“I crushed it all day today, and then I crushed it some more, and then it asked me what I was doing and I told it that I was crushing it. That’s what I do on a daily basis, Jess.” – Schmidt, New Girl

When someone tells you they’re “crushing it”, have you ever NOT wanted to reply with a slap in the face? Or at least some sort of jugular chop, while taking their cup of coffee. Not to drink it. But just to slowly pour it out on the ground while they helplessly stand there holding their throat.

You haven’t envisioned such things? That probably means you’re healthier than me. Or you just lack my creative vigor. Bummer for you.

Let’s just say I spent one too many afternoons with a Crushing It Crusader, where every time we met it was like he was giving a motivational speech to an assembly full of high school kids. I just happened to be the only one in the audience.

So when I’m talking about those who are crushing it and what they are doing well, I’m not talking about those who love talking about crushing it.

No, I’m talking about those people who inspire you. Who are seemingly living and acting on a different level than the rest of us, and you want to learn their secrets.

What are those people who are quietly and consistently crushing it every day doing differently than the rest?

1. They are masters at the small, daily, underrated core habits.

Sometimes I think we view people who are truly successful as somewhat mythical beings who must have some big secret that has produced a short-cut to success.

The more I study and speak to successful people, the more I’ve realized: Successful people’s profound secret of success is that they don’t have a profound secret. They aren’t searching for that big, secret shortcut. No, they are focused on mastering the small.

Their life consists of discipline within crucial core habits that add to their life, instead of drain it.

Examples like: Getting up early. Exercising. Eating healthy, identifying the foods that drain them and removing those from their diet. Then as well, not eating too much.

Mastering the small core habits can make a big difference.

Our bodies are our gardens – our wills are our gardeners.” – William Shakespeare

Studies are showing that consistently exercising actually can increase your IQ, specifically creating “an increase in the irisin molecule levels in the blood which activate genes involved in learning and memory.”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t write this while at my standing desk, pumping out the article while wrapping up a half-marathon on my treadmill below. Discipline in the daily is not always my forte.

Yet, for the last year I’ve made a more consistent effort, especially when it comes to eating smart, and I can’t tell you how big of a difference it’s made in my energy, performance, and mental health.

Simply not over-eating at lunch and slipping into a carb-comma at your desk at 1:30, can give you two more productive hours a day for an extra ten hours a week.

Crush your day by being consistent at the core elements that can make or break your day.

2. People who crush it, have well-defined vision, goals, and an unshakable belief that what they’re doing is important.

Mastering the core habits is so much easier when you have a vision and goals that you’re working towards. Then your discipline and hard-work has context, purpose, and a point.

You’re not mastering your day as an exercise in discipline, you’re mastering your day so that you can exercise your purpose.

I’m realizing more and more that when I’m feeling the most anxious in my life it’s because I don’t have any clear, identifiable goals.

3. People who are crushing it have goals that are built and based off their unique Signature Sauce

Successful people’s goals aren’t created out of context. Successful people create goals as a culmination of who they are, what they believe, what they’re good at, where they want to go, and most importantly, why they know it’s important.

Too many of us focus all our time trying to figure out what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it, instead of first truly understanding “Why” we feel it’s important.

The more you know your why, the more flexible and adaptable you’re going to be in your what and how.

Successful people’s defined and refined Signature Sauce becomes a framework on which they bring their major life decisions to. So that they are saying no and yes to the right and wrong things.

Their goals have a reason, substance, and purpose to them. Then, when their specific strategy goes nothing as they planned, they can more easily adapt their plans because meeting the end-need is more important than the way they envisioned meeting it.

Remember: the greatest danger you face in the world today is that you’re replaceable…Your only salvation is to mine your uniqueness, to combine various skills that set you apart. No one can do what you do. That’s your endgame.” – Paul Graham

4. People who are crushing it, do “Relationshipping” really well

Stop networking like a machine. Start relationshipping like a person. That’s what successful people do well.

Relationships aren’t a means to an end, relationships are the meaning.

Read this article on tips for doing “relationshipping” well.

5. People who are crushing it, care more about learning than they do about their ego.

Want to know a simple test on whether or not you care more about learning than you do about your ego —  How do you receive feedback?

Honestly, receiving feedback graciously hasn’t always been a strength of mine. Still isn’t.

But more and more I’m realizing if you’re able to receive constructive feedback from a boss, parent, spouse, or teacher and then implement what’s needed to do it better the next time, you care more about learning than your ego.

If the moment you smell feedback you attack it like an angry buffalo charging a tourist who has ventured too close, then your ego (and the insecurities it’s protecting) is probably a little too sharp.

If your ego keeps charging at everyone who tries to help, then people are going to stop helping.

6. People who are crushing it care more about learning than they do about the possibility of failing.

Want to know a simple test on whether or not you care more about learning than you do about the possibility of failing — when you’re given a big project does the enormity of it make you excited? Or do you start visualizing the end outcome and become overwhelmed with fear that you’re not going to be able to accomplish it?

Does pursuing your dreams feel overwhelming? That means you’re onto something BIG. If it didn’t feel out of reach, why would you stretch?

People who are crushing it care way more about learning and failing forward, than they do about the fear of looking stupid. The frustration of being complacent and comfortable far outweighs the fear of failure.

As I write in my new book All Groan Up: Searching For Self, Faith, and a Freaking Job!

“Fear makes self-preservation a top priority. It makes “don’t get hurt” the rule to live by. But our instinct for self-preservation will get us killed–a long, slow death. We’ll sit there enduring drips of water on our forehead, one after another, day after day, until we snap and throw our computer through our boss’s window and wear nothing else but Hawaiian shirts for a month. And I mean nothing else.”

I’d love to hear from you within the comments on this article:

Which one of these secrets of the successful resonate with you the most?