Have you seen this graphic floating around the interwebs? It's a great visualization of the traits that mark successful and unsuccessful individuals, compiled by MaryEllen Tribby of  www.workingmomsonly.com. You can read her original article on Huffington Post here.

At de Novo, we talk a lot about Barriers to Entry and how they impact your business. But individual barriers to success can have as great if not greater impact on your business, as well as other parts of your life.

Just like the Barriers to Entry exercise we do with our clients, looking at your traits with brutal honesty can be a catalyst that will help you break through to a new level of productivity, happiness, success and more.

It's easy to look at this graphic and say, "Yes! I have those traits." But can you step back and objectively look at them and then grade yourself, and then put an action plan together to address the things that you can improve upon?

Sure. Let's just quantify it. Try this exercise. The traits of both are listed below. For the "Successful Traits" grade yourself on each trait on a scale of 0-5, five being the highest (best) and 0 indicating a trait you do not have at this time. Tally your score. Not bad, right? Area for improvement, but not bad.

Next move to the "Unsuccessful Traits" and score 0 to -5 for each trait. Zero represents a trait you do not have at all, and -5 indicates strong presence of that trait. Now sum the two traits totals.

Successful People
Have a sense of gratitude
Forgive others
Accept responsibility for their failures
Compliment
Read everyday
Keep a journal
Talk about ideas
Want others to succeed
Share information and data
Keep a "to-be" list
Exude joy
Keep a "to-do/project" list
Set goals and develop life plans
Embrace change
Give other people credit for their victories
Operate from a transformational perspective

Unsuccessful People
Have a sense of entitlement
Hold a grudge
Blame others for their failures
Criticize
Watch TV everyday
Say they keep a journal but really don't
Talk about people
Secretly hope others fail
Horde information and data
Don't know what they want to be
Exude anger
Fly by their seat of their pants
Never set goals
Think they know it all
Fear change
Take all the credit of their victories
Operate from a transactional perspective

Ouch. I'll go first. After category 1, I was feeling pretty good. 45 out of 80. Work to do, but not bad.

Then I factored in the unsuccessful traits and my score dropped to 21.

Now here is where the work comes in. List all these traits in your journal with the scores. Then go through and make an action plan to improve anything that doesn't have a 5 on the Success side and anything not at 0 on the Unsuccessful side. Just this act will help you frame your goals.

Spend the next month looking back at the visual chart (it's totally ok to print it out and share it, via the author, MaryEllen Tribby) and make adjustments in your behavior.

At one month, re-assess yourself. See if you've made some progress. If you're up for it, post your initial score in the comments below. We'll do another post in February, and see if we've made any progress, together.

Now, I've got a "To Be" list to go make.