Imagine hopping out of bed knowing that today, you will automatically do what it takes to create success – just as mindlessly as you brush your teeth.
You're able to do many things without thinking about them. You can eat without choking while you watch TV, talk or read. You can drive while listening to the radio, talking with passengers, putting on makeup or dialing your cell phone – not that you always punch in the numbers accurately while steering the car, but you get the idea.
If you can do so many things at once every day, without thinking about them, why couldn't you automatically do the things you need to create amazing success in your life? The kind of success you've dreamed of?
The truth is that you can take steps toward success every day. You can take these steps without even thinking about them. As automatically as eating or talking or any of the other things you've done today without being aware that you did them.
It's easy to make a habit out of the actions that lead to success. So easy that it's amazing most self-help gurus have missed this vital key.
Self-help experts typically focus on goals, purpose, affirmations, visualizations and other techniques. No doubt these are beneficial approaches that can move you ahead. But not one of these techniques works unless you do it repeatedly.
Just as you can’t eat one meal and be fed for life, so you can’t set goals just once and get the full benefits for life. Ask anyone who has set a New Year's Resolution how long it lasted. Repetition is the key.
Not all self-help experts have missed the importance of forming success habits. In their book, “The Power of Focus,” Jack Canfield, Les Hewitt and Mark Victor Hansen state, “Up to 90% of our normal behavior is based on habits."
Aristotle understood the importance of habits. He wrote, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
If so much of our behavior is based on habits, and repetition is the key to success, isn’t it vital that we focus on and plan our success habits, so we can do them mindlessly every day?
Consider this: any good action you take has a positive impact on your life. When you repeat the action once, the impact is greater. When you turn good actions into habits, repeating them over and over, the positive results increase exponentially over longer periods of time.
Unfortunately, it also works in reverse.
While good habits lead to positive results, bad habits have an increasingly negative impact on your life. Like any habit, bad habits happen automatically, through repetition. They are eliminated only by a conscious effort to replace them with good habits. If you don’t plan and create good habits, then, like weeds, the bad habits creep in and take over.
Imagine following a bad habit for a full year. Depending on the habit, the impact over the course of a year could be terrible. Yet some of our bad habits have lasted for 3, 5, 10 or even 20 years. Isn't that the essence of not learning from our mistakes?
Fortunately, this situation can be corrected…
Here are 6 Steps to New Success-Producing Habits
1. Identify the habits that you know will create success in your life.
These new habits can be something that will improve your health, wealth, relationships or any area of your life. NOTE: I strongly advise you to seek medical help if you have a drug addiction or psychological condition.
2. Create a vision of how beneficial the new habit will be to your life.
Picture your life after you have your new habits in place. This step is critical. It provides the juice that'll get you started and keep you going.
3. Keep a chart that tracks how often you actually act on your new habit.
For most success actions, once a day is sufficient to turn that action into a habit. One easy way to track your habits is to create a spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel. Across the top, label each column with the name of each new habit. Label each row down the left side with the days of the week. Repeat the days of the week 3 times, so you'll be able to track your new habits for at least 21 days – the length of time it takes most people to form a habit.
4. Post your chart strategically.
Put your chart where you'll see it easily throughout the day. Refrigerators and bathroom mirrors are good locations.
5. Create targets for yourself, and then reward yourself when you hit your targets.
If you complete one habit 3 days in a row, for example, then you need to give yourself a reward. It's good to reward yourself richly and often. After all, you're investing in a new habit that can add years of value to your life.
6. Find 3 ways to make this habit enjoyable.
If you enjoy the activity, there's a much greater chance that you'll keep it up over the long run. It'll become truly a habit. You can make a habit enjoyable by combining that action with something else you enjoy, like listening to music, sitting in Starbucks or watching TV. Or find another way to make the activity enjoyable by itself.
Whether it takes you 21 days or longer to form a habit, the bottom line is that the longer you act on your habits, the longer you'll continue to act on them. As Horace Mann said, "Habit is a cable; We weave a thread each day, and at last we cannot break it."
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So, create your chart, get started, and weave new threads of success into your unbreakable cable every day.
Mark Flournoy is the creator of SuccessBuilder Coaching Software. This software is for those of us who need an easy to use system for building our successful habits. Built right into the software is an automated Habit-Building and Reward System. For a free Habit-Building Chart and more information on how you can build successful habits send an email to freeHabits@moreprogress.com You can find SuccessBuilder Coaching Software at
www.moreprogress.com
