R.L. Adams's Blog

How to Break your Bad Habits

“Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.” — Benjamin Franklin

Breaking Your Bad Habits

According to a Duke University Study, 45% of our behavior is habit-driven. From the route we drive to work, to the types of foods we eat, to what we do when we’re bored, and even the Websites that we visit, are all primary driven by our habits. So, it comes as no surprise to people who are looking to break their bad habits, that’s it’s extraordinarily difficult to do so. Since those habits are so ingrained in our lives and etched into the neural pathways of our minds, finding ways to break those bad habits can lead to repeated frustrations.

The saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” is rooted in this very powerful truth that changing behavior is difficult. This is also why it’s remarkably difficult for people with serious addictions to break free of those behaviors. But, when it comes down to it, breaking any bad habit is a straightforward process as long as you have all the components in place. But, it’s not just about understanding how to break the bad habits that’s important, it’s actually following through and being conscious of your behavior and not giving up.

But herein lies the problem. As a society, we think in very absolute terms when we relay a definition of who we are or what we do. Either we’re smokers or we’re not. Either we’re athletic or we’re not. Either we overspend or we don’t. Either we overeat or we don’t. And so on. It’s difficult for us to moderate our behavior because moderation to us is a foreign concept. We don’t think in terms of moderation; we think in terms of extremes. So, breaking free of any of those extremes is hard, especially when coupled with the everyday stresses of our lives.

 

You are Your Habits

Before getting into an understanding of just how to break your bad habits, let’s look at what habits are. Habits are any behaviors that are frequently and automatically repeated. These behaviors are often ingrained in the mind, etched deep into our neural networks. These etchings form what are called neural pathways that help to link up various parts of the mind into one continuous behavior. The more those behaviors are performed, the deeper the channels that are etched in the those neural pathways, and the more difficult it becomes to break a bad habit.

It’s important to understand that we are our habits. What we do on a daily basis defines the quality of life that we’re experiencing at any moment in time. If our first inclination is to hit the drive-through at a fast-food restaurant soon as we feel those hunger pains, then we might be considered as unhealthy or overweight if that behavior is a habitual pattern that we’ve kept for a long time. What we have to do is first identify the parts and components of any bad habit before we can make adjustments to those behaviors.

There are three parts associated to any habit:

Cue – The habit-cue, also known as a trigger, is the environmental, emotional, or physical signal that marks the start of any habit. This can be anything from a hunger sensation (physical), location or time of day (environmental), or interaction with a group of people (emotional). This can be simply labeled as boredom in some instances, fear in others, anger, upset, and so on. Various factors can bring on a habit, and therefor act as our cue or trigger.
Behavior – The behavior immediately follows the cue. This can be one or a multiple set of actions performed that make up the entire habit. This involves anything from getting out of the car and walking into a coffee shop, to lighting up a cigarette, driving through at a fast-food restaurant, and just about anything else that’s frequently repeated enough to become habitual.
Reward – Is the feeling or reinforcement that occurs once the behavior is conducted. The reward doesn’t have to be a physical reward; it can be an emotional or mental reward as well. It could be the simple satisfaction of having conducted some behavior, or the resultant feeling that’s felt directly after it. Every bad habit has a reward at the end, great or small.

 

When we look at our bad habits in this format, it’s far easier to understand the circumstances involving what sets them off with a careful analysis, and why we continuously follow through with them.

 

The First Step…

Breaking any bad habit is hard work, but not an impossible feat. One of the first and most important steps, however, in your bad-habit battle, is identifying your bad habit. As the cliche goes, “Knowing is half the battle,” and actually identifying your bad habit brings it out from under the subconscious mind and into the conscious realm of thought. No matter how bad that bad habit is, we have to first identify it if we want to eliminate it.

So, how does this work?

Well, this is simple. Take out a sheet of paper or launch a word processing document on your computer, tablet, smartphone, or wherever, and start writing. Detail out your bad habit. Specifically describe it in verbose terms. Bring it out from under your subconscious mind by illuminating it, no matter how bad it is or how painful it is to transcribe.

What is the bad habit? How long have you been doing it for? How has it affected your life? Has it made you overweight, heavily in debt, unhappy, or anything else? Be very specific here. The more specific you are, the better. When did the bad habit first start? Was it a result of some event in your life? Did it proceed a divorce, an accident, or some other emotional life-altering period?

 

Step #2 – Find your Cue

Now that you know your bad habit, and have specifically described it and brought it into the conscious realm, you can now see it in all of its horrific glory. What you must now do is to identify your trigger. What sets off this bad habit? If it’s cigarette smoking, does it happen after you finish eating? What’s the sensation that you feel just before this bad habit is performed?

For example, this could something as simple as boredom, which could involve a specific time of day or when you’re in a specific place. This could be in your car, at your office, at home after work, and so on. What’s happening right before the bad habit is performed? What are you feeling? This is a very important part of the process and shouldn’t be overlooked.

Finding the cue is a critical part of breaking any bad habit because it allows us to determine just when, where, and how bad habits are brought on. Knowing the behavior is one thing, but knowing what brings that behavior on is a completely different thing. Find the cue, and you’re that much closer to breaking your bad habits.

 

Step #3 - Identify your Reward

The third step in this process is to identify your rewards. Remember, every bad habit has a reward, whether it’s a physical reward, emotional reward, or some other, nearly-non-existent mental reward. So, what’s your reward for your bad habit? If you smoke, it might be the physical affects that smoking brings on – i.e. a reduction of stress, a sensation of relaxation, and so on.

If your bad habit is overeating, then the reward might be the overall taste the food has, or the fact that it releases specific neurotransmitters in the mind that simply make you feel good.If the bad habit is procrastination, the reward might be the simple fact that we get to put something off and not think about it for a little bit longer. We’ll need to understand the reward if we want to break the bad habit, because we’ll be trying to keep those rewards but replace them with different behavior.

 

Step #4 – Flip the Script

The next step in the habit-breaking process involves flipping the script on your bad habits. Take a look at your bad habit as you’ve chronicled it now in front of you. You now know the behavior, the cue, and the reward. The goal here is going to be to find another behavior that will bring upon a similar reward.

So, if you have a craving for a chocolate bar at 3pm every single day, you now know the cue, the behavior, and the reward. The cue might be boredom, or sitting at your desk at your office, and the behavior is reaching for the chocolate bar with the reward being the satisfaction of eating that chocolate bar.

In order for us to flip the script, we have to replace the behavior of eating a chocolate bar with something else. For example, we might keep a banana on hand or a granola bar, or some other healthy alternative and replace that bad-habit behavior. This involves some planning, but once you have a game plan, it’s simply about the execution. I know that this sounds like common sense, but it’s actually repeating this new behavior enough times that’s going to allow you to break your bad habit.

 

Step #5 - Rinse & Repeat

Studies have shown that habits take between 19 and 254 days to form. It varies for each person based upon numerous factors. But, it generally boils down to the frequency of repetition. If you can repeat an action enough times, you can make it a bad habit, or in turn, break any bad habit.

So, the best way to break your bad habit is to keep track of just how well you do. Use a spreadsheet and detail each day by writing out the cue, the behavior, and the reward. When did you experience the cue? What was the replacement behavior? What was the reward directly after? Did you follow through with the new behavior?

Keep in mind that we build from momentum, and when we tend to start something up, we usually tend to continue. This is a take on the object in motion staying in motion. By keeping track, it also allows us some perspective on our progress. And, if we slip up one day, we can get right back to it.

 

Top 5 Must-Have Career Habits

“Choose a job that you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.” — Confucius

Five Highly-Important Career Habits

Our careers are oftentimes our financial bloodlines. They provide a source of income, but also a prominent source of stress in our lives. In fact, numerous studies have indicated that job-related stress has become the major source of stress in the lives of the American working class. One study claims that “35% of workers say their jobs are harming their physical or emotional health.” The same study also concluded that 42% of workers say that their job pressures are having an enormous impact on their personal relationships.

Having a good career is one thing, but being able to manage and cope with the stress it produces is another ballgame entirely. To do so, we have to start from the ground up. By incorporating five must-have career habits into our daily routines, we can not only help deal with the stress levels of our daily work lives, but also help to advance our careers. Without these all-important career habits, most individuals find themselves either too stressed out or too burnt out to at the end of the day to focus on anything else.

 

Stress in the Workplace

When we get stressed out, we’re more likely to suffer from things like heart attacks, strokes, and other illnesses. Our body’s ability to fight off diseases drops as stress hormones like adrenalin, cortisol, and epinephrine are released into the body from the endocrine system. These hormones in moderate doses are okay for any of us since they’re part of the flight-or-flight mechanism that’s genetically programmed into our DNA. But, these hormones in any large doses over extended periods are harmful and can trigger numerous physical illnesses.

Stress hormones help the body tackle stress but also help to send the bulk of the body’s resources away from non-essential systems. For example, cortisol will alter the immune system and it will help to suppress the digestive system, reducing our ability to fight disease and digest food. Cortisol also helps to limit our reproductive systems and our sex drives, making the conception of children even harder. Adrenaline rushes the blood away form the non-essential systems and towards the muscles in an effort to to fight for our lives, so to speak.

All of these stress-related factors in our careers lead to anxiety, depression, heart disease and heart attacks, strokes, excessive weight gain and digestion-related illnesses, problems with sleep, and the impairment of concentration and memory. When we’re stressed, it’s much harder to focus on positive things in our lives such as our careers, relationships, and family. When the sole focus becomes stress-related issues from our careers, we completely lose sight of what we’re doing and why we’re even doing it.

 

Habits that Stimulate our Careers

The five must-have career habits help to organize our minds, tidy up our emotions, and stimulate our careers. Even when we’re living in a high-stress situation, by taking a step back and instituting these five career habits, remarkable transformations begin to occur. However, like any other habit, these habits require work to institute. In fact, on average it’s going to take you approximately 90 days to form any habit. In those 90 days, a transformation occurs in the mind as it etches neural pathways that help to make any behavior autonomous.

If you want to improve your career, then you have to stay committed to these habits. Picking them up and dropping them off simply won’t work. You have to institute them day-in and day-out. In the beginning, it’ll be hard. But, over time, the behaviors will become automatic, and not only will your career improve, but the resultant levels of stress revolving around your career will decrease.

