If being successful was easy, everyone would be successful. But most people are not. The reason is that their habits do not lend themselves to success. Here are five unique habits of successful people.

They know how to think

Thinking is not as straightforward as we believe it is.

There is a whole book about How Successful People Think, which implies that they do it quite differently from others. So what’s the difference between their thought processes and those of regular people? According to the book, being intentional about their thoughts is a great start.

One of them, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy, has a thinking schedule where he sets aside a half-day every two weeks, a whole day every month, and two or three full days every year just to think.

They have the right social skills

Having emotional intelligence is key to having good social skills. Being constantly negative around other people is going to make them not want to associate with you, a recipe for disaster since to be successful, you need other people. 

They know how to argue

Successful people know how to talk about an issue with someone who disagrees with them without getting angry. 

They are strong-minded

Weak-minded people find someone or something else to blame when things go wrong in their lives, but strong-minded people take responsibility for improving their situation even when what happened was not their fault. 

They are positive

Tom Corley, who spent five years studying the habits of 177 self-made millionaires, concluded from his research that negativity is a nearly insurmountable barrier to success. As in, negative people very rarely succeed.

According to him, negativity suppresses the prefrontal cortex in your brain, which is critical for creativity, decision-making, and seeing solutions rather than just problems.