[aioseo_breadcrumbs]
The right collection of these will lead you to success
Success is all about taking action. The right action.
We’ve learnt about how your values and beliefs drive your thoughts that influence your decisions and result in certain actions.
Generally, these actions are of a recurring nature. Especially if you are working towards a goal.
Another term for this is habits.
You are a collection of your habits. All the actions you have taken on a daily basis have resulted in your precise position in life at this very moment.
Examples of habits:
- You go for a 30-minute run every day.
- You read a chapter of a book every day.
- You watch 5 hours of TV each weeknight.
- You always eat chocolate before you go to bed.
- You never eat after 6pm.
- You constantly check your emails or social media at work.
- You practice the guitar 4 times a week for 40 minutes.
- You sleep in all the time.
- You wake up at 6am every day.
Habit: A settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up
Do you have the right set of habits accelerating you towards your goal or do you have a set of habits that act like an anchor?
In past posts we have discussed how you can change your values and beliefs. So too can you change your habits.
This is where many people fall down. They fail to successfully change their habits.
If you have a strong enough desire, a burning desire, to achieve something then you are more likely to want to change your ways.
Bad habits affecting your success?
First of all, you need to identify the habits you have that help and those that don’t (these differ depending on what your goals are).
Don’t help:
- Too much alcohol.
- Too much junk food.
- Too much TV or video games.
- No exercise.
- No further education in your own time.
- Smoking.
- Not caring about your appearance.
- Not making time for your children or partner.
- No goal setting.
- No saving/investing.
- Dwell on what is not going right in life.
- Being negative.
A self-audit is required. And this requires honesty.
Facing reality can be hard.
A common cause for lack of achievement (in most endeavours – career, health, starting a business) is lack of time.
In the majority of cases you:
- Are not using your time well.
- You are not very efficient.
- You are taking on too much.
If you are a single parent of 3 young children and running your own business, I can see how things can get away from you very easily. That’s why I said the majority of cases.
Activity:
Write down all the habits you have identified that are not serving your goals.
Good habits contributing to your success?
It’s also important to know what works.
Activity:
Write down all the habits you have identified that are serving your goals.
Replace the bad habits with better ones
Of course, the habits you need to build are entirely dependent on your goals. Therefore, I can’t tell you what specific habits you need to create.
But one thing is for certain:
“The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people do the things the unsuccessful people don’t want to do.”
John Paul DeJoria
My health (specifically my lower back) is my number 1 priority in life. If my back is bad, everything else is bad, my mood, my outlook on life, it invades all of my thoughts. As a result, I have trialled various things to see what works and then I build it into my life.
Every morning I do a series of mobility exercises. It takes about 5 minutes. I do it no matter what. Got a cold, I do it. Got the flu, I may do a limited version of it, but I still do it. I believe that this activity makes the most difference in how my back feels.
After that I usually walk the dog for 30 minutes, weather permitting on this one (only rain stops me).
I will do a workout after work for 30-60 minutes 5-6 times a week. A mix of carefully crafted resistance training and cardio.
And most nights I will go for another 30-minute walk.
While on the walks or at the gym I often listen to success or personal growth podcasts so I can tick off two things at once.
When necessary, I use a foam roller to release any tight muscles.
Every three weeks I see my chiropractor for a “service”.
It’s a bit like groundhog day, but it works. The benefit is no pain on a daily basis and the hope is that this leads to a better quality of life 10, 20, 30 years from now.
I’ve done it so many days in a row I’m on autopilot. I even get cranky if my routine gets interrupted. It just means I have to shuffle things around to ensure everything gets done.
These are the collections of habits that ensure the best possible outcome for my health.
The flip side of this is that it is difficult to fit in other aspects of my life, like writing these posts, setting up FIT Wealth, progressing in my career, etc.
But I’ve made my choice. I know precisely why I am doing it. I know the consequences on not doing it. And I am happy with this choice.
It just means that other aspects of life may take a bit longer to get moving in the right direction.
I have to accept that.
Don’t do what unsuccessful people do
Don’t take advice or copy anyone that has not done what you want to do. This includes friends and family.
Seek out through books, podcasts, friends or people at work, those that are successful in your areas of interest. Study them and find ways to incorporate what they do into your life and see if it works.
There will be a lot of trial and error. So don’t be afraid to drop something that doesn’t work for you, provided you’ve given it your best shot.