With that in mind, we first have to take a step back and look at our habits that we currently have. How well do you know yourself? Do you realize just how much your current habits are impacting your career and the resultant stress levels in your life? If you’re like most people, then you’re at the mercy of your habits. Because, either our habits help to hold us back, or they work to propel us forward. The bad habits are hard to break and the good habits are hard to form. So, where do we begin?

 

#1 – Career Habit: Daily Gratitude

The first must-have career habit we need to incorporate into our lives is daily gratitude. We have to be grateful for what we have, no matter how big or small it may be. Now, most people might not think of this as a career habit. But, not only is it a must-have career habit, it’s also a core keystone habit as well. Practicing daily gratitude will allow you to overcome many of the stresses and daily challenges of everyday life in general.

This involves the first 15 or 20 minutes of your day to simply sit silently, think, and write what you’re grateful for. Even if you have numerous problems, we can always find something to be grateful for. Still, when we have problems – career or otherwise – it blocks the path to gratitude. It’s harder for us to see what we have as opposed to what we’re lacking.

But, problems are a sign of life. We will always have problems. When we’re grateful however, we move our subconscious and conscious minds away from a state of lack and towards a state of abundance. When this becomes a daily career habit, our entire attitude shifts about work and we begin to approach things from a positive mindset rather than a negative one.

 

#2 – Arrive 30 Minutes Early

For most people, their daily work lives involve getting to work almost precisely on time or just a few minutes, or even moments, early, and leaving precisely on time, or even earlier if they can swing it. What people forget is that, when we do the bare minimum, we can’t expect the absolute maximum in return. Even in highly stressful situations, by arriving early we can better plan our days.

Arriving early to work by at least 30 minutes also forces us to wake up earlier. When we wake up earlier it provides us more time in the morning to get situated and think about the day ahead. And, when we get to the office or begin our workday from wherever it may be, it provides a buffer to prep our minds for the things that we have to tackle in the day.

When we make a habit of arriving early to work, other things happen as well. It shows our commitment to the job and our careers. It doesn’t say that we’re doing the bare minimum. It shows that we’re committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure that we’re providing the maximum output to our employers while setting the foundation for success.

 

#3 – What Did I Achieve Today?

Every single morning, upon arriving at work, we must ask ourselves the question, “What did I achieve today?” When we ask ourselves this question first thing in the morning, a couple of things begin to happen. Not only do we put the day in perspective, but it helps us to organize our chaotic minds.

This question also warrants some thinking, which can be done first thing in the morning, especially considering we’re employing the career habit of arriving 30 minutes early. The question allows us to focus in on our goals. If you’re an entrepreneur or the head of a company, this question is just as important as if you’re a new employee just hired on the job.

This question gives us the big picture for the day. It helps us to hone our focus on the major things that need to be tackled. Of course, this also involves putting pen to paper in the morning and detailing out your day. “What did I achieve today,” warrants a slew of our good career habits such as active goal setting, time management, and so on.

 

#4 – Utilize Time Management Techniques

I’ve talked a great detail about the importance of managing your time with time management techniques. In the workplace, time management is a critical component to career-success. It also helps to reduce stress by organizing our days. When we manage our time, it’s also easier to avoid distractions that seem to plague most people.

But, before you start managing your time with time management techniques, and building up this career habit, you should audit your time. Do you know how much time you’re wasting throughout the day? Have you ever kept a log of what you do from hour to hour? This might sound extreme to you, but I assure you it’s not.

When you audit your time you can best see where your time is going. If you’re an office worker, this is important. It helps show how much time is being thrown away dealing with personal responsibilities or even posting and engaging on social media platforms. Spend your time wisely at work and watch as your career blossoms and your stress-levels decline.

 

#5 – Always Add Value

Similar to showing up on work almost precisely on time and leaving precisely on time, most employees also try to do the bare minimum of work required of them. In this world, there’s absolutely no way to get ahead if you’re not constantly seeking ways to add value. If you want to succeed in your career, reduce stress, and live happier, focus on adding value rather than taking it.

The most successful people and companies have an enormous commitment to the value-added approach. They go above and beyond the call of duty, so to speak. They do their very best to ensure that they’re providing the maximum output, and not the minimum.

Companies and employees that focus on the value-added approach always win big in the long-run. In the short-term, this can seem like you’re fighting an uphill battle. But, over time, word spreads. It won’t happen overnight, but if you want your career to take off, then focus on what you can give rather than what you can take.

 

 

 

 

The Six Core Principles to Success

“There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.” — Napoleon Hill

The Principles of Success

What does it take to succeed in life?

I recently asked myself that very question. After spending the greater part of two decades studying and analyzing some of the most successful people in the world, I came up with my personal definition of what it means to succeed in life.

Through that analysis, I uncovered six core principles to success that seemed to be prevalent in the men and women who achieved greatness in their own rights.

But, first, let me backtrack a bit.

 

Journal Entries to My Unborn Son

The concept for this post actually came to light in a different way than usual for me. Normally, my posts are based on my general desire for understanding and improving human behavior. In fact, as you’ve most likely come to see, I have a mild obsession with things like habit development and self-improvement.

In an effort to improve my life over the years, I’ve set out to understand as much about human behavior as I possibly can, and in turn, to help convey that information to all of you.

But this post was sparked by something a bit different, so let me explain.

I have a son on the way. Right now, he’s two months away from being born and I get to feel him moving around in my wife’s womb every single day. That, in-and-of-itself, is a miracle. But, the reason for this post actually came about as a result of journal entries that I’ve been writing to him entitled, ‘To My Unborn Son.’

In those entries, my goal is twofold: 1) to teach my unborn son all that I can about life and this world, and 2) to convey as much of my present-day thoughts and emotions as possible.

So, in an effort to educate him about the important things that really matter, I knew that I had to speak about success, and define just what that means in this world. I didn’t want his judgment to become clouded as he aged, nor did I want him to focus on the wrong things during the pursuit of his goals, whatever those might be.

And, while I’m not sure what his precise definition of succeeding is going to be when he becomes a man, I wanted to share with him my thoughts about success, garnered through my personal experiences and through the careful analysis of the great achievers; I wanted to share with him the six core principles of success that I unearthed as a result of my research.

For that reason, every morning without fail, I’ve been writing to him, expounding on each of these six principles. Through those journal entries, I realized just how important this information is, and how much everybody else would benefit from it as well. While some of it might seem obvious, these six core principles to success are often overlooked and ignored.

But, by providing this code of conduct for living a successful life, it helps provide a framework for which we can judge ourselves. While some of us may tend to cut corners when it comes to these six core principles of success, true success lies at the very heart of embodying them through-and-through from here on out.

 

But, What Does True Success Really Mean?

So, with that being said, I knew I had to take a careful inventory from the lives of successful people. I also knew I had plenty of collective wisdom garnered from my experiences over the years. But, my main goal was to understand what successful people were doing differently than others. What values did they uphold? What things were important to them? How did they think, feel, and act that allowed them to succeed?

I know that, to most people at least, success in life is indicated by one barometer, and that barometer comes in the way of their finances. But, we can’t expect to make and retain an abundance of money if we don’t first work on some of the foundational elements of who we are, what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it.

For the most part, we tend to get caught up, chasing after things that we think we might want in life, or that we’ve been conditioned to chase after, with disregard for the big picture. What do I mean? Well, we’ve seen it time and time again portrayed by the media in their incessant effort to highlight famous falls from grace.

The media tend to highlight those who had it all, but then lost it all. Why? Well, one reason is likely because misery loves company. But, through these portrayals, there is one silver lining. The people who chase after money, with disregard to the six core principles in life, will see themselves fail. But, those that embody these principles wholeheartedly, get to the top and stay there.

Now, I’m not entirely vilifying greed here. Greed, to some respect, as Gordon Gecko once famously said, “Is Good.” But, greed, at the cost of all else is bad. And, greed, to the degree of accumulation in an effort to employ these six core principles, is okay. As long as the greed doesn’t consume us, then Thoreau’s words of, “Everything in moderation,” rings true.

Often, it’s hard to break away from what we know. It’s hard to reach new understandings about life and just what truly matters when we’ve been so conditioned to think and behave a certain way. But, regardless of who we are, what we do, or where we live, these six core principles will help pour a solid foundation to achieving all that we set out to achieve.

When we move away from these, the likeness of succeeding at any endeavor will be fleeting. While some might taste the victories of sweet success in life, it will only be temporary. If you want true success and you want it to last, make sure that you harbor and wholly embody these six core principles and allow them to guide and direct your every thought, emotion, decision, and behavior.

 

#1 - Gratitude

The first core principle to success in life is gratitude. While most people might not consider this to be a fundamental principle of successful people, it most certainly is. But, what does it mean? Well, we all know that it’s quite simple to want certain things in life. It’s easy to say we wish we had this or that we wish we had that.

But, how many people are able to take an inventory of what they have, and be truly and utterly grateful? And, why does it take some calamity or strife for us to appreciate what we have right now, in this very moment? In fact, gratitude is what makes up the very foundation for mental health and happiness. Could you imagine trying to succeed in life without both of those things?

But, this core principle to success is nothing new. The bible itself is laced with numerous quotes on gratitude. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” While Psalm 118:24 states, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

In the Koran, statements about gratitude are also plentiful. In An-Naml: 40, it says, “This is by the Grace of my Lord to test me whether I am grateful or ungrateful! And whoever is grateful, truly, his gratitude is for (the good of) his own self, and whoever is ungrateful, (he is ungrateful only for the loss of his own self). Certainly! My Lord is Rich (Free of all wants), Bountiful”

In virtually every religious doctrine – from the Bible, to the Talmud, to the Koran and beyond – and in the doctrine of every successful person, exists the core principle of gratitude. Without being grateful for what we have, how could we appreciate what we’ll have tomorrow? Once we move away from this state of lack and towards a state of abundance, it’s far easier to succeed. Our mind, body, and spirit can align in perfect harmony.

 

#2 – Integrity

The second core principle to success in life is integrity. Warren Buffet once said that “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” And nothing could be further from the truth. But, for a lot of us, integrity doesn’t take center-stage in our lives. We’re focused on the short term gains rather than our long-term name.

