Life is not linear. When you read the professional bios of successful people, keep in mind that they are written in a way intended to fool you. As you ponder one triumph after another you can be forgiven for thinking that one success flowed easily into the next. Life doesn’t work that way. It is almost always three steps forward, one step back—if you’re lucky.

Be informed. Develop a routine that helps you stay informed. Twitter and Facebook are great, and you can be really on top of things by following the postings of the right people. But it’s not a substitute for consulting informed sources in a systematic way each day. I’ll keep reading newspapers, if you don’t want to read papers then figure out your own solution. By the way, find out what your boss reads and read that. You don’t want to be the one who has no idea what everyone’s talking about simply because you’re not doing the required reading of your job.

Get out of your comfort zone. ‘You are only young once’ Don’t waste it. Do things you won’t have the opportunity to do when you’re older, more settled and have more responsibilities than you can imagine today.

Drink coffee in the afternoon. I still remember how devastated I was at how long the work day lasted during my first year out of college. No naps. No late starts. No chilling out after lunch. It hit me around 3:00 each afternoon that the day felt like it was never going to end. I started having an afternoon cup of coffee to perk me up. I still drink one most days. Another spoiler alert: The days got longer, not shorter.

No one said this was going to be easy. Good luck.

For the Full Article visit: Class of 2013: What Successful People Aren’t Telling You | LinkedIn.