These are the nine habits of highly successful top 1% women. You see, I picked up on some of these habits by spending time with countless millionaire female business owners. And I also learned some of them the hard way by going from making $50,000 a year in a job that I hated to today having a hundred million dollar net worth by the age of 30. So let's talk about nine high performance habits that can completely change your life. The first habit that will define your success is time control. Most people try to control everything except the one thing that matters, which is your time.
It is the ultimate resource and learning how to actually create time will change your life. When COVID first hit, this is when I entirely changed my life because I realized that I no longer could use time as an excuse. Back in the day, I used to travel constantly, so I always thought, oh, I'm not in control of my time.
There's a time change that happens, which creates jet lag. which means that I eat at different times, go to bed at different times. So I wasn't working out consistently. I wouldn't stay on a diet. And I would just use the fact that I couldn't control my time as a reason to not do the things that I really wanted to do.
So when lockdown occurred, I literally said to myself, I'm going to start having five habits, the same habits every single day. The first one was waking up before the sun rose, which every day was five o'clock. Then it was going to bed by 930 every night.
Then it was doing... one training and development activity every day, whether that was reading a book, learning something new, adding a sales skill. The next was I worked out every day. And the final was I stuck to a diet.
Controlling your time with discipline is the biggest win you'll have in your personal life. Don't try to control things that you can't control, like your spouse or children. Anything that you can't control will actually lead to desperation and it will make you feel like you're losing. That brings me to my second habit. which is setting and sticking to weekly goals.
I used to wake up on New Year's Day and I was completely depressed. And it had nothing to do with having too much champagne the night before. To be honest, I would wake up and feel like I had just lost something.
Because I did. I had lost an entire year of really making progress on the things that matter most to me. I had goals that I didn't make progress on.
I had dreams and ambition. And I honestly was just so disappointed in myself when I would wake up on New Year's because I would actually realize this. I would pull up my goals in my planner from the year before and just think, man, nothing happened here.
And so why even try to do something different because I already know that I failed. And I had this realization six years ago that instead of waking up the next year and being upset, I was going to do something different. Which is when I created the weekly accountability meeting that I have with myself. Yes, I have a meeting. myself every single week and during this meeting I spend one hour on a Sunday going through all of the most important goals for me that year and when I go through those goals I'm inspired I'm excited to meet the new people that I wanted to meet or have the exercise routine that I wanted to have or make whatever daily habit change that I know is important to me and from that point I reprioritize my week it sounds so silly but you actually have to prioritize where you want to go into your weekly work schedule.
Every weekly task needs to align with the longer term vision of yourself. And if it doesn't, then you have to ask yourself, why am I doing this? Why am I investing my time and my energy in doing something that I know isn't going to get me closer to my goals? Is it because I like to do those things?
Because I think that it would be more fun? Is it a bit of a distraction? What is the reason that you're spending your time doing things that are taking you away from where you want to go?
And when you can look at these things honestly, You can start to understand why you haven't created the success that you want, which really is the launch point for being able to create the success that you want. So I spend Sunday going through what my goals are. I open up my calendar for the upcoming week and I literally make time for those activities. I might move a handful of meetings around. I might block off time to read a book, to watch a YouTube video, to take a course.
I quite literally make time for the goals that I had set out to accomplish for that year. So once you've prioritized your weekly activities, the next habit is to stick to the plan that you've made. You see, success isn't about huge leaps. It's actually just sticking to a plan every single day.
So I've talked to you about my weekly plan, which ties to my annual goals. But every day before I leave work, I open up my calendar for the next day and I look through what do I need to do? What do I need to not do?
And I reprioritize my day. You see, sometimes things just stack. and stack and stack. And then all of a sudden you have this big list of things that you're supposed to get done by the end of the week that you should have gotten done throughout the week, but you just don't because you didn't make the time. So the biggest game changer to me is actually making a plan for the next day, the night before.
And I refuse to leave work. I refuse to go to bed until my plan is created so that the next day I can just work the plan. People make the mistake of doing this half the way.
They either make the plan and then don't stick to it, or they don't make a plan at all and then work a lot on the wrong things. Make an effort to stick to the plan that you've made every single day, and you'll already be doing better than most people. I did not want to come into work today. I had a press- presentation I needed to give. I had YouTube videos I needed to shoot.
I had emails and podcasts and all the stuff I needed to do. And I was like, if I didn't have all this on my schedule today, I would quite literally just stay in bed. It is a Saturday morning. Why am I doing all this? And I went through all of this BS in my head.