But, even though some people might be guilty of compromised morals or a lack of integrity, it’s not too late to change our ways. Without integrity, we can’t succeed in life, plain and simple. Think about it for a moment, everything in life requires trust. Trust is the basis for absolutely everything in this world, as the new Web economy evolves, trust is taking center-stage more and more.

Trust, through online reviews and other resources, helps to garner the reputation of any person, place, or business. When the trust is high so is the reputation, and it can lead to tremendous amounts of success. But, as soon as trust is broken through some under-handed means, then rebuilding that trust is incredibly difficult.

In our personal lives, trust comes in the way of a credit score. A simple 3-digit number helps to lay the foundation of just how much we pay for things like car loans, mortgages, and credit card interest rates. So, since trust is at the heart of our personal and professional lives, it should be paramount that trust shouldn’t be violated. If we make a promise to someone, we absolutely must keep it.

For businesses, this means delivering goods or services as promised, on budget, and on time. For people, this means paying for things at the agreed upon rate of payment. But, trust extends even further than that. Even if you fail in business, as long as you can retain your reputation, picking back up and starting over again is easier. Destroy that trust and watch virtually all the doors close in your face.

 

#3 – Value

Something that I’ve spoken a great deal about in both my books and other blog posts, is the core principle of adding value. Over the years, Google search engine algorithm has used the foundational concept of value as one of its premises to ranking in its results. It argues that rank is determined by an algorithm that combines several factors. But, at its basis is the inherent value tied to the various listings. The higher the value, the higher the rank in search.

Similarly, in life, the people who succeed in all aspects are the ones who provide more value to the world than their competitors. For businesses, this translates directly into profits. Businesses like Microsoft, Apple, Johnson & Johnson, and countless others, all have high-value propositions. You get more in value of goods and services than you exchange for your hard-earned money.

The basis of everything in life, including success, is value. Value lies at the heart of it all. We go to the best doctors because we know that they will always deliver a high-valued services. The same thing applies for restaurants, shops, and other service-oriented businesses. We’re constantly seeking high value in life because everyone wants to feel like they’re getting what they paid for and more.

So, if there ever was one core principle to success, it most certain is value. As an employee, a business owner, or a person in general, as long as you add more value to this world than you take away form it, you will succeed. Stop adding value, and watch your chances of success begin to dwindle. Always add an exceedingly high amount of value, no matter what.

 

#4 – Persistence

In the book, “Art of Persistence,” that I penned, I exhausted the topic of not giving up. I spoke at length about the subject of persistence, and highlighted some well-known examples of famous people that didn’t give up. And, although I’m not the first person to speak about persistence (nor will I be the last), it’s clear that this is a topic that has both plagued and helped people in the past, and will continue to do so into the future.

Persistence is the art of not giving up; it’s the art of digging in your heels, even when there seems to be virtually no hope at all that you’ll see things through. Over time, we progress, and as long as we don’t give up, we improve, regardless of how slowly it might be. This is one of the most important messages that I wanted to convey to my son. I want him to realize how important it is not to give up.

I know in the past that I’ve failed at many things, and have encountered endless setbacks and upsets. I wanted to throw in the towel in many situations in life, and sometimes, I did. But, I always picked things back up again later on. I persisted. I didn’t give up, even though I suffered enormous amounts of pain in all areas of my life.

Whether you’ve failed in life at many things, or you’ve failed at only a few, you most likely realize the importance of persistence. Looking back at things, we can all see how we could have or should have kept pushing forward, even in the face of failure. In fact, some of us might have friends or family members that we know who didn’t give up in their pursuits, and are now reaping the benefits of their struggles.

So, if something means enough to you, deep down inside your heart and soul, you can’t give up. That’s a resounding principle to success. That’s why Benjamin Franklin kept pushing forward even after 10,000 failures to invent a commercially-viable electric lightbulb.

That’s why J.K. Rowling spent the better part of 7 years writing the first Harry Potter book, suffered through 12 rejections by all the major publishing houses in the UK, went through a divorce, the death of her mother, and living on government assistance all while pursuing her dreams. She never gave up. And you shouldn’t either.

 

#5 – Loyalty

There comes a time when all of us must choose who or what we’re loyal to. Flip-flopping from side to side will never help anyone achieve lasting success. Loyalty is also built upon the foundation of standing up for what you believe in and having a moral footing, so to speak. What do you believe in? What or who are you loyal to?

Often, we might switch sides on the drop of a dime. But, loyalty, to the people around you and causes that you believe in, is a core principle to success, because it defines who you are and what you’re willing to stand up and fight for. Being loyal is a trait that’s also rare in this world, and is considered to be one of the defining characteristics of successful people.

In a book calle The Millionaire Mind, by Thomas J. Stanley, he states that “92% of all millionaires are married”, and that “the typical couple in the millionaire group has been married for 28 years”. He goes on to state that 8 out of 10 of us believe that having “a supportive spouse” was a fundamental cornerstone to achieving economic success.

So, whether it’s in your personal or professional life, always ensure a high-degree of loyalty. Don’t flip-flop from side to side. Make this into one of the cornerstones of your life, helping to define and shape who you are. Not only will this help you succeed economically, but it will also give you peace of mind and allow you to sleep better at night.

 

#6 – Contribution

It’s not enough to simply try to succeed on our own. We have to ensure that we’re contributing to society. Whether that’s a monetary contribution or a contribution of one’s time, the act of contribution is a core principle of success. But, why is contribution so important? Well, what happens when we contribute is similar to what happens when we fill our hearts with gratitude – we move away from a state of lack and towards a state of abundance.

In the state of abundance, it’s far easier for us to achieve our dreams; it’s easier for us to move closer to our hopes and desires. But, when we live in a state of lack, it helps to stifle us and take away our creative energies, filling us instead with fear, anxiety, and worries. Find a way that you can contribute today, no matter how big or small, and carry out that act.

Some of the greatest influencers of our time past and present, are contributors. But, if you don’t contribute now, say $10 from $100, how could you expect to contribute in the future, say $10,000 from $1,000,000. Some people might say, sure, when I have lots of money, I’ll contribute. But, it’s actually the exact opposite. As we amass our fortunes, our minds aim to guard and protect it rather than give it away.

Learn to contribute now, today, no matter how small it might be. Set your mind up to create a habit of contribution. If you can only afford to contribute your time, then do just that. You don’t have to over-think this; all you have to do is just do it.

Five Keystone Habits to Help you Achieve Anything in your Life

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu

Keystone Habits: The Gateway to Success

We all have habits. Some of our habits are good and some of them are bad. But, when it comes to the habits that help us in achieving some of those lofty goals we tend to set for ourselves, five of them, in particular, stand out.

These five habits are what are called keystone habits. Keystone habits, like the similar architectural term “keystone,” help to hold the other good habits in place. In architecture, the keystone is the centermost stone that supports all other stones in an arch but bears the least weight.

When it comes down to it, keystone habits are integral to success in any area of our lives. They help to support the other good habits that can develop once the keystone habit is set in place. Focus on the keystone habits, and you can breed a successful life.

 

The Habit-Formation Process

Considering that habits are so integral to our lives, it’s the formation of those habits that takes center-stage in any discussion on habit development. In order to form habits, one study has suggested that it can taken anywhere from 18 to 254 days, with an average of 66 days for the habit to solidify.

For most people, 66 days of repeating the same behavior is difficult, let alone doing it for 3 months or even 4 months before the behavior becomes autonomous. That’s why so few people are able to form good habits or break their bad habits.

But, if you can stick it out for at least 90 days, you can almost guarantee that a habit will take hold. Now, considering that keystone habits are no more difficult to form than any other habit, the focus must absolutely be on the formation of keystone habits. But it won’t happen overnight.

 

Success through Habits

Whether we’ve tried to achieve something grandiose in life or not, a certain set of habits will help to solidify our dreams into reality. People who embody these habits are much more likely to succeed in the long term than people who don’t.

So, why are habits so important to success?

As you may already know, much of our behavior is steeped in habits. In fact, according to one study, 40% of our behavior is habit-based. From what we wear, to what eat, to what route we drive to work, most of our decision-making processes are habit-driven.

Considering that we’re so immersed in our habits, it’s those very same habits that can make or break us. Success habits will breed success, whereas limiting habits will breed a disempowered life. Build up enough success habits and you can build a successful life. It’s that plain and simple.

 

Keystone Habits List

So, success habits breed success, that much is clear. But, embodying these keystone habits can also aid in boosting our overall progress in life much quicker.

Now, if you were to stop and think about it, you could probably come up with dozens of great habits that you could incorporate into your life right now. And, of course, there are a multitude of habits that we know we must get rid of that are most likely holding us back from succeeding.

When we clump them all together, it’s easy to get overwhelmed, throw our hands up in the air, and give up in silent resignation. But, when the focus turns to keystone habits, and the development of those keystone habits over time, one by one, a remarkable transformation occurs.

The goal here is not to allow the enormity of a task to overwhelm you. Simply take it day by day.

There are plenty of great keystone habits that you could start immediately weaving into the pattern of your life, but my focus here is on 5 very central ones that are most important. Focus on these, and watch your life transform before your very eyes.

 

#1 – Active Goal Setting

The first keystone habit involves goal setting. But this isn’t just your passive goal setting that you might do obscurely in your mind. This is active goal setting, and it must be done on a daily basis.

Yes, on a daily basis.

But, before you can engage in active goal setting on a daily basis, you must have a long-term plan for your life. If you’ve never done any goal setting, now is the time to set aside a good block of time to accomplish this feat.

Why? Well, when you set goals, and you do it on paper with a pen, or on a digital screen on some device in your possession, a visceral shift occurs in your mind. That’s because, when we write something out, it becomes more real. It’s less of an idea and more of an achievable reality.

Your task?

Set long-term goals first. You need a 5-year plan and a 3-year plan. Feeling more enthusiastic? You could also work on a 10-year plan as well. Why all of these plans? Well, you have to have a target that you’re aiming for in the long term.

You see, goal achievement doesn’t happen overnight; it takes time. But, you must know the direction that you’re traveling in. Without that, you’re like a ship lost at sea with no ability to navigate.

So, setup your long-term plans so you know what direction you’re traveling in. Then, you can engage in active goal setting on a daily basis. This keystone habit will transform your life.

In the morning, when you awake, you must ask yourself one very important question: “What have I achieved today?”

