Do you have something that you are good at, or perhaps a business that you want to grow? We all want to excel at something. We all want to be needed. But if everyone wants the same thing, why do only a few people get to their goals? There has to be a secret to their success, right? I wanted to find it. So I went on to study successful people, to learn how they got to where they are.

They all had some fundamental thoughts and ideas, combined with simple strategies. Those strategies have remained the same for thousands of years. All you need to do is follow the recipe — and just as with cooking, when you do everything right, success will follow.

Here are some tips you need to know to reach the top 10% in your field.

How to Join the Top 10% of Professionals in Your Field

Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.

– John Maxwell

Understand what you want

The best way to gain excellence is to love your work so much that you stop calling it work. So what do you love, and why do you love it? Which activities do you like, and why? Study your behaviors. If you don’t like your work, find something you like and build a plan to get into that field. Don’t settle for less than you deserve.

Set it as a goal

Turn that vision into a measure of your success. Set a target on where you want to get. Write it down. Program yourself and don’t forget about it until you reach it. It will be only a matter of time until you get there.

Learn from the success of others

Understand that if someone else did it, you can too. There are people up there who followed a certain path to get to where they are. Their stories are usually out there for you to find. What did they do to reach their goals? Study their experience. Ask questions. Learn the strategies.

Believe in yourself

Stop self-doubting. Together with complaining, they are the guarantee of your failure. If you want to reach the top 10%, you have to forget about those notions. Remember that everyone who ever reached the top 10% in their field was once in the bottom 10%. What that means is that anyone can do it, and that you are no exception. 

Become an expert

Learn from the experts in your field. Study hard to gain excellence. Every day you should spend at least one hour (better two!) to study your field. Improve in it. Gain new knowledge and ideas. There are no limits to learning. Progress never stops.

Be consistent and persistent

You have to keep going until you reach your goal. Don’t stop for breaks, and don’t quit. That’s the key ingredient in your recipe. Nothing works the first time. It’s said that it took Thomas Edison more than 1,000 attempts to create the first electric light bulb. That means he made 999 failed attempts. As he famously said, most people fail only because they quit without realizing how close they were to success.   

Final thoughts

We often set low goals for ourselves because we think everything else is impossible. Our beliefs system is based on the previous experience we’ve had, combined with what we learned from the experience of our parents, relatives, and friends. But if we focus on those negative experiences instead of on our own goal, we program ourselves for less.

Past failures don’t mean your goal is impossible. They just mean we shouldn’t make the same mistakes. That is why I find the third point about learning from others’ successes so important. By studying the successes of other people who achieved what you want, you gain a new understanding of what is possible. Associate yourself with those people. Be happy for their success. That’s how you attract it into your own life.