And what did I end up doing? I showed up for work. I showed up for the presentation. Why?
Because it was literally scheduled. That is the hack. Put the schedule together the night before, work the schedule all day, and then rinse and repeat. And as you do this, you will find that you are making outrageous progress every day by chipping away at the things that matter to you.
That brings us to habit number four, keep it to yourself. Life is messy, sure, but no one needs to know your business or your emotions or all of your thoughts and feelings about yourself. about things. Get your shit together and stop oversharing.
One of my mottos in life is never let them see you sweat. And I actually just had a team member come up to me a couple of days ago and say, you know what I just realized? I never know if you're stressed out.
And this particular individual has worked with me now for two years. She literally walked up to me and was like, I've never known when you've had a bad day, when something has gone wrong, when there's an issue. What was comical about this to me was that particular day we had a potential lawsuit that we were working through.
There were There were two team members who resigned and we just had problems. There was no question that there was just challenges that particular day. But that is something that I admire so much of other strong women is that you just don't see them sweat.
They handle their business. They don't complain about it. They just recognize that it's part of the game that they're playing. So do I share my emotions with my team members?
No. The only people that actually hear my emotions are probably the team that works on my YouTube videos because this whole thing gets me stressed. Impressed, impressed. But other than that, I don't complain.
I don't have issues. I don't need to cause any sort of drama around my feelings about things because we're trying to run a business. We're trying to create opportunities for people. We're trying to help business owners grow and scale. Do we really need to know how I'm feeling throughout the day?
Absolutely not. So what do you do when you are having a bad day? You just remember to reset.
On that particular morning, as we had had some bad news prior to kicking off our daily all team meeting with our whole company, I got into the elevator. and I just took a full breath in and I just let it out. And I walked in and I said hi to team members and I told everybody, welcome to work.
I'm so excited to talk about all the ways that we won yesterday. Let's go into what we did yesterday. And this is how I start every single day because my team does not need to see me sweat. My team does not need to see me frustrated.
And the more that you choose to dump on other people, the more you're putting your future into their control. Ideally you don't do that. Now you don't have to be a robot and you don't have to pretend like everything is perfect all the time, but you do have to be clear and you do have to be direct and you do have to help people get to their potential inside your business, inside your team and they need the distraction of you and your emotions. My fifth habit is I give my husband a hug every single day. You see, I refuse to allow our business to be the thing that gets in the way of us having an incredible marriage.
This is why we hug each other every single day and every evening. we do not go to bed mad. That is one of the rules in our relationship. Well, that's kind of a little bit of a lie because over the last decade of being together, we actually did have one night where we went to bed mad at each other. And it happened to be the night that he proposed to me.
Not ideal. I didn't exactly love the way that my husband proposed, but you know what the good news is? No one thing breaks a deal. And to be honest with you, even if he messed the whole thing up, which he didn't, what matters is the relationship. And what matters is. the fact that we choose to be together and have an awesome relationship every single day.
And this one habit of ensuring that we hug each other every morning and that we never go to bed mad at each other makes us move off of problems so fast. I don't have two hours or two days or two weeks to play some BS game with my husband about holding something against him that I'm pissed off about. It's ridiculous.
I don't have time for that. I want to be successful. I want him to be successful.
So if we're upset, we get upset really fast. It's like Five minutes in, out, we're frustrated, we solve the problem, and then we move on to the next thing. But our rule is we start every morning, give each other a big hug, and then at nighttime, any conflict is resolved because we go to bed and we say I love you. And to be honest, your relationship can actually benefit your success when you do it the right way. I would be nowhere near as successful as I am today without my husband.
He supports me. He appreciates me. He is my biggest cheerleader.
And so our relationship is the foundation of the success. It is not I am successful. and I happen to have a relationship.
No. Instead, I'm successful in many ways because of the relationship. that I have that helped me be successful.
Next up, habit six is habit stacking. The ultimate habit hack is to not just do one thing at a time. I like to do multiple things at a time.
This is habit stacking. Well, there's three different ways that... I use getting ready in the morning to be productive.
The first is I go live on Instagram. See, while I'm doing my makeup, I can also use that time to promote my business. Now, the second way that I use my morning get ready time is when I'm not going live, I... I watch a video. I listen to some sort of video.