When you ask yourself that question first thing in the morning, you’re projecting yourself into the future, and it’s far easier to see just what’s important to get done that day. Once you ask yourself that question, and you can answer it, plan out your day with a set of achievable goals.

How do you expect to achieve that today? What steps need to be taken?

 

#2 – Time Management

Beyond active goal setting comes the keystone habit of time management. Time is our most precious resource. And those who can wield it efficiently enough can see themselves making the most progress in life.

Since all of us have an equivalent amount of time in this world – no one person has more time than the other – using that time wisely is quite possibly one of the most important principles to getting ahead in this world.

Yet, developing the habit of time management can be hard. Because, it’s clear that most of us are easily distracted. Things seem to just get in our way and we lose our focus. But, for those few that can effectively manage their time, the world becomes their oyster.

So, how does this actually work?

Well, I’ve blogged about time management in the past. But, in essence, the concept is simple and dates back to something called the Eisenhower Decision Matrix, which was later popularized by Stephen D. Covey in his celebrated 1994 book entitled, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

The concept states that all daily tasks take on two areas on a matrix. The first is importance, the other is urgency. All decisions, then, can be boiled down to one of either two of those elements: urgency and importance.

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix breaks this out into 4 separate quadrants:

Quadrant 1 – Urgent and Important
Quadrant 2 – Not Urgent but Important
Quadrant 3 – Urgent but Not Important
Quadrant 4 – Not Urgent and Not Important

 

The goal in time management is to try to stay within Quadrant 2 as much as possible. It’s the important but not urgent tasks and decisions that help to progress our long-term goals in life. These are the tasks that don’t have to be done right away, but if they are, help greatly move us closer to our biggest hopes and dreams.

To effectively manage your time, and build up this habit, you should first start by auditing your time. Every day, write out everything that you do. Next to that task, indicate whether it’s a Quadrant 1, 2, 3, or 4 activity. Then, see which quadrants you’re most typically engaged in.

After a while, you can begin organizing your day by front-loading it with Quadrant 2 activities, focusing on the long-term goal-related activities at the very beginning of the day.

 

#3 – 30 Minutes of Exercise

The first part of your day should be devoted to some type of exercise. Regardless of how strenuous this is, it should happen before you head to work in the morning. Why? Well, the keystone habit of doing 30 minutes of exercise helps to accomplish a few things. It helps to improve your health, clear you mind, and give you an early sense of accomplishment.

When you can exercise for 30 minutes at the first part of your day, not only do you feel better, but as a result, you’ll make healthier diet decisions and have a clearer mind. It helps to circulate the blood in your system, reduce your risk of illnesses and diseases, and gives you momentum to start your day.

This is a keystone habit that shouldn’t be passed up. Ensure that you do 30 minutes of exercise. If you have to, start small. Use a concept called micro-changes that sees you building up to the habit. Remember, the habit won’t take hold for about 90 days, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t start out with 10 minutes of exercise each day for the first two weeks. Then, ramp up to 20 minutes the next two weeks, and in your fifth and sixth weeks, push out 30 minutes.

For some people, the micro-changes approach is the best way to tackle habit development. It helps to build the habit momentum little by little while also working your way up to it. Give this approach a try for any keystone habit and you’ll see some remarkable results.

 

#4 – Daily Gratitude

It’s easy to take on the poor-me attitude when it comes to our lives. Everywhere we turn we seem to be hit with another disappointment. But, daily gratitude doesn’t mean that you have to be problem-free. In fact, problems are a sign of life.

In order to execute this keystone habit, you have to pick one time of day and take 10 or 15 minutes to simply state what you’re grateful for. If you say that you have nothing to be grateful for, then you’re not searching hard enough.

Why is daily gratitude so important? Well, it takes us from an attitude of expecting to appreciating. When you can actively search for things to be grateful for, a real physical shift occurs in your mental thinking. The mind moves away from a state of lack and into a state of abundance. This helps to fuel us in our pursuits of all things and approach life with a generally more upbeat attitude.

Again, this keystone habit, like any other habit, takes time to solidify. Take 90 days and write out what you’re grateful for every single day. Do this without fail. If you’re heavily in debt, you could be grateful for your family, your health, or the fact that you can read and speak intelligently, and so on.

As long as we search, there’s always something to be grateful for. This keystone habit will help to initiate the onset of so many other positive habits into our lives.

 

#5 - Learn a New Skill

The last, but certainly not least, keystone habit is learning a new skill. Successful people take some portion of their day, no matter how small it may be, and devote it to a new skill. When the focus in your life moves to education, so many remarkable improvements occur.

And, learning a new skill isn’t that hard. It can help to open your mind to other possibilities that exist out there, or simply help to improve your existing understanding of whatever field or business you may be in. You might even decide to learn a skill that is entirely unrelated to the line of work you’re in right now, or you might even opt for a foreign language.

This doesn’t have to involve a tremendous amount of your time. This keystone habit can also take the micro-changes approach. Start with just 10 minutes each day and build from there. Pick something that you’re interested in or passionate about, and enjoy the process of learning something new. This will help bring on so many other positive habits into your life. But it all begins with the simple decision to act.

Productivity Hacks: 8 Methods for Being Highly Productive

“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” — Paul J. Meyer

Hacking your Productivity

If you’re like any other average, breathing, human being, then you struggle with your productivity. Often, the thing that can hold us back the most in life, is our inability to consistently produce results, repeatedly. Usually, most of us have spurts of productivity; our productivity has peaks, but it also has frequent valleys. It’s those drops in productivity that tends to hold us back in life.

But, if you want to get ahead and make progress, it’s clear that you need to be productive most of the time, not just some of the time. You simply can’t just have two or three days of high-productivity in any given week, and low productivity for the remainder of the week. It just doesn’t work that way. But, we also know that being and staying highly-productive all the time is difficult.

Usually, we get caught up. At one point, we’re riding a productivity high, and suddenly, we’re deadened by something that zaps our spirit. We hit one of life’s stumbling blocks, or we simply indulge in one of our preferred hedonistic pleasures to dull the pain and boredom of life. However, these drops in productivity, lead to a decreased quality of life. In turn, not only do our finances suffer, but so do our careers, health, and relationships as well.

So, what are we supposed to do?

Well, there’s a few things involved when we’re speaking about productivity. First, there are some impediments to our productivity. These include things like procrastination, poor time management skills, and our lack or inability to focus. These impediments need to be overcome on a consistent basis if we’re going to see any considerable changes in our lives. But, productivity gaps help to bridge the divide of inaction and action.

 

What Are Productivity Hacks?

We’ve all come familiar with the term hack. In the computer world, a hack is a work-around method that tests the limits or possibilities of computer-engineered systems. In life, productivity hacks do much the same, referring to shortcuts, skills, or even tricks that increase the productivity output in an ingenious or inspirational way.

The important thing to note about productivity hacks are that they’re not all original or new. In computers and software, hacking involves a high degree of originality, since once a hack is discovered, it’s usually patched as quickly as possible. But life hacks, or productivity hacks, are different. There exists multiple known methods for working around our inabilities to get and stay productive.

 

#1 – Set Daily Goals

Quite possibly the foundation of a productive day, by setting daily goals, once per day in the morning, you set yourself up for a productive 24 hours. So, why does goal setting work so well? Well, often, we tend to get sidetracked and lose focus due to information overload and a general sense of overwhelm. Our duties and responsibilities in life tend to throw us one curveball after another.

However, daily goal setting helps to alleviate the stress and anxiety of having to juggle multiple tasks in any given day. When you set daily goals for yourself, you outline just what you plan to get done, and how much energy you should assert towards each task, giving you a roadmap for the day. This organizational effort is key to overcoming some of those constant and incessant hurdles that we tend to face.

 

#2 - Manage Time Effectively

Throughout our day, we tend to get repeatedly interrupted. Everything from family, to finances, to careers, and health can break our momentum. The constant influx of emails, phone calls, and other interruptions help to compound the daily frustrations. But, to push past this, and be highly productive, we have to manage our time effectively.

Managing time effectively is probably one of the most important productivity hacks that you can employ. This has much to do with employing the quadrant time-management system. Every day, in the morning, you have to detail out the activities that you’ll assert your initial efforts towards, which should be your long-term goals. You also have to avoid interruptions and make sure that you timely deal with things before they turn into a criss that can’t be ignored.

 

#3 – Make Lists

Beyond just managing your time effectively, comes the simple productivity hack of always making lists. Keep a notepad nearby and use the traditional method of writing out short lists for tasks that you’re trying to accomplish. For example, if you’re grocery shopping, you should always have a list with you beforehand so that you’re more effective with your time.

But lists help for everything that needs to be done in life. Goals and time management might act like a compass and a road, but list-building is what helps to bridge the short term with the long term. Make lists for everything that you do. If you’re sitting down to begin a task, make a list first. What do you plan to achieve from that task? What are the most important objectives? And so on.

 

#4 – Institute One Micro-change

Micro-changes are one of the best ways to hack your productivity because they let you build better habits slowly over time. So, what is a micro-change exactly? It’s a very small change to your routine that you can then build up0n. For example, if you have the goal of being more fit or eating healthier, you could commit to the simple act of just 5 pushups each day or eating just one apple per day, without changing anything else.

Over time, as you institute this small habit, the fibers in the strands of your routines get stronger; the micro-change slowly builds into a larger habit. What you’ll come to notice is that, if you don’t disrupt this habit, and stick to the one small micro-change, over time that change will balloon into something far greater. So, pick one small thing and do it every day. For example, put one dollar into a jar every single day to start a savings habit, and so on.

 

#5 – Work at 5am

This might sound ridiculous to you, but doing work at this forsaken hour is actually a productivity hack. Early in the morning, there are far fewer distractions and interruptions. The world is still and silent and you can focus on your tasks much easier. It might be difficult to initially get up early enough to work at 5am, but once you’re working, you’ll be surprised at just how much you can get done.

This doesn’t have to be something you do every single day. In fact, don’t commit to that. Simple get up once, very early in the morning, and be at work by 5am, at your desk, and ready to go. Then, work as if it were 9am, and see just how much you get done in those first few hours when your office is quiet. If you work from home, this is far easier to do at least once in a while.

 

#6 - Turn off the Internet

Choose one block of time in the day and turn off the Internet. This is especially important if you find yourself distracted by social media, news, and video sites. Turning off the Internet is an excellent method for hacking productivity, because all of those distractions and information overload help to sidetrack us with ease.

