It is said that in order to master something, you need to spend at least 10,000 hours doing it, but apart from there is a much more important variable in play which is the way that you think as you will without a doubt encounter major problems and setbacks while trying to achieve your goals, so you need the right mindset.
In this article, we are going to be outlining that make up the psychology of successful women that you need to consider if you want to become a successful woman yourself.
What is the psychology of successful women? With the majority of billionaires and millionaires still being overwhelmingly male there is still a lot to go before women are at an equal footing with men, the few women who have succeeded have needed that strong psychological strength in order to stay on target with their goals and dreams as well as overcome the prejudices that they may have encountered along the way.
Research Shows That a Lot of Successful Women Share ‘Manly’ Traits.
Research by scientists as well as surveys of successful women have found out that a lot of successful women share a lot of traits and hobbies that are deemed to be for males.
This can be attributed to how much time on average with males with a lot of industries still being dominated by males, although the gap is getting slower over time but some high-paying industries such as computer science and in some medical fields there is still a stable difference between the number of man and women participating.
The main reason for this is that those subjects do not interest women and therefore less of them study the subjects needed to qualify for those jobs at university.
This is important as women have to adapt in environments where they are the minority by picking up behaviors and interests that the majority of the colleagues have an interest in. Picking up these behaviors does not guarantee success or even have that big of an impact. However, it is recommended that you adapt to the environment that you are trying to succeed in.
Staying Focused.
Another very important trait of successful women and pretty much all successful people is that they stay focused on their goals, this is extremely important as unless extremely lucky it will take many years for you to become rich and successful.
During that time, you will encounter many problems and obstacles, where you will have to make the choice between whether to give up and just get take it easy or continue working hard and making sacrifices with the final goal of making a success out of yourself.
Being constantly focused is easier said than done. This is why below we have provided you with some tips and steps to increase your overall level of productivity and focus.
- Don’t’ avoid the difficult things, if you working hard all day you will have some things that you may not enjoy doing or that are harder to do. Majority of people will leave these until the end, however this is not a very smart thing to do as by the end of the day you will be tired, and you will just be wanting to finish quickly. Therefore, instead of leaving the hard or unpleasant tasks until the end of the day, you should do them first, and you will see that by simply jumping head first into them, you will just get instantly involved, and before you know you would have completed them.
- To-do list, every night before you go to bed, you should be making a list of everything that you need to be doing the next day. It is up to you how detailed you want to make it. For example, you can just do the work related tasks, or you can also do all your activities throughout the day including taking a shower and having a dinner. It will also be good that you add the times that you plan to start and finish these activities. If you are forgetful, then you can also create your to-do list for the next day during the day rather than before you go to sleep to increase the chances of you writing down everything that you need to do.
- Remove distractions and value your time, there is a common misconception that the more hours that you ‘work’ then the more successful you will be, however it is not about the number of hours that you work, but more about the more hours that you spend being productive. For example, if you spend 10 hours working in a day, but you spend most of them listening to music and procrastinating, then you are not working productively. Therefore, it will just be better to work 6 hours where you are properly working. Furthermore, you need to remove all distractions while you are working such as putting away your phone and only using it when someone calls you for something business or work related, and also you should not listen to music while working as that will make you overall less productive as you cannot be vibing to your favorite song and working properly at the same time.
- Remember your ultimate goal, a good thing that you can do is write down what you want to achieve such as ‘build a million dollars business’ and then every morning you can read this aim of yours which will help you stay more motivated throughout the day as you are constantly reminding yourself why you are working so hard.
- Be healthy, although not directly psychology related, it is important that you take 15 minute breaks every hour, that you eat and drink properly as well as getting your recommended 7 hours of sleep. Your body is like a machine, and you cannot simply power through thinking that you are some kind of superhuman as what would happen is that you will just start procrastinating as you would be exhausted, and then you will have to take a few days break to regain your energy.
The Balancing Act.
Famous psychologists Roberta Spalter-Roth and Nicole Van Vooren have done extensive research on the psychology of successful women and have written a thesis on the theory of ‘the balancing act’. This theory is based around the assumption that majority of women will someday want to have children of their own with their partner.
Women are still traditionally seen as the natural child carers, which can make the task of being successful in their chosen field even harder as children as a responsibility that you cannot ignore as, for example, if your child falls ill you will have to take it to the hospital and potentially not attend that important meeting with a client.
In their thesis, these two psychologists write that although a child can be technically a burden you should still have children if that is what you want to do. You can get help from your partner as well as parents, it will make things harder, but research shows that employers on average are more impressed with women who can master the so called ‘balancing act’ of having a successful career and children. This can help you earn respect and get promoted in the long term.
Having Self-Confidence.
You can be the hardest person in the world but if you do not have the confidence to go out there to meet people, to pitch in front of customers and investors as well as to lead a big team of people or perform and compete in front of a crowd of people you will probably not be successful in your chosen field.
People are not born confident instead this confidence is part of the way they think, generally confident women care less what others think about what other people think about them.
This can be of course a bad thing as you can become egotistical and delusional if you don’t take anyone’s advice around you, but overall, it is a positive thing as you don’t waste as much time worrying what others will think about you, and instead you just get on with it. To become more confident, you need to challenge yourself to do things that you don’t enjoy doing, such as speaking in front of a big crowd of people or trying to sell products to random people in public.
Related to being confident is also not being scared of failure, it is estimated that 20% of new businesses fail within the first year and that 50% fail within the first five years so if you are going into business the chances of you succeeding are stacked against you.
And it is not just in business, if you want to become a successful singer, actress or sportswoman the chances are again skewed against you with millions of people having that dream but only a few thousand ever succeeding. Just because you fail at something does not mean you will never be successful, you have three choices in those situations, you can get embarrassed by people talking about your failure, or you can not care and instead try again or have a go at something else.
Have patience, strength and be successful!
