What sets those who accomplish great things apart from those who fail to realize their ambitions? You might guess intelligence, an appetite for risk, or even creativity. Those are all sensible-sounding suggestions, but that’s not what science has found.

The best predictor of success in life is none of these usual suspects–it’s your mindset. Those who achieve great things generally believe they can improve and grow as people. This is called a growth mindset. Those who are frustrated in their attempts to realize their dreams tend to believe their abilities and talents are static, a.k.a. they have a “fixed mindset.” 

Below are the top 7 Steps to a have a Successful Growth Mindset:

1. Define your success – If you don’t define it, you will keep yourself subjected to confusion about your success and your failures. Find out what’s important for you in your personal life, career, and health. For an hour or two, set aside your ego, and also your guilt, and think about what a perfect life would be to you.

2. Set goals based on your definition – Right now, you’re at a stage where you simply know what success means to you. You’ve no plan, no help, nor any strategy to live that success. So, start by setting goals in the three basic of life: work, relationships, and health.

3. Find inspiration and motivation – Setting goals isn’t enough. The next step helps you to find a way to convince your brain to stick to that goal and get inspired about how to move ahead. The best way to find motivation is through books. Go find 2-3 books that can keep your inspired and stay persistent; read them again and again.

4. Create habits surrounding your goals – Goal-setting works best when you have habits surrounding your goal. Your habits are directly related to the rate of depletion of your motivation levels, so if you’re not habitual about doing things that are needed for achieving your goals, your motivation levels will deplete more quickly.

5. Create a routine around your habits – Successful people have this one noticeable thing in their lives: they live their success, whether anyone notices them or not. Learn to live your success. Do the best work you want to end up with today; throw yourself at the toughest of tasks. Make it a routine to commit to yourself to that habitual activity, and demand exceptional performance from yourself.

6. Stop procrastinating – Routines suck, and even the most successful people will time lapse because of their habit of procrastinating. There will be times when inspiration will stop flowing and life will seem pointless, and your time will get wasted. Here, the best advice would be to go back to step 3, because this is the time when you need motivation, inspiration, and love the most. I love the quote, “One should be loved when he least deserves it because that’s the time he needs it most!”

7. Stop looking at success like a distant achievement – “I wish I was that successful”, “When will I reach that success?” Stop considering success from a point of view where success is different from you as an individual and is merely something you hope to attain one day.