Habits, they determine your future

[rzach41]

“An acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary: the habit of looking both ways before crossing the street.”
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/habit)
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The pursuit to financial wealth is more than the accumulation of money. It’s about taking inventory in your self. It’s about figuring out what specific characteristics and qualities you need to perform at your very best.

If you want your sports car to run at optimal performance, you first need to identify the necessary changes that are preventing your little speedster from perfection.

The same goes for any aspiring entrepreneur and investor, like me. We must take an honest look at ourselves and be able to identify what we need to work on in order to grow to the person that we will eventually become. If we don’t take inventory in ourselves, we limit our potential.

Take the car example again, you may be going fast, but it’s only as fast as your cars parts allow you to go. If you upgrade a few parts here and there, before you know it you’re going 35MPH faster than you ever have.

Improving our life takes specific and focused work over a long period of time… but for all the self-actualizing people out there, they will tell you it was worth every penny. Our daily habits and routines play a much larger role in our lives than we wish to admit.

We all fall prey to bad habits. The problem is that we are so accustomed to doing what we normally do that we don’t recognize the negative habit. I read somewhere that up to 90% of our normal behavior is based on habits. Wow. This has to do with the routines that we all get ourselves into. For me, I wake up, take a shower, check my fantasy baseball or football, read some Fast Lane To Millions, listen to some music and then head off to class. When I return home I usually take a quick nap, and then I waste time on the internet. *Many of our daily activities are routines. From when we get up in the morning until we drift off to sleep at night, there are an abundance of things that we do the same every day, unknowingly* Let me tell you, not all of these things are productive… which leads me to this next statement:

*** Negative habits breed negative consequences. Successful habits create positive rewards ***

In other words, successful people have successful habits, while unsuccessful people have unsuccessful habits!
What many of us do not realize is that our bad habits usually don’t show up until later in life. I’ll use a cigarette smoker as an example:

When you smoke a few cigarettes a day, you’re not thinking about the long term effects of your actions. You’re probably justifying smoking by saying “Oh, I am only having two cigarettes today, that is not a big deal.” But the ugly truth lies in the fact that if you smoke two cigarettes a day, you multiply that by however long you have been smoking! Sure, two won’t hurt you, but how about two times 365 days? 2 years, 3 years, etc. This is how our bad habits work. We are so accustomed to our daily routines that they seem normal to us. It’s in our comfort zone, and therefore goes unchanged.

Now for the good news!
You can turn negative consequences into positive rewards.
How?
Change your habits.

I am reading an absolutely fabulous book called “The Power of Focus.”
They give you a practical system which you can use to replace your bad habits with good ones. It is my pleasure to introduce you all to this system which I am currently applying to change my bad habits into good ones.

·The Successful HABITS formula

1. Clearly identify your bad or unproductive habits.
Take some time to sit down and take inventory in yourself. Examine your own habits, and consider the long-term consequences of them. Be honest with yourself. *Once you have your bad habits written down, move on to step two.
2.Define your new successful habit.
This is the opposite of your bad habit. To keep with the cigarette smoker example, it would be to “Stop Smoking.” What are you actually going to do? For motivation, write out all of the benefits and rewards for adopting your new successful habit. The more you can describe the benefits, the more likely you are to take action. *Once you have defined your new successful habit, and written down the benefits and rewards of applying this new habit, move on to step three.
3.Create a Three-Part Action Plan.
This is where you come up with three things you are going to do in order to “jump start” your new habit. To keep with the smoking example, it would be to: start using nicotine treatment, start hypnosis therapy, start a fresh air exercise program, or maybe even placing bets with your friends to keep you accountable. The important thing is to make a decision about which specific actions you are going to implement.

*Nothing will change until you do*

I will use myself as an example to this system.


Here is my list of my bad habits, in no particular order:
·Procrastination
·Poor Communication
·Not tending to my school work quickly and efficiently
·Not eating at proper times, leaving me tired when I should be energetic
·Not paying my bills on time, then getting hit in the head with a late charge
·Not following through on time with other peoples requests
·Imbalance of time management
·Not focusing enough on specific tasks, basically being spread out too thin

Let’s replace my bad habit of wasting time and replace it with a good one shall we!

A)Habit holding me back: Imbalance of Time Management
Consequences: work inefficiently, do not spend time on things which will bring me positive rewards, added stress,

B) Successful new habit: Proper Management of my Time
Positive rewards: Work efficiently, spend my time on things that will affect me positively and move me closer to my goals, less stress, increase my chances of becoming successful by making the most of my limited time, being able to differentiate and identify activities of high value compared to activities of no value that would otherwise be wasting my time

C) My 3 Step Action Plan
1. Research Time Management Techniques
2.Create a way to hold myself accountable if I waste my time
3.Apply a technique that allows me to prioritize what needs to be done each day

Answer to C-1: Activity Logs.
Note what I do as I do it. Each time I change activities, note the time of change. Also write down how I feel… whether it’s alert, flat, tired, energetic, hungry, frustrated, angry etc. Once I have completed a few days of the “Activity Log” I will analyze it. This will help me figure out when I am at my best, and also when I am at my worst. Once I have this figured out, I can plan on tackling my most difficult task at the optimal time for me!

Answer to C-2 and C-3 are covered by the following: Action Plans and Prioritized to-do lists.
Action plans are a simple list that addresses all the tasks that must be carried out in order to achieve a specific goal.
I will create daily “Prioritized to-do lists.” I will write out all tasks that need to be done. Next, I rank them with 1 being the most important, 2 the second most, 3 the third most etc. Once they are ranked I will rewrite the list in the proper order, and then work my way down the list!

Pick a date to implement the new habit, and stick with it! After three to four weeks, your brain will automatically replace your old habit with the new one. It will be more difficult to revert to your bad habit once you have reached this stage!

** Just imagine the possibilities of changing one bad habit per year **

I could have summarized this whole post in MJ's signature, but that wouldn't be very fun now, would it! :eusa_clap:

Ryan Z

 

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