Do you really know what shapes your life and your destiny? It is your habit.
What you do each day will determine how successful you are in your
life. Our thoughts and our actions create the results we experience in
our lives, and then the quality of our life is truly determined by the
habits we have programmed ourselves with.
If
you are broke today, it is because of your money habits. If you are
constantly unhappy, it is because of the habitual way you perceive the
world and the way you talk to yourself. If you are achieving mediocre
results in your life, it is because your habits are programmed to keep
you mediocre. If you want to change your life in any area, you have to
change those habits that are creating those specific results.
Before we talk deeper into this topic, let me ask you this question, “what does success means to you?”
There are many answers to the question above. However, for me, the
moment you take action and start moving forward toward your goals and
dreams, you are successful. If you do something and take action everyday
to produce the results that you want in your life, you are considered a
success.
If you start a business this year and you make a loss in your
business, are you considered a failure? Well, it depends. What if the
first year your business is a loss, the second year you make an even and
in the third year, you make a million dollar from your business? Do you
think that your first year will be a failure or a success?
What I want to show you here is that success is what we repeatedly do
that as long as your action will move you toward the destination you
want, you are considered successful.
“Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. We are what we repeatedly do” – Aristotle
As you can see now, success is what we repeatedly do each day, and
thus, our habit plays a very important role in shaping our lives and our
destinies.
How Our Habits Are Created
Every habit we own today began as a conscious decision and action in
the past. For example, years ago, you may have come home and thought to
yourself, ‘wouldn’t it be nice to watch television after a long day of
work?’ So you consciously made the decision and took the action. If the
action gave you some kind of pleasure, it is highly likely that you
would make the same decision and take the same action the next day.
After a few days, that habit of watching television the moment you
come home is anchored in your mind. The moment you see the television
set, you subconsciously sit down and start watching. It becomes an
automated behavioral response. Once a habit is set, it becomes very
uncomfortable to do anything else. All the habits that we pick up
collectively make up our character. In turn, our character will
determine our ultimate destiny.
So you see, if you have adopted a habit that does not empower you
toward your goals and your dreams, you will never be successful because
what you do is not going to produce the results that you want in your
life.
If you want to live a successful life today, you must start paying
attention to your habits throughout the whole day and make sure that
they are helping you to move to where you want to go. For example, if
watching television every night after you come back from your work is
already your habit, try to change it. You can change this habit to
spending quality time with your family, talk to your spouse, your
children, or read personal improvement books to improve yourself.
Another very crucial habit that adopted by a lot of people is that
they go to sleep without a plan for the next day. This is not what the
successful people will do. Great and successful people will plan ahead
for the following day before they go to bed. The moment they get up
early in the morning, they know what are their goals and their missions
for the day. They know what they should do and this is how they are able
to accomplish more than ordinary people.
Hence, pay attention to your daily habits. Make a list of all your
habits if you want to. And then break them down into 2 categories; one
that will empower you toward your goals, and another one would be the
one that will do no good to you.
Break Out Of Your Comfort Zone
It is always the most challenging the first time you want to break
your comfort zone by doing something that is not what you usually do.
You will feel kind of weird and uncomfortable the first time you come
back home from work and did not watch television. It will be difficult
in the beginning, but once you are able to do it for a few days
consistently, you will start to program the new habit into your
subconscious mind and before you know it, you will make it into your new
habit.
Just like if you try to fold your hands the usual way, but if you
change it to the other way suddenly, you will feel weird and
uncomfortable. This is exactly what will happen when you try to do
something different from what you usually do. Do not worry about this,
just expand your comfort zone and make your new habits to empower your
life.
After a few weeks, you will see how the positive habits can give a huge impact in your life.
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