If you also have a phone with Internet access, turn off your phone, or disable the data on your phone for the block of time that you choose. Maybe it’s a one-hour block of time in the morning, or two hours in the middle of the day. Whatever time you choose, ensure that you do it and you stick to it. You’ll survive without the Internet for a little while and you’ll find yourself getting far more done.

 

#7 - Do Nothing

This might sound strange to you, but, doing nothing for a short period will actually boost your productivity. When you focus on doing nothing for a short period, you’re actually alleviating the mind for a little while. This short recharge period allows us to refocus our energies through subconscious data-processing. When the information isn’t constantly flowing in to the conscious mind, the subconscious mind can help to resolve pre-existing issues and problems that may be holding us back from progressing further on something.

However, what tends to happen is the opposite. We overcrowd our minds with so much mindless information that it gets overwhelmed. When it gets overwhelmed, that little voice inside of our heads pushing us towards indulging in our utmost hedonistic pleasures. We over-drink, overeat, over-smoke, over-shop, and overdo just about everything. Take ample time to simply just do nothing. Take a walk in a park or sit quietly and listen to relaxing music.

 

#8 – One Unpleasant Task Each Day

Take one of the tasks that you’ve absolutely been avoiding, set a timer somewhere for 15 minutes, and work on that one task. Only commit to 15 minutes. That’s all. But it must be something that you’ve been putting off or avoiding for a while. You know which tasks I’m talking about right now, don’t you? We all have many of these on our plate.

Maybe you’ve been promising to start a business or go on a diet. Whatever it is, pick that one task, and spend 15 minutes on it. If it’s a new business, begin by researching corporate structures, or bank account types. If it’s a diet, find out what diets work best out there and spend some time reviewing them on the Web. All it takes is just 15 minutes. That’s all.

 

How to Build an Empowering Morning Routine

“The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.” — Mike Murdoch

What is a Routine?

Let’s take the following example of a routine: John is a middle-aged man living in Seattle. He has a wife, two small children, and a Golden Retriever. John’s family lives in a townhouse located in a suburban community, and he commutes 45 minutes to work each day, in either direction.

He’s your typical average working middle-class American man. He wakes up in the morning, brushes his teeth, showers, shaves, gets dressed, eats breakfast, kisses his wife and children goodbye, then drives to work.

That’s John’s morning routine.

Good or bad, a routine is a set of behaviors that we do repeatedly. In most cases, they’re habitual. John’s morning routine is a typical one that sees him running out the door at the last moment with a cup of coffee in one hand and a briefcase full of unfinished paperwork in the other.

But, what if John’s morning routine was a little bit different? How would this impact the remainder of his day?

 

Why Routines are Important

First, let’s backtrack a little bit, and take a closer look at the importance of routines.

Routines, which are mainly comprised of habits, run our lives. In fact, according to one Duke University Study, 45% of human behavior is comprised of habits. So, that route that you drive to work in the morning is a routine that’s rooted in habit. The way that you take your coffee is a routine that’s rooted in habit. Almost all of your routines are habitual, because you’ve been doing them for so long that they’ve become ingrained in your mind.

So, if routines are habits, then what are habits?

Habits involve the creation of complex neural pathways in our minds that bridges together seemingly unrelated tasks into clumps. These seemingly unrelated tasks form the basis for our habits. Over time, as the routine set of behaviors is repeated, the habit becomes more deeply embedded in our minds, etching the neural pathways in stronger.

Think about habits and routines as channels in rivers that form, connecting together other streams, lakes, oceans, and tributaries. As the channel is etched deeper, water flows more freely across it. The same thing applies for habits. Thus, breaking the flow of water can be difficult, and frustrating to say the least.

So, the importance of routines are clear: routines are based in habits, which predominantly control a large portion of our behavior.

But, how much control do we actually have over those routines, and subsequently, our habits? How easily can we influence habits that have become so deeply embedded in the mind?

Well, these are important questions. Since routines are comprised of habits, which dictate the majority of our behavior, it’s clear then that by influencing our habits, we can change our routines, subsequently our behavior, and the overall quality and outcome of our lives. Poor people can get rich, fat people can get skinny, and substance abusers can quit cold turkey, right?

Of course, we all know that it’s easier said than done.

 

High Failure Rates

Where most people fail in altering their routines is trying to bite off more than they can chew. An example would be an obese person trying to quickly lose weight in a short period. Although that person might see some initial successes by cutting caloric intake and increasing exercise, without actually influencing the routines, or habits, which are driving their behavior, the first or second plateau that’s reached will lead to their demise.

We’ve all experienced failure when trying to modify our habits and build better routines. In the beginning, the changes are exciting. But, an inverse relationship of excitement to time kicks in. The longer we try to influence our habits, the less exciting it becomes over time, and the more discouraged we become as we hit plateaus and suffer setbacks.

So, what’s the solution?

Well, in order to influence our behavior on the habit-level, and in turn, modify our routines, we have to take a few very important steps. Success lies in our ability to stay organized and committed over time.

But success also lies in our ability to make changes on the micro-level. In essence, we can’t bite off more than we can chew. When we commit to small but incremental changes over time, our success rate sky rockets.

 

Morning Routines

Like the other routines in your life, morning routines are important. Some people crawl out of bed after hitting the snooze button on their alarm several times, and barely make it in to work. Others, are up bright and early, exercise, eat a healthy breakfast, and even have time to spare to read or study something empowering or beneficial.

These morning routines are important because they can so heavily influence the pace and outcome of our day, and subsequently our lives. By building better routines in the morning, you can improve just about anything. It all starts with the morning routine. Begin there, and work your way through your day, handling all of your other routines, but not until you perfect your morning routine.

So, how is this done?

This involves three key components for habit development:

Organization
Commitment
Persistence

 

Step #1 – Organization

The first step is organization.

You have to get clear on what you want, and detail a plan for its achievement. If, right now, you’re waking up in the morning with barely enough time to spare not to be late to work, then you’ll need to make adjustments.  But, first, you have to get clear on what you want.

If you find yourself running out the door in the morning with a coffee in one hand and a briefcase full of unfinished paperwork in the other hand, like John, how can you make some changes that will help to benefit you?

How do you want your morning routine to empower you? Is it wanting more time, more energy, more happiness, or something else? When you decide on what you want out of your morning, then you can take the necessary steps to outline a routine that will help aid you in accomplishing that goal.

If you said you wanted all of the above, then that’s okay too. What’s important now is to outline some steps in what you want to accomplish in the morning. If you want more energy, you have to make adjustments to your evening routine by either getting to bed earlier, not eating so many heavy foods past 7pm, and so on.

If you said you wanted more time, then you need you train yourself to get up an hour or two earlier. Now, this isn’t going to happen overnight. Creating a change like this is going to take consistent effort. Remember that morning rituals are habitual. And, in order to change, break, or create new habits, we need to exert constant and repeated effort over long periods.

Specifically, this is how this works.

Figure out what you want to get out of your morning routine: i.e. more time, energy, happiness, and so on.
Detail a plan for waking up at least one or two hours earlier by making adjustments to your evening rituals.
Then, write out a plan for what you want to do with that extra time: i.e. go for a run, read a book, do goal setting, listen to music, and so on.

 

Step #2 – Commitment

Since habits don’t form overnight, and habits are routed in routines, you can’t expect to create a new empowering routine in just a few days or even weeks. We all get discouraged from time to time, no matter what goal we’re pursuing. But, overall, you’ll need a sense of commitment to your plan. You can’t simply give up after a few weeks.

In a  recent study that was published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Phillippa Lally, a health psychology researcher from the University College of London, determined that, on average, habits take 66 days to form, but could take up to 254 days to form in some people. For this reason, commitment is paramount to form habits. 

So, when you’re building your morning routine, realize that it will take commitment to make it habitual. You’ll want to revert to want you know if you don’t stay committed. For example, if you plan to wake up an hour early so that you can exercise for at least 30 minutes, realize that it’s going to take you around 3 months before that habit solidifies as a morning routine.

One great way to stay committed to your morning routines is by finding strong enough reasons why you must do something. This always works in goal setting, and building an empowering morning routine is no different than trying to achieve any other goal.

Figure out why you want more time, energy, or happiness, and it will help you to stay committed to your goals.

 

Step #3 - Persistence

Persistence is defined as the continuation of some objective or goal even under duress of great difficulty or strife. There are several ways that you can stay persistent towards your goal of building an empowering morning routine.

Firstly, since habits are so difficult to form, if you find yourself reverting to your old ways of sleeping in or not exercising in the morning, make small micro-changes. What does this mean? Well, for example, if you stopped exercising or stopped waking up early by an hour or two, work your way to those goals.

You can work your way towards a goal by making small, yet incremental changes on a daily basis. You could just drive to the gym and back in the morning for a few days in a row. Put on your gym clothes and make the drive, park in the parking lot, then drive back. Sound counter-productive? Well, it’s not. These small changes help to build habits in the mind.

This works no matter what goal you’re pursuing. Whether it’s to build an empowering morning routine, or something else, you can make micro-changes to help you move closer and closer to your goal on a daily basis. Remember, your habits took years, and even decades in some instances, to solidify. Don’t expect things to happen for you overnight.

 

Back To John

So, knowing what we know now, let’s look back at our example of John, our middle-aged working family man who barely leaves the home on time with a cup of coffee in one hand, and unfinished paperwork in his briefcase in the other hand.

John had an issue with waking up early. He had habitually trained himself to wake up at 7:45 am. In his mind, he had decided that this was the optimal time to wake up for work so that he could arrive almost precisely on time and still get enough sleep.

But John knew that he wanted to make a change.

So, to change his morning routine to be more empowering, John detailed out a plan for himself. He wrote that he wanted to have more time in the morning to spend with his family, increase his energy level, and allow him to get to work with more of clear sense of his objectives for the day. In short, John wanted to better manage his time while also increasing his energy level.

John thought about the reasons why he wanted to do this. He wanted to do it so that he could spend more precious moments with his family, while feeling happier and more fulfilled by increasing his energy level. John detailed out a plan to wake up one hour early in the morning. 6:45am was the time he decided on.