If your friend is in great shape and they do a lot of running, but you hate running, swap it for a similar activity that is better suited to you.
There is a saying that you are the average of your 5 closest friends. Have a look. Are your closest friends helping you to excel or are they dragging you to the pub for a big night?
I’m not saying get rid of your friends, but understand that depending on how much time you spend with them, they may be holding you back.
Find likeminded people who challenge you, push you to be your best. Are their any groups you can join or create?
- A running club.
- An investors club.
- A book club.
- A business mastermind group.
- A career mastermind group.
- A parenting group.
- A health group.
Any group that is designed to make all participants better in that area.
Change one habit at a time
If you have identified 5 habits you want to instil into your life, tackle them 1, maybe 2 at a time.
For example, with regards to your career, you have identified you need to:
- network more,
- do more industry-based reading,
- do more business development,
- do courses to get you to the next level, and
- take on more responsibility at work
Don’t try and tackle everything at once. You are setting yourself up for failure.
Number them in order of potential impact to your career, then work on the first one. Once that is entrenched, move to the next one. Some habits may take more effort, others less. The key is not to overwhelm yourself.
Track your changes and know when you are ready to start building in the next habit.
Also be aware of other habits that slow your progress.
- Too much TV at night and on weekends.
- Too much internet surfing during work.
- Inefficient methods of working.
Deal with these too.
Gamify your efforts to enhance success
A trick you can use to help ingrain a habit is to track your streak.
If you want to create the habit of reading (career/success related) for 30 minutes each day, you can tick off each day on a calendar.
Each additional day you tick off grows the chain. The task is then to not break the chain.
If the chain is broken, ensure you quickly start a new one.
It’s not the end of the world if the chain is broken. Nor should it be. The true goal is not to create a tick chain on a calendar. This goal is to be reading for 30 minutes daily so you can receive the benefits of knowing your field of endeavour even deeper.
Little things add up to significant gains
Continuing from the above example. Reading for 30 minutes. What can that really achieve? This could be reading about your specific industry. New skills such as leadership, management, networking. Whatever is relevant to your goal.
If you multiply that out over a year, that’s 182.5 hours. Over 5 years is 912.5 hours. Over 10 years, 1825 hours.
All devoted to improving your career.
If you have spent nearly 2,000 hours to improving your job knowledge and skills through reading, how far ahead of everyone else are you?
All because you created the right habit.
You switched the TV, computer or gaming console off for only 30 minutes each day and substituted a part of that for something productive.
The right collection of habits maintained over the long-term can result in great achievements.
A head start on the right success habits
In Thomas C Corley’s book “Rich Habits: The daily success habits of wealthy individuals”, he outlines 10 habits.
- Form good daily habits.
- Successful people are slaves to their good habits. Why? Because they work.
- Set goals daily, monthly, yearly and for the long term.
- Setting goals creates focus. Focus leads to time efficiency.
- Engage in self-improvement every day.
- As your knowledge base grows, opportunities begin to present themselves.
- Devote a part of every day to your health.
- Without good health, success and wealth is wasted.
- Devote each and every day to forming lifelong relationships.
- To successful people, relationships are like gold. Networking.
- Live each day in a state of moderation.
- Live a balanced life.
- Adopt a “do it now” mindset.
- Don’t procrastinate. You are taking control of your life.
- Engage in rich thinking every day.
- Positive affirmations, visualisation, uplifting content, gratitude.
- Save 10% (at least) of every pay cheque.
- Start early, invest, be disciplined, get good advice.
- Control your thoughts and emotions every day.
- Think, evaluate, react. Don’t react first, apologise later!
The wrap
Your habits are the reason for where you are in life right now. If you are not where you would like to be then you need to change certain habits.
Just like the apps on your phone, you can delete ones that are no longer of use and replace them with better ones.
Forming the habit will be the challenge. However, if your desire to make change is strong via an exciting goal you have set for yourself, this will enhance your chance of the new habit sticking.
Making changes because you think you should, is based on shaky ground.
Making changes because you know it will lead you to your dreams and goals will help solidify those habits and help you move in the right direction.
References:
Millionaire success habits – Dean Graziosi
How Rich People think – Steve Siebold
Up next …..
Secrets of levelling up and boosting your success.
Take action in your life.
Click here to subscribe and receive new posts the day they drop.
Go to the Apple App Store and play My Fortune: Race to Financial Freedom (search “my fortune race”)