This morning it was Martha Stewart on Masterclass where I was learning all about a day in the life of Martha Stewart and understanding how she prioritizes her time. And I learned a lot about how she thinks about developing a great product. The third way that I use putting on makeup as a way to be productive is I pay somebody to do it.
At least two times a week, I pay somebody to do my hair and my makeup. Now, why do I pay them to do this when I can do it myself? First of all, let's be honest, they're better at it than me. But the more important part is I can make make phone calls, I can do text messages, I can have full-blown meetings while somebody is doing my makeup for me.
You see, most people don't stack their habits and so they think about setting aside separate time every single day to learn something new. Well, if you just stacked your habits, you used your car ride, you used putting on your makeup, maybe it's while you're in the shower, all of these things that you already have to do, you might as well just learn something while you're doing them. Habit seven is one that you already may be doing and it's working out every day.
This seems to be controversial. nowadays, but the most successful women know that when you look good, you make more money. And the reason behind this is when you look good, you feel good. And when you feel good, you are going to do the things that are required to make more money.
I have this habit of moving my body and taking control of something that you feel like you're in control of your body most days, but are you really? Are you in control of what you eat? Are you in control of going to the gym or do you choose not to and maybe feel uncomfortable in the clothes that you wear? I hate working out.
I don't know anybody besides crazy. to people who actually enjoy working out. It's hard.
It's not fun. If you're doing it the right way, you're exhausted after the fact. To be honest, right now, my calves hurt because I did a huge workout two days ago, a leg day, hashtag don't skip leg day.
But I feel good about myself because successful people do the things that they say that they're going to do. So I make a time every single day to move my body, to go to the gym, to go to Pilates class in order to make progress on this goal. Once you pick a time, you actually show up. And if you have to pick a time, you actually pay somebody at first in order to train you, invest the money. This is how I got myself to do it because I couldn't motivate myself to get there on my own.
I knew that if I was paying a coach that I was going to meet, that I was going to make the effort to get out of bed and not just snooze through my alarm. The eighth habit of successful women is they take their makeup off every night. People think it's crazy, but even if I come home at 3am, which is maybe like once a year, I take all of my makeup off. I go through a full nine step skincare routine.
Now, maybe you don't need a nine step skincare routine. routine? You probably don't, but it's these little habits that allow you to think I'm getting closer to the person I want to become or I'm not. For me, I always watch that opening scene of the Devil Wears Prada and they're all putting on their makeup and they have these nice New York penthouses where they're perfectly picking out their outfits with their heels, with their matching lingerie. It was like 10 out of 10 goals.
And I thought those women the night before had enough control of their time where they take their makeup off and they have a great skincare routine. So guess what? I'm going to take my makeup off every night and have a great skincare routine because that is who I'm trying to become. This small step can actually trigger an entire disciplined journey. So my recommendation is to choose one small act of self-care and make it non-negotiable.
You do it every day. That brings us to our final habit of successful women, which is choosing your best outfit every single day. I never dress like a bum because my outfit determines my success. That's what I choose to believe every day. I'm going to take my makeup off every single day.
I dress for the person I'm becoming every day. I'm not 19-year-old Natalie any longer. I should not be dressing like a 19-year-old.
I also don't want to be 31-year-old Natalie. Now, you might be like, Natalie, why are you so hard on yourself? Well, the reality is I'm trying to create something.
I'm trying to become somebody that I'm not yet. The way I view this is I dress today as if I'm 10 years older. So what does 41-year-old Natalie?
What responsibilities does she have? What type of perception do people have of her? Okay, great.
I'm going to pull that into today. And if I have clothes in my closet that no longer serve, or no longer fit, pun intended, my goals. If a clothing item or an outfit or even a piece of furniture in your house doesn't fit the version of you that you want to become, remove it from your life immediately.
One of the things I like to do is a daily fit check. I motivate myself in the morning. I put something on that I love and I purposely construct the outfit to think about who am I becoming? How do I promote this person that I'm becoming so that I bring more opportunities for that person today?
And if you don't really know where to start with this, find a role model. I start with a person that I love. I started with a Pinterest board where I would pin all of these badass women who I wanted to become into a board and I would just look at their outfits. Are they wearing structured blazers? Are they wearing pantsuits?
How do they dress? How do they show up? What are their accessories?
I would then start to mimic how I dress based off of the women that I wanted to become who were inspiring to me. So if you found this valuable, you should definitely check out my video on how to actually build your dream life step by step.