For two weeks, John stuck to his goal. He got up, did some light exercise, and even had more time to spare with his family. But, then, he got discouraged. Things just got in the way; life got in the way. So, he had to work his way back to the goals. He knew that he couldn’t try to bite off more than he could chew.

So, John decided to wake up 15 minutes early for the next two weeks. 7:30am. He decided he would use that time to set goals for the day. Then, the next two weeks he decided 15 minutes earlier again, putting him to 7:15am. He then repeated this by waking up 15 minutes earlier after every two weeks thereafter.

Eventually, John was up at 6am ever morning, able to exercise, eat a healthy breakfast, spend time with his children, and still have time to plan out his day and arrive to work early. It was the small and incremental changes that made the major difference. That’s what allowed him to stay persistent towards his goals.

How to be Present: The 5 Steps for Living in the Here-and-Now

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude. — Denis Waitley

Living in the Moment

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on life, both on that of my own, and the interaction of the billions of other lives out there on this planet. I suppose that’s something that comes naturally with age. But, what I’ve really come to notice is that too many of us are caught up in events and situations, resulting in an inability to truly just live, be present, happy, and at peace with ourselves.

We’re always worrying or planning for the next “big” thing, never just living in the moment. Now, I understand that there’s some cultural differences here amongst different societies across the globe. But, overall, the general state of affairs in peoples’ lives is that of worry, grief, anxiety, and fear. Simply put, we’re not happy, we’re not present, and we don’t live in the here-and-now.

So, I asked myself, the following question: “Do we all really just want to be happy? Or do we all just chase after things that we think will make us happy, never actually achieving that elusive state of happiness?” Maybe we just want to live in fear, and allow our worries and anxieties to take control of our minds and completely reign free.

Or, maybe, just maybe, that’s not the case.

 

Happiness vs. Being Present

Most of us do want to be happy, in the general sense of the word. But, our perception of happiness is somewhat skewed. We feel like we’ll be happy “when” something else happens. Some event, thing, or person is going to bring happiness into our lives. In turn, it would allow us to be present, and simply enjoy the moment, living in the here-and now.

But that’s never really the case, is it?

Sure, we might be happy for a couple of weeks after we land a particular job, move into a new house, or buy a shiny new car. We might be present and in the moment for a few hours after a blissful experience or some windfall that came in our direction. But, surely, it never lasts long enough. That state of simply just being, never lasts that long, and seems to disappear just as quickly as it came.

In fact, in a study entitled “Lottery winners and accident victims: is happiness relative,” the researchers, who studied 22 lottery winners and 29 paraplegics, came to the conclusion that after a short period, both types of individuals returned to a habitual state of happiness. After the initial excitement or trauma wore off on their situations, they became normalized, no more happier or depressed than anyone else out there in the world.

Now, the difference between being present and being happy is miniscule. Truly happy people are able to live in the moment, all the time. They’re able to be present, and simply enjoy the journey of life, and not just worry about the destination. You’ve seen these people here and there. They walk amongst us, but they’re the rare kind, almost the endangered species of personalities in human beings.

But, if we really do want to be present in the here-and-now, we ultimately have to achieve some level of happiness, enough to satisfy that seemingly insatiable drive within us to continue wanting more and more. So, that being said, how is that we can simply just be happy, be present, and enjoy life for what it is.

Do we need to reach some sort of threshold in order to achieve a certain state of happiness or blissful presence in the world? Well, yes and no. Of course, unhappy people will always find things to be unhappy about. They’re the kind of people that look at life and everything around them with a negative lens, interpreting every situation into a negative one. Happy people do just the opposite.

So, what’s the catch? Are we just born happy or unhappy? Is it purely genetic? Or is there some way that we can be happy and present at the same time?

 

Basic Human Needs

Well, let’s digress for just a moment.

All humans have some basic needs. We need food, water shelter, and clothing to survive. When these elements are in lack, there’s a particular mental, emotional, and physical strain that’s clear. We need these things to survive. They provide some basis for our happiness, but not the entire picture. The remainder of the picture has much to do with our career, economic situation, relationships status, and mental well-being.

Basically, we’re happy – and subsequently able to be present – when we feel that all these needs are met and fulfilled to our highest standards.

For example, every person needs love. They need to feel and be loved by another human being. This is an absolute necessity. And, of course, they need to be financially stable. If they’re struggling financially, those worries tend to usurp any ability to be happy and present.

However, once basic human needs are met, and a person has those things in their lives, they should easily be able to achieve some state of happiness and ability to be present, right? Well, we all know that this isn’t always the case. Even when we have these things, we tend to want more. It’s almost an insatiable desire or quest for the accumulation of things that’s never-ending.

This is called the Hedonic Treadmill, a concept that equates life, and our pursuit of all things, to the simplicity of a treadmill. We can never get off this treadmill, because we’re never actually satisfied. When we get what we want, we seem to want more, in a seemingly never-ending cycle that goes on forever and ever.

Think about the lottery winners, for example. You would think that winning millions of dollars would make you happy, right? Well, it would for a short period. But, after a while, you would reach a state of normalcy, and eventually get bored, wanting something else as well.

 

The 5 Steps for Being Present

So, considering all of this, how can we possibly just be happy, be present, and enjoy our lives. How can we stop worrying about tomorrow and regretting yesterday? Well, the process itself is simple to understand, but like anything else in life, it takes conditioning. Fear and anxiety are concepts of the mind. The mind creates fear and anxiety, putting us into a state of distress. But that’s because it’s been conditioned to do that.

If you’ve read some of the articles or books that I’ve written in the past, you know that I’m slightly obsessed with the psychology of the mind, why we do the things that we do, and the development of habits. There are some simple steps that you can take right now that will get you on the road of being more happy, fulfilled, and at peace with your life, subsequently allowing you to be present in the here-and-now.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t simple. Any habit development takes work. It involves reconditioning the mind slowly over time. I don’t profess to have all the answers, but I do profess to know a thing or two about the mind and bettering myself. And, I know that you can live in the present moment if you adhere to these 5 simple steps of daily habit development.

Now, habits don’t form overnight. Don’t get me wrong, the 5 steps are simple. You focus on these 5 habits and you can be present, but it’s going to take you at least 90 days to develop the habits. And, so many things can distract you in 90 days, but if you can make it that far, you can rest assured that the habit will begin to take root in your mind.

 

Step 1: Daily Gratitude

The first 5 to 10 minutes of your day should be devoted to daily gratitude. This involves writing down what you’re grateful for. Even if you feel like you have nothing to be grateful for, find something. Spend the time to write it out, no matter how big or small it is. But this must be done on paper, or in some digital format. You can’t just think it in your mind. It has to be an act that you perform every single day.

Why does daily gratitude work?

Well, when you’re actively searching your mind for things to be grateful for, a visceral change occurs. You go from seeing problems to seeing solutions. You go from a mind that’s constantly focused on the negative, to one that seeks out the positive, no matter how big or small it may be.

 

Step 2: Physical Activity

This can be 5 minutes a day, 30 minutes, or an hour, but there has to be some time blocked off to develop the habit of physical activity, such as exercise, yoga, or some other lightly-strenuous activity. This doesn’t have to be something exhaustive. In fact, the more you set your mind to do a huge exercise regimen in the beginning, the more you’ll likely fail.

Why is that?

Well, habits are built up slowly over time. Whatever habits you have now, you’ve most likely had for years or even decades. So, when you tell the mind that you’re going to do something that involves an enormous commitment, in the beginning, while it’s still exciting, it might work. But we all know that, all too often, we simply get overwhelmed and frustrated, and end up throwing in the proverbial towel.

But physical activity doesn’t have to be an exhaustive commitment. Just commit to walking around the block just one time every single morning. Yes, one time. Why one time? Well, like any other habit, this small change will build over time. When you only commit to a small amount, the mind simply can’t argue its way out of it.

As you do your physical activity, no matter how big or small it is, focus on you’re breathing. Try to be as present as possible. Feel the breath as it enters your lungs, your heart as it beats the blood through your body, and the feel of the wind or the breeze on your skin. Just focus on being present, that’s all. Don’t worry about anything else during this time.

 

Step 3: Limit Distractions

Commit yourself to limiting your distractions during a specific block of tie. Pick one small block of time, whether it’s for 15 minutes or even one hour, and turn everything off. This includes the television, Internet, phones, and everything else that can interrupt you. During this time, find something to read that will inspire you or motivate you, or simply spend it with someone you love.

Our lives are so filled with distractions, that we tend to forget the things that really matter and count. We have to realign ourselves with the things that are important. Status updates and world news matters, but not at the expense of your happiness and ability to be present. Give this a try, but ensure that you do it every single day.

It’s hard for us to limit the distractions. It’s been said that the average person checks their phone over 160 times per day. But, in order to find some inner peace, be happy, and be present, this is important. Do just 15 minutes first, and focus on just one thing to better yourself, or time with the family. Then, build it slowly over time.

The goal is to limit the distractions and just be with yourself for as long as possible in any given day. You don’t need to quiet your mind; you just need to quite all the noise that’s out there in the world, pulling you in every which direction.

 

Step 4: Find a Way to Give

Find a way, every day, to give something to someone in need. It doesn’t matter how big or small, and it doesn’t have to involve money. Our most precious asset is our time. Not a single person on earth has more time than the other; it’s the greatest equalizer. Giving your time to someone else in need is one of the best things that you can possibly do. But, this doesn’t necessarily have to be a tremendous commitment.

When you give, you shift the focus from you to others. Each person can give in different ways. Each person can provide some sort of value to another person in his or her own special way. But when that focus does shift, a real transformation occurs. It’s one that’s easily noticeable. If you’ve ever done any charity work, you’ve most certainly felt this before.

This transformation allows us to be happier, more at peace with ourselves, and subsequently, more present. Give it a try today. Try to find something that you can do for someone else in need. See where you can give. Search your mind on how you can contribute something to someone in this world. DO it every day.

 

Step 5: Find the Beauty in Something

It’s said that our universe is 13.8 billion years old. This is a scientifically proven fact. But, before there was the universe, there was apparently nothing. From this nothing, came time and space. Yes, there was no time nor space prior to this, it all developed in an instant that eventually evolved into a universe with stretches beyond the imagination of the mind.

Now, according to the first Law of Thermodynamics, energy can neither be created or destroyed. Whatever energy was here in the beginning, is still here, it’s just in different forms. So, all of us, our energy and our consciousnesses, have been around for 13.8 billion years, in some form. We are all part of the same thing. We all come from the same source of energy.

