Beginning a journey towards achieving personal excellence requires courage, while continuing that journey is even more difficult. The difference between a winner and a loser can be easily determined by how bold an individual is in making decisions. Whereas the people that are stuck in between what to do and what not to do, high performers immediately take actions towards their goals.

People living with a mediocre mindset are always finding shortcuts, while avoiding the amount of dedication and hard work it requires to complete the task. They never really think about taking a leap of faith. They are afraid of their prey and limit themselves in all aspects of their life. On the other hand, there are people who have the spark of excitement needed for personal excellence, but they’re unable to live up to their maximum potential.

Here are the five simple rules that you can follow to achieve excellence in your professional life:

1. Success Is Predictable And Therefore Plan For It

Often times, people are living with a misconception that a successful life is just a matter of luck or an accident. The same people are good at waiting for the miracles to happen in their life. They do not plan or strive to excel their abilities.

In reality, success is predictable and you can learn a particular set of skills to double, triple or quadruple your success rate. All you need to do is to figure out how other professionals are planning their success and how you can imitate them to get the same results.

Seek help from your idol, read about them and plan like them. Follow their footprints and you will reach the same destination where they are at right now.

2. Work Even if You Don’t Want to Work

What is self-discipline? It’s the ability to dedicate your hours even when you don’t feel like working. Successful people practice self-discipline rigorously. They avoid people who are lazy, procrastinate and are not courageous enough to reflect on what direction their life is heading.

According to studies, it has been found that employees work for only three hours in their eight hour job.  Most of them waste their time in gossiping about the movies, the kind of person they met last night at dinner and other subjects which are not relevant to their profession.

You can easily beat 80% of the people around you by working for an extra hour or two in developing your skills rather than gossiping about politics and movies.

“The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense.” – Thomas A. Edison

3. Take Control of Your Responses

No profession is free from problems and challenges. The sooner you accept the truth, the better and easier it is for you to grow and excel your skills.

Almost 8 out of 10 people do not have control over their responses. When faced with a problem, they get angry and hold everyone responsible for leading the business in such a horrendous situation. They handle the situation irrationally and end up mounting more problems.

How you respond to a particular situation determines how quickly you are going to climb up the ladder of your professional career. Luckily, like other habits, you can develop a strong mental attitude while dealing with the problems.

4. Make Results Your Priority

Instead of dwelling on the possibility of what you could have done to avoid the problem, think in terms of how you can mend the situation and bring out the desired result. High achievers do not play the blame game and are a part of those few personalities who set results as their topmost priority.

To begin, embrace the situation as it is. Manage yourself in a way that no matter how difficult a particular situation seems, you’re not going to accept the disappointments. Your response must be relaxed to every situation.

Practicing such behavior over and over again automatically trains your mind to make the right decisions and lead you towards accomplishing the results you’ve desired.

“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.” – Jim Rohn

5. Look For the Benefits in Every Situation

The famous life coach Tony Robbins figured out that, “Problems are the gifts that make us figure out who we are, what we’re made for, and what we’re responsible to give back to life.” Enlightening!

If you change your perception towards your problems and look at them as an opportunity to grow, then your life will immediately turn into an adventurous venture. All you have to do is pay attention to how you’re talking to yourself and what kind of words you’re feeding your subconscious mind.

Remember that 80% of our work and actions in day-to-day life are led by the guidelines of our subconscious mind. The surprising fact is that it’s us who define these guidelines unknowingly. You cannot change the subconscious mind or cause at first, but you can always change its effect, and eventually how you react will automatically change the cause.

Professional people are motivated people. They plan their profession towards greatness and work hard even if they are not feeling like it. They’re in control of how they react and look for the opportunities in every situation. They strive for superiority in their profession and make results their topmost priority.

Now I want to ask you: Which one of the above practices are you going to model in your own career? How do you stay motivated at the workplace and bring maximum output? Share with me your views in the comments below.