What sets apart great leaders? Great leaders are fanatically consistent with a few strategic habits. The best leaders aren’t always the smartest, hardest working, or best-connected people. The best leaders intentionally commit to strategic habits that produce their desired results.

1. The Habit of No Snooze

How do you get out of bed each morning?

• Do you wake up naturally (with no alarm) ready to attack the day?
• Do you get up after your first alarm?
• Do you wake up to your alarm, hit snooze, wake up again, hit snooze again, and so on?

According to a study done by the University of Notre Dame, 57% of people fit in that third category.

This cycle of hitting snooze can cause a chemical and psychological cascade of torment—your amygdala lights up and adrenaline races through your body every time your alarm goes off. This jarring experience every morning can have negative effects on your health and can even lead to heart problems.

When you wake up at the right time (with your first alarm or without it,) you’re telling yourself that the first part of your day matters.

Pro tip: If you want to sleep better, plan out your day the night before. Going to bed with the next day’s.

Craig recommends that you “Start early, and if you can’t start early, start strong.”

2. The Habit of Pre-Deciding

The basic principle of the habit of pre-deciding is this: Any time you can make a decision ahead of time, make it. And, any time you can automate a decision, automate it. Decision fatigue is a very real thing. The more decisions you make in a day, the lower the quality of your decision-making ability So, as often as possible make a decision ahead of time.

You will accomplish so much more as a leader when you pre-decide to prioritize what matters most. One easy way to do this is by blocking off regular time on your calendar for your most important tasks.

“Any time you can make a decision ahead of time, make it.”

—Craig Groeschel

3. The Habit of Doing the Hard-Right

In your leadership, you’re always going to face challenges and obstacles. When you face these challenges, you’ll often have two options. The easy-wrong or the hard-right choice. You’ll always be tempted to take the easy way out. Don’t.

Many leaders ask, “What’s easy?” The best leaders ask, “What’s right?”

Many leaders avoid the Hard-Right because it will make a difficult situation even more difficult in the short term. Craig tells his team, “The difference between where you are and where you want to be might be the pain you’re unwilling to endure.” You aren’t working toward what makes tomorrow easier. You are working toward what makes your team better.

Apply the habit of the Hard-Right to every area of your life. Apologize, confess sin, take the long way, invest, instruct, and forgive, even when you don’t have to.

“You’ll never regret doing what’s right, but you’ll often regret doing what’s easy.” —Craig Groeschel

4. The Habit of You-First Leadership

The natural trajectory of leadership is towards self. I speak first and last in meetings, I get the credit when things are going well, and I shift the blame when things are going poorly.

As you rise in influence, the habit of You-First Leadership will help you intentionally fight this inclination. As Simon Sinek teaches, “The leaders who get the most out of their people are those who care most about their people.” It really matters that you actually care about people. And that care has to start in your heart before your people feel it in the office.

But what if you don’t like your team? If you don’t like your team, you’re in one of two situations:

1. You have the wrong people. Unless you inherited your team, your team is a combination of what you’ve created and what you’ve tolerated.
2. You have the right people, but you haven’t led them well. You might have a capable team, but you haven’t led them to fit the culture, have a strong work ethic, or have passion for the mission.

Both of these situations are on you.

Side note: You don’t have to like someone to care about them. You can love and respect someone without liking them. If you want to start living with the habit of You-First Leadership, start every interaction with the other person in mind.

“Some leaders try to make you think they are important. The best leaders help you see why you are important.” —Craig Groeschel

5. The Habit of Touching the Line

If you played sports growing up, you likely remember a coach who would make you “run the lines.”When he was running lines, one of Craig’s coaches would always tell him, “If you cheat in practice, you cheat your progress.” This stuck with Craig through the years and motivated him to always “touch the line” in other areas of life.

The same is true for your leadership. Don’t stop when you’re tired; stop when you’re done. And as the leader, you get to choose where the finish lines are. Craig has a self-determined deadline of having his sermon done at noon on Wednesday every week. This self-imposed deadline requires Craig to “touch the line” every week with the most important task he has, and frees him up to focus on everything else after it’s passed.

“Don’t stop when you’re tired. Stop when you are done.” —Craig Groeschel

6. The Habit of One More Rep

To become a world-class leader, do more than what is expected of you. If you want to be successful in the weight room, there is power in doing one more rep. If you set out to do 10 reps, do 11. When you do, you’re doing 10% more than expected.

Why is this important? To exceed the expectations of others, raise your expectations of yourself. Building the habit of “one more rep” stretches you and makes you a stronger leader. Whenever someone asks you to do something, give them more than they ask for. It’s a practice that benefits them and helps you stand out in their minds.

This same logic applies to companies. When an employee of a company goes above and beyond for you, it changes how you view the entire company they work for.

You not only think well of the company, you become an ambassador for that company. So what does this mean for the people you lead? Someone who meets expectations is someone worth keeping. And someone who exceeds expectations is someone worth promoting.

“To exceed the expectations of others, raise your expectations of yourself.” —Craig Groeschel

7. The Habit of Fueling the Fire

If you want to inspire others, you need to inspire yourself first. You’ve probably realized it’s easy to get excited about a new job, mission, or project, but it’s hard to stay passionate over a long period of time. You’ve got to fuel your own fire.

It’s important to focus on inspiration, not motivation.
Motivation comes from an external motive, while inspiration comes from within.

If you do what you do out of motivation, you’ll work until someone removes the external motivating factor. If you do what you do out of inspiration, no one will be able to talk you out of your passion.

8. The Habit of Showing Back Up

We all have goals and dreams. We also all will hit resistance and face opposition.

When you stall out, encounter staff problems, see little progress, or discouragement sets in, you’ll be tempted to quit. Don’t. What sets great leaders apart? According to Angela Duckworth in her book Grit, it’s not intelligence, education, or talent. The world’s top leaders are set apart by grit. People with grit have the strength of character that refuses to quit.

Craig says it this way: “When I commit, I don’t quit. I am a finisher.” Sometimes the most important thing you can do is show back up.

“Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.” —Angela Duckworth