That being said, no matter what you believe in, religion wise that is, there’s no denying that we are all interconnected. When we step out into the world, and really see and feel things, we realize that we’re all part of the same system. We’ve all stemmed from the same origins. So, finding the beauty in things shouldn’t be that hard, right?

Well, we all know that we don’t tend to do this. We’re more focused on hate and pain rather than love and beauty. But you can shift the tide. Find the beauty in something; anything. It doesn’t matter what it is. Take a walk and listen to the birds chirping, or literally smell the flowers. It’s the little things in life that will allow us to be happier and more present.

Sound corny? Well, I assure you, if you want to be happy and more present, give this a try. Do it every single day and really put your effort into it. You’ll find you’ll be far happier, more fulfilled, and more present than ever before. But it won’t happen overnight. Nothing ever does.

 

 

Happy Habits: 12 Habits to Improve your Overall Happiness in Life

The Happiness Habits

We all just want to be happy, don’t we? We buy things, meet people, and go places that we think will make us happy. Happiness is the driving force in all that we want, say, and do, isn’t it?

But the truth of the matter is that most people aren’t that happy. They constantly chase happiness, only to have it evade them, as if it’s some moving target. They buy new cars to make them happy; they travel to far-off destinations to make them happy; and they move to a different city just to find some happiness.

So, if “thing” don’t make us happy, what does?

Well, social scientists have been obsessed with this question for some time now. Recently, studies have concluded that happiness comes from three different components; your genes, events in your life, and your values. About 50% of your happiness is hard-coded into your DNA. So, if your mood is generally sour, it could have more to do with nature than nurture.

Studies have further suggested that 40% of our happiness comes from the events in our lives, but it’s only temporary. Happiness after scoring a dream job, or buying a dream car, or moving into your dream house, only last so long. Our base line of happiness – our Hedonic Set Point – is always reverted to after a short time.

So, long-lasting happiness is the kind that comes from within; it’s the kind that stems from your values. Those values are translated through our habits. Whether it’s work habits, family habits, success habits, faith habits, or any other kind of habit, habits are things under our control, which help to determine our overall level of happiness.

 

What Habits Make us Happy?

If you want to be happy, the truth of the matter is that it comes from within. No amount of money, job, connections, or any other personal gain is going to give long-lasting happiness. Sure, winning the lottery might make you happy for a few months, but studies have suggested that lottery winnings, or other financial windfalls, actually lead to more unhappiness than happiness.

So, what do you have to do on a daily basis to make yourself happy?

I’ve boiled it down to 12 core habits that are going to make you happy. By employing these habits on a daily basis, you will be happy. But keep in mind that habits don’t develop overnight. It takes an average of 66 days for a habit to become part of you. However, once a habit has become a consistent part of your life, it will become an unconscious routine of behavior. But getting there is hard.

So, what are the 12 habits?

 

#1 – Smile

The act of smiling causes not only a physical transformation in your face, but it also causes an emotional and mental transformation as well. A study from 2011 by Michigan State University concluded that who workers who cultivated positive thoughts and smiled because of it, were more likely to exhibit enhanced moods and less signs of withdrawal.

 

#2 – Be Resilient

One of the biggest discouragements in life is failure. When we fail at something we want so badly, it can deal a deathblow to our overall moods, and significantly decrease our propensity for happiness. But resilient people know how to bounce back. They can take failure on the chin, stand back up, and keep fighting for their dreams.

 

#3 – See the Good in a Situation

It’s easy to get discouraged in life, especially when things don’t seem to go your way. But seeing the good in any situation can is a vital habit for happiness. There’s always a reason that we could choose to be unhappy by what’s going on around us. But that’s just it: happiness is a choice. Think about the lens of a camera for a moment. Your life is like that lens. What you point it at is what you will see.

 

#4 – Exercise

15 or 20 minutes a day is all you need for exercise to make you happy. That short period helps to stimulate blood flow, decrease blood pressure, and drive the pleasure-seeking endorphins to the brain. Also, exercise is a keystone habit, helping to bolster other positive habits as this habit takes hold.

 

#5 – Express Gratitude

On a daily basis, gratitude sends a powerful signal to the brain. When you express gratitude, making it a habit, you seek out everything in life that you have to be thankful for. It’s easy to want things, but it’s harder to be grateful for the things that we already have. According to the Journal of Science and Behavior, grateful people tend to appreciate the simple pleasures in life.

 

#6 – Nurture Meaningful Relationships

Often, when we’re chasing our dreams, we tend to forget about everything else around us, including the people. But, in order to achieve long-term happiness, we have to nurture meaningful relationships. Build the habit of spending time networking or maintaining existing relationships with the important people around you. Don’t forget others as you pursue your dreams.

 

#7 – Keep Promises

Integrity is an important happiness habit. If you make a promise to someone, no matter how little or big, keep that promise. This goes from debt repayment, to the simple act of meeting someone at a pre-arranged time. Keep your promises to people, otherwise, they’ll distrust you. Often, all we have is our word, which can be a powerful bond. But when broken, it can lead to misery and despair.

 

#8 – Be Honest

In a book called, The Millionaire Mind, author Jon Stanley states that one lie must be covered up with 15 supporting lies. Those 15 lies each have to be covered up with 15 lies each, and so on. Lying takes a lot of work, and can eventually get you into hot water. Practice the habit of always being honest no matter what. It will allow you to lead a much happier and stress-free life overall.

 

#9 – Be Spiritually Connected

Whether you believe in God, Allah, Buddha, or a singular energy that connects us all, being spiritually connected is a happiness habit that should be at the core of any person’s life. This doesn’t mean you have to go to church, temple, or a mosque every morning or every week. It just means that you have to spiritually connected to whatever you do believe in. Take the time each day to build this habit.

 

#10 – Be Present

It’s easy to worry about the past or dread the future. But happy people are more present in the here-and-now. Happiness is a state that can be achieved by anyone. All they have to do is allow happiness to enter their lives, and look around and see all the beauty that life has to offer. Practice being present by taking walks and listening to the birds or simply stopping to smell the flowers.

 

#11 – Be Forgiving

It takes a tremendous amount of energy to hold a grudge. Happy people are far more forgiving. Realize that everyone in this world makes mistakes, and that we are ourselves have done so on occasion. So, don’t hold grudges. Forgive people and you can channel that anger into love, which will positively affect all aspects of your life.

 

#12 – Laugh

Taking life too seriously is never a good recipe for happiness. Being too serious helps to bolster stress, worry, fear, and anxiety. Don’t take everything so seriously. Learn to laugh at certain situations and in turn breed happiness in your life. Don’t let things overwhelm and consume you. Laugh at them instead and learn from them.

 

8 Sure-Fire Ways to Improve your Finances

“Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.” — Benjamin Franklin

 

How to Improve your Finances

Money might not be the most important thing in the world, but it certainly makes the world go round. And, although it’s not the be-all and end-all for happiness, it’s something that most people closely tie to their overall quality of life. And, if your finances have been a source of contention for you, then you’re not alone.

Most people struggle, financially speaking. As an emotionally-charged subject, money is integral in any person’s standard-of-living. When you have money, you’re free to do things that most people simply can’t do. But, money delves deeper than that. For most people, having more money means having more time, freedom, and less cares in the world.

Whatever emotional-shape money takes on for you, it’s clear, regardless, that our financial worlds can often be in a state of disarray. For one reason or another, we feel like we have no control over money. We feel imprisoned by debt and shackled by obligation. And, usually, most people have little to no money left over the closer they get to the end of the month.

Needless to say, then, that most people are looking for ways to improve their finances. But with so much going on all the time, we tend to get sidetracked and forget about the important little steps that can help give us a sound financial life. So, if you’re amongst the millions out there that are looking for ways to improve their financial picture, here are some sure-fire pointers that will help.

 

#1 – Set Clear Financial Goals

One of the best ways that you can improve your finances is to set clearly-defined financial goals. This doesn’t mean some abstract target in your mind. Your goals can’t simply be to have or make more money; they have to be real and measurable. You should set your goals for the long term and the short term.

Your long-term financial goals should be your big-picture ideal. 5 or 10 years from now, where do you picture yourself? Once you have the long-term goals defined, go about setting the short term ones as well. What are your financial goals 1 year from now? Write them out with real dollar amounts that have set dates.

Don’t just say you’ll make more money by the end of the year. How much more money will you make? Set a figure. Do you want to get out of debt? Exactly how much debt do you plan on paying off, and exactly by when? Maybe your goal is to eliminate $10,000 of debt in the next year. Define that and set a date that you can move towards.

Setting financial goals that are real and on paper creates a visceral transformation in your mind. When you can see your goals outlined there in front of you, you’ll do much more to achieve them. The unconscious mind has a funny way of moving you towards what you ask it for, as long you know what that is. When it’s abstract, it’s easier to get distracted and put it off. Make it real and measurable.

 

#2 - Create Financial Milestones

Milestones create the bridge between your financial goals. When you set a yearlong financial goal, the milestones are what make up the gaps between that year. For example, if you’re looking to pay off $10,000 of debt within 12 months, you could break that down into monthly and weekly milestones.

Financial milestones are important because they target the small picture. On a weekly basis, when you have a specific milestone in mind, it’s easier to track. For example, paying off $10,000 of debt in one year means paying off approximately $192 per week as a financial milestone.

$192 per week is more manageable to some people than the ominous figure of $10,000. When you have a financial milestone, it’s easier to adjust your spending and saving habits accordingly. How much is your latte habit costing you per week? How about buying lunch out? There are always ways to cut your spending when you absolutely need to.

You can even go as far as creating daily milestones if necessary. On a daily basis, when you break things down that you plan to achieve in a year, it’s far easier to move closer and closer to those goals. When we don’t break things down into milestones, it’s easier to get sidetracked, distracted, and end up procrastinating.

 

#3 - Track All Expenses

In a recent post about keystone habits, I talked about the importance of developing certain habits that help to create a domino-effect for building other habits. Expense tracking is one of those habits. Often, we lose site of our spending simply because we fail to track the money going out every single day.

When we lose site of our expenses, it’s easier to overspend. However, when you can see every last red cent that goes out, right there in front of you, it’s harder to lose sight of that. If you’ve never tracked expenses, this one habit can literally transform your financial life.

