealthy people do not thrive in isolation. Millionaires are social beings. They have the habit to go out and talk to people, exchanging their pool of information and resources with similar people.

“You are only as successful as those you frequently associate with,” Corley writes. Wealthy people make sure to call when a life event happens, network and participate in different kinds of interest groups to further cultivate relationships. At the same time they try to avoid negative over critical people who only derail you from achieving your goals.

Author Bio:

Sarah Smith has been a personal finance author for the last five years. She is also an independent and a very passionate finance and investment advisor. She regularly posts at www.personalincome.org.

Take a minute to let Sarah and I know what you thought about this post!

Once you get into the habit of waking up early on a daily basis (I’m talking 6:00 AM or earlier), you begin to understand the power behind it and especially if you have a specific project you’re working on, like a side hustle.

In this post I’ll briefly go over a few benefits of waking up early in the morning that I have personally experienced, which may also help motivate some of you to adopt this positive lifestyle change on your own.

To give you a quick background if you’re new to reading this blog, I currently work a 9-5:30 day job, and also run a handful of side projects.

My day-to-day schedule gets extremely hectic, which is why I take full advantage of my mornings.

You’d be surprised what an extra 1-3 hours each morning can do to improve your life.

If this at all sounds like something you’re interested in, I highly recommend at least trying it for an extended period of time.

Let’s take a closer look below at a few reasons why I encourage waking up early on a constant basis (mainly from my own experience)

Benefits of Waking Up Early In The Morning

1.) Most Productive Hours of The Day: 

The mornings for me are by far the most productive hours of the day.  It’s when I’m the most sharp, fresh and committed. It’s also when I get my most important tasks complete. As long as you have a good cup of coffee or tea (which is my preference), you can really have a incredible amount of focus in the early hours. The satisfaction you gain from accomplishing a project that early in the day can really give you some serious momentum and leak positively into other areas of your life.

2.) Great Time To Exercise:

I find the best time to exercise is right when you wake up, and preferably between 5:00-7:00 AM. Not only do you get it out of the way, but it completely sets your day up for success. Letting go of some extra stress or angst through exercise in the morning is a release like no other. Now is it a struggle to motivate myself to get my butt out of bed and workout sometimes? Heck yeah! But the benefits are so large that it becomes routine. No-one said this would be easy

3.) Quiet Time:

You begin to realize when you wake up before the sun rises, what a quiet and peaceful time of day it is. In fact, this is one of the most fulfilling benefits for me as it can be very meditative in a way. It’s kind of hard to explain unless you experience this for yourself, but it’s wonderful feeling and worth exploring. In an often busy life, sometimes all we need is a little bit more quiet time and the early morning is perfect for this.

4.) Opens Up Your Day More:

All in all, when you have that extra 1,2 maybe even 3 hours in the morning, it totally opens up your day. This leads to less rushing at the end of the day, less “cramming things in” and ultimately less stress. Think if you got your exercise out of the way or an important task completed in the morning, what else you could do with that extra time later in the day. I’m a true believer in adopting good habits and seeing compounding results over time. The idea here is to optimize your time, so you can reap the rewards down the road.

My challenge to you is to try waking up early one day out of the week to start and then progress from there.

Record your overall results in terms of productivity, mood and balance.

If you don’t see any positive benefits from waking up early in the morning, then no problem, at least you tried.

But for those of you who do, I think this could be a complete game-changer.

Have you tried this in the past or maybe are currently doing it?

If so, what were the benefits you saw?

The biggest lessons I’ve learned in running an online business and Internet Marketing in general, have NOT come from watching from the sidelines…

But more from jumping head first into the game.

This means getting uncomfortable, making mistakes, taking educated risks and soaking up every bit of knowledge in the process.

A common theme I see is people sitting back, waiting for the perfect training/system, dabbling a bit here and dabbling a bit there, and never fully committing to one single strategy.

When I started my solo ad business, I dove in head first.

It was the only thing on my mind…like I had tunnel vision or something.

The solo ad training I was using was very detailed and in depth (especially when one is just starting out) that I could’ve easily just observed the tutorials and not take any action.

However, I recognized this is what the vast majority of people do, which is why most don’t find any sort of success.

As I saw other aspiring solo ad vendors in our training community quit, I knew I was on the right track by sticking with it.

After a few months of building my foundation, I was fully in the game.

This is also when I saw about 75% of the people that started around the same time as me, just simply drop out.

I couldn’t believe the lack of patience and motivation people had when it came to starting an online business.

I also couldn’t believe how many people went through the entire training without even taking one step of action.

I’ll admit for myself, that there were times of confusion, struggle and failure but not once did I throw in the towel.

In fact, many of these experiences served me very well and taught me valuable lessons.

I guess what I’m trying to sum up here is that you won’t get anywhere if you aren’t willing to take some risk, put in the work and stay the course.

You do not want to be one of the “observers” from the sidelines watching others play the game you should be playing (and succeeding).

Possibly this mindset of mine comes from years of playing competitive sports (I used to hate coming out of games to get a rest).

I was generally always in the game, in the action and completely engaged.

This is how I want you to be when it comes to starting a side hustle, online business or whatever it is you’re doing in your life.

You can’t find success if you aren’t willing to take action and play the game.

So be honest here…

Do you tend to watch from the sidelines?

Or are you fully in the game?