To do this, simply setup a spreadsheet, download an app, or just buy a small notepad that you can write in every single day. Then, all you need to do is jot down the expense with some detailed information. Include the amount, description, date/time, why you spent the money, and categorize the expense.

This means that for every single thing that you do or purchase in a day, you need to catalog it, without fail. Commit to doing this for 90 days and watch your financial life transform. Simple daily habits that include lattes, cigarettes, and pricey lunches eating out, can add up over time. When you track expenses, you can see the cost of your bad habits much easier.

 

#4 - Immediately Open Bills

One way to improve your finances over time is to open all of your bills immediately when you receive them. This also goes hand-in-hand with tracking all expenses. When you receive your bills, catalog and understand them. Don’t ignore them. Again, I know that it’s easier to ignore bills when you don’t look at them and track them, so don’t fall into that trap.

Immediately opening your bills also has other effects as well. It impacts your spending habits. When you ignore bills, and you don’t prioritize them, your impulse spending increases. You’re far more likely to engage in impulse buying when you ignore the bills sitting on your table at home.

When bills and other notices pile up at your home or office, it also helps to further cloud your unconscious mind. While the conscious mind may be able to ignore it, it sits in the unconscious mind, stirring and building fears, anxieties, and worries. If you don’t tackle it, this can help to further distract you from pursuing your goals.

 

#5 – Take a Daily Money Minute

Every single morning, you need a money minute. What’s a money minute? It’s a time where you login to your bank accounts and review the transactions from the prior day and engage in some lightweight financial planning. You want to ensure that you know what money is going out of your account and why. And, if you’re tracking your expenses, you can double check this with ease.

Your daily money minute helps to further bring things into the conscious realm of your mind, and not hide from the costs that you’re incurring on a daily basis. Take this time to briefly analyze your goals and objectives. Where can you be putting your money that will help to get you ahead over the long term? Are there any expenses you can help to avoid in the future?

Asking yourself these questions and reviewing your financial picture on a daily basis is all part of the money minute. Your money minute could be 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or even an hour. This all depends on how committed you are to your saving, spending, and investment objectives.

 

#6 - Prioritize Debt Repayments

One of the biggest deterrents to making headway, financially speaking, is the overwhelming debt that most people face. When you’re faced with enormous debt, it’s hard to concentrate on anything else. How can we be expected to get ahead when all we can see is mounting debt in front of our eyes?

When we’re facing enormous debt, it’s also easier to avoid looking at bank account statements. But, the sooner that debt is repaid, the better you’ll feel. And, like everything else, debt repayment builds momentum. Once you get in the habit of paying off debt, your overall spending will fall in line with it.

To prioritize your debt, pick the highest interest credit card that you have, and double the minimum payments until it’s paid off. Then, switch to the next highest interest credit card. If your goal is to get out of debt, not only do you have to make a plan for repayment, but you also have to monitor your spending habits.

Usually, when most people receive cash from something like a mortgage refinance, inheritance, or other source, they pay off their debt only to accumulate it back up again. So, you have to be wary. If you want to live a debt-free lifestyle, do things like tracking your expenses and taking a daily money minute. Monitor where you are, financially, and where you’re going at all times.

 

#7 - Save & Invest 15% of Your Income

Most people have poor savings habits. They’re unable to save any of their income. In fact, according to one study by BankRate.com, 76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That’s more than two-thirds of the population in world’s richest country. The study also concluded that fewer than 1 in 4 Americans have enough in savings to last them 6 months should they lose their ability to earn income.

These figures for America state the obvious. If the richest country in the world has problems, how is the rest of the world faring? Regardless, what’s evident is that most of the world is simply trying to get by from month to month. They’re struggling to get from one pay-period to the next.

So, it’s safe to say that saving and investing is quite possibly the furthest thing from peoples’ minds, and rightfully so. However, so much can be said about modifying one’s lifestyle in order to support saving and investing income. At first, it might seem down right impossible. However, over time, like any other habit, this one takes root and gets stronger and stronger.

And, in order to get ahead, saving and investing has to become a priority. Tucking away at least 15% of your income is a necessity. If you can’t manage that, then you’re not digging deep enough. Building a savings habit is difficult, but possible. As the money accumulates over time, you build momentum.

 

#8 – Create a Monthly Budget

Creating a monthly budget is beneficial in nearly every aspect of your life. It keeps you on track for spending, helps to determine how to achieve a financial goal that you set out to achieve, and it provides some structure to our often chaotic lives. Budgets bring order to that financial chaos.

Today, creating a budget isn’t very difficult. In fact, there are plenty of tools at our disposal. From smartphone apps, to desktop-based solutions, and even pencil-and-paper ones. Once you find your favorite tool, simply build yourself a budget that you can stick to. Follow along with the other ways mentioned here to improve your finances, and over time, it will come together.

However, that being said, sticking to a monthly budget can be difficult, especially when certain habits are ingrained. If you know that you have some bad habits that are costing you a pretty penny, prioritize the elimination of those habits. Keep in mind that if a goal means something profound enough to you, you’ll do whatever it takes to reach it, which includes eliminating any and all financially-draining habits.

 

 

How Keystone Habits Can Improve your Life

“Successful people are simply those with successful habits.” — Brian Tracy

 

What are Keystone Habits?

Keystone is a term used widely to define the significance of one piece or component in a system of parts. It pre-dates to the Mesopotamians who used a single solitary stone – later termed a keystone – to lock other stones in an arch. Although the arch couldn’t be completed without the keystone, it also bore the least weight amongst all the other stones.

In habit development, similar to architecture, the keystone habit symbolizes the importance of one single habit that brings together multiple other habits. The keystone habit acts as a center stone, providing support for the development of the other habits that are surrounding it.

For example, keeping an expense journal acts as a keystone habit for financial planning and other positive finance-related habits. The single act of expense journaling itself provides a gateway to the development of the other habits. In fact, the other habits develop almost in tandem with the development of that single keystone habit.

When you keep an expense journal, you track every single last cent that you spend on a daily basis, the time you spent it, what you spent it on, and quite possibly, why you spent it. When expense journaling becomes a habit, it acts a keystone in the identification of unnecessary expenditures, and the ability to see a vast overview of spending patterns. In turn, this leads to better financial goal setting, an adjustment of expenses, and other positive financial habits.

However, keystone habits don’t develop overnight. Yet, the specific act of developing keystone habits leads to major disruptions and changes to our lifestyles without even knowing it.

For example, the keystone habit of walking 10,000 steps every single day leads to a chain reaction of other positive health habits, providing momentum for weight-loss and other fitness-related goals. We become more conscious of what we eat, our energy levels increase thus allowing us to tackle our to-do list better, and so on.

 

Examples of Keystone Habits

There are several of examples of keystone habits in just about every area of life. As long as the habit can kick off a chain-reaction of other habits, it can be considered a keystone habit.

Other keystone habits include:

Writing 2,000 words every single day
Keeping a food journal
Not exceeding the speed limit while driving
Eating one apple every day
Writing daily to-do checklists

 

How to Form Keystone Habits

Forming keystone habits is no more difficult or easy than forming any other habit. It takes an identification of the habit itself, and a plan to form the habit over time. No habit will be easy to form. Habit formation takes work, so you have to be prepared to dig in your heels and do the work required.

A recent study at the University of London suggests that habit formation takes, on average, 66 days before the behavior becomes automatic. The study examined 96 people over the course of 12 weeks to determine just how long it took for a behavior to solidify as an unconscious and repetitive routine in the mind.

With that in mind, and considering that habit formation is going to take an exhaustive amount of work, why not focus on keystone habits? These habits will be at the core foundation of a group of other positive habits in your life. Of course, keystone habits can also be bad habits, and often, in order to form a set of good habits we have to eliminate bad keystone habits.

Either way – whether we’re forming keystone habits or eliminating them – we have to disrupt our regular routines where either the habit occurs or we want the habit to occur. For existing bad habits, every one of them has a cue-to-reward relationship. This means that there’s a signal, or cue, that begins the relationship, a routine set of behaviors that’s initiated just after, and a final reward at the end.

 

Step #1 – Identify the Habit

The first step in forming a keystone habit is to identify the habit you want to form or the area of your life you want to improve. Things like weight loss, elimination of debt, increase in income begin with keystone habits.

If you want to lose more weight, form the keystone habit of food journaling. If you want to eliminate debt, form the keystone habit of expense journaling. If you want to increase your income, form the keystone habit of effective time management. And so on.

Understand that the keystone habit will be your gateway to the other habits that will help to support and improve your life in any given area.

 

Step #2 - Create a Checklist

The next step in forming your keystone habit is to build a checklist. The purpose of the checklist is to ensure that you perform the habit every single day without fail. Since habits take time to form, you’ll have to fight an uphill battle of the mind wanting to avoid a certain habit.

The mind has been conditioned to only engage in certain types of behaviors. Behaviors outside of what it knows are foreign and suspect to it, and not a component of habit. Without a daily checklist to remind ourselves of the behavior, the mind has a funny way of evading it until habit formation begins to take place.

The checklist can have a daily alarm of reminder with the use of a smartphone calendar or some other device. The purpose of this is to send a signal to ensure that will beckon us to act.

 

Step #3 – Rinse & Repeat

The hardest part about forming a habit is forming a habit. It takes repetition, day-in and day-out. The habit won’t form overnight. But, if you can spend on your time on just one habit, why not make it a keystone habit? That keystone habit will lead to vast improvements in that area of your life.

Commit to 90 days of engaging in the keystone habit. Do it every single day without fail. After 90 days, you’ll have a basis for the habit. Stop doing it prior to 90 days, and you’re much more likely to fail. Use reminders and disruptions if you have to.

 

Good Habit Formation

If you know anything about me, then you know that I’m constantly talking about improving your life with the formation of good, positive habits. Habits are at the very heart of who we are. They’re an integral part of all that we say, do, and desire out of life. If actions speak louder than words, then habits are the chapters that those words are in.

Make the effort to form good habits in your life and watch your life blossom and grow. Focus on the small and minute changes through the development of good, solid keystone habits. Don’t try to take on too much too fast. Focus on the keystone habit, and watch the other habits eventually fall into line.

 

[Image: Kajo Photography]