R.L. Adams's Blog, page 3

How to Ignore Negativity and Achieve your Goals

 

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. — Mahatma Gandhi 

 

Learning to Ignore Negativity

Negative people have always existed and they will always exist. There’s nothing I nor you can do to change that. But we can learn to cancel the noise, so to speak. We can learn to drown out the negativity as we push forward to achieve our dreams.

In your life, if you’ve been striving towards something, hit some brick walls or major obstacles, and been faced with a slew of setbacks and negativity from people around you, you’re most certainly not alone. There will always be people there to tell you that you can’t do something, that you’re not smart enough, that you don’t have enough resources or connections, that you don’t have enough money, and so on. But you have to ignore the negativity if you want to achieve your goals.

But negativity doesn’t only come from the outside, it also comes from within. Yes, there are people out there that will try to hold you back and bring you back down to their level. The unfortunate truth is that people, for the most part, don’t want to see others close to them succeed. But negativity can also come from within. Your own mind can help to breed and foster that negativity, making you doubt your self-worth, abilities, talent, and capacity for success.

So, how can we cancel the noise, so to speak? 

 

Your Greatest Failures are Your Biggest Blessings

Everyone in life fails at something. When we fail, it causes a tremendous amount of pain. And, our minds do whatever they can to help avoid pain and gain pleasure – it’s part of a paradigm of innate biological cues and responses that are basal by nature. It’s not easy to fail at something. It’s not easy to be beset with a tremendous amount of pain, but that pain and failure are your biggest blessings.

However, when you’re surrounded by negativity, it can help to exponentially increase the pain of failure or even the potential pain for failure. Even if you didn’t fail at something, the fear of failing itself tends to hold us back. That fear is bred not only by the mind itself in its quest to avoid pain, but also by external influencers such as friends, family members, and peers. But you change that once and for all.

What you have to really realize is that your greatest failures are your biggest blessings. Even if you failed at something in the past, and you were faced with a tremendous amount of pain, that same pain can help to fuel you in the future. Life throws us certain lessons from time to time, which we have to use to gain a deeper understanding for all things. Failing in business, relationships, finances, or any other goal is painful, but it can also be your biggest blessings.

 

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligibly. — Henry Ford

 

How to Achieve your Goals

When we fail, and when we’re faced with negativity, both internally and externally, achieving our goals might seem almost impossible. We begin to doubt ourselves and our minds tend to backtrack making excuses for why we didn’t want a certain goal in the first place. We come up with seemingly valid reasons why we didn’t want that hope or that dream, really. But, we have to understand that this is normal; this happens to everyone.

But, failure is the bridge of opportunity to success. Without failure, it’s impossible to achieve long-term success. Failure helps to pour the foundation for what will be a bright and wondrous future. So, if you’ve faced failure recently, or even at some point in the past, you have to realize that your failures were “simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligibly.”

So, how do you achieve your goals in the face of failure? How do you ignore negativity and breakthrough your self-imposed limitations? 

 

Step #1 – Understand the “Why”

It doesn’t matter how much negativity there is out there, which may be holding you back. It doesn’t matter how many times you failed at doing something. What matter is why you want something. Do you know why you had or have a certain goal? If you don’t know why, then you’ve missed the first and most important step in goal setting.

Remember, reasons come first in goal setting. If you don’t have a strong enough reason why, then it’s hard to ignore negativity or overcome past failure and pain. But, when your “why” is strong enough, you can achieve anything. Figure out why you want something, and if it has a profound and deep enough meaning to you, then it will help to fuel you in your pursuits.

 

Step #2 – Understand the “When”

The second step to achieving your goals, even in the face of great adversity, negativity, or past failures, is to understand when you’ll achieve your goals. You have to associate a specific date to your goal achievement. Don’t just come up with some obscure timeframe in your mind. Be exact and specific.

Next to each of your goals, after you write out why you’re going to achieve them, write the date you’ll achieve them by. Don’t just say you want to lose more weight this year. Write out exactly how much weight you intend to lose, why you’re going to lose it, and specifically when you’ll do that by.

Why is the “when” so important?

When you set out a specific date, and you write it down so that you can see it every single day, your mind has a funny way of stressing you in the direction of your goals. It’s also a great reminder of what you need to do, even in the face of negativity and failure. Make sure you write out the “when,” and not just the “what” for your goals.

 

Step #3 – Cancel the Noise

You can cancel the noise of negativity that’s both internal and external by using a few simple tricks. Firstly, understand that negativity will always exist. Negative people will always be around to tell you that you can’t do something. Negativity will also always exist buried somewhere deep inside your mind. Once you realize that, you can take the first step in canceling the noise, both outside and inside.

Secondly, you have to find your source of inspiration. Many people failed in the past before they succeeded. Henry Ford’s first two businesses went bust, Stephen King’s first novel was rejected by 30 separate publishers, Thomas Edison failed over 10,000 times to invent a commercially-viable electric lightbulb, and J.K. Rowling suffered through the worst 7 years of her life before publishing Harry Potter.

So, find your inspiration, whoever it is, and study them. Research all the things that held them back. Read up on all the people that told them that they couldn’t do something. Remember, failure is a sign of life. So what if you fail? Isn’t the reward worth the risk? If your reasons are strong enough, then it most certainly is.

 

Step #4 – The Path of Persistence

The last and final step to achieving your goals, even in the face of negativity and failure, is persistence. Goal achievement can only be accomplished along the path of persistence, not the path of least resistance. If you’re thinking that something is going to be easy, especially if it’s a major goal, then think again. You’re going to fail, you’re going to want to give up, and you’re going to get frustrated. That’s when you have to dig your heels in and grind.

Remember that so many others have failed countless times over before they achieved their goals. Whatever you want out of life – whether it’s more money, a better-paying job, weight loss, or anything else – realize that it’s not going to be easy. You’re going to have to persist until you succeed. You might fall down repeatedly and face the wrath of negativity from every direction, but all you have to do is persist. Time will pass by, and you’ll inch closer and closer to your goals as long as you don’t give up.

Never give up on your hopes and your dreams, no matter what. You can accomplish anything you want to in life. Audacious spirits are met with audacious rewards, but it won’t come easy; it never comes easy.

 

 

Dare to Dream BIG

If you can dream it, you can do it. — Walt Disney

 

Dreaming BIG

Whatever struggles you’re facing in your life today, don’t be afraid to dream big. No matter what calamity or strife has stricken you, what obstacles have been thrown in your way, or how many people have doubted you can ever achieve what you set out to accomplish, dare to dream big. Across the world and through the annals of history, people have dreamt big dreams; they’ve had audacious hearts and unrelenting spirits. They’ve gone out there and pushed and pushed until that dream became a reality, and so can you.

I know what you’re thinking now – you’re asking yourself questions that start with “How,” “When,” and “Where.” You’re saying things like, “How am I ever supposed to achieve my dreams when I’m so far in debt?” or “When will I ever get the opportunity to truly succeed?” and, “Where will I ever find the money, time, or connections to accomplish what I want in life?” We all ask ourselves these types of questions; we have a tendency to doubt our capabilities.

But, Dare to Dream BIG isn’t just a mantra that you should mindlessly chant to yourself; it’s a way of life. When you can dream something and envision it with all of your mind to see, and you pursue that dream with a wild spirit that doesn’t die or waver, you can accomplish anything. There are so many people out there that have dared to dream big and have brought their dreams into reality, but I wanted to shed some light on some of the most notable that have done so.

 

Notable Dreamers Who Failed at First

There are loads of examples of notable people who’ve dared to dream big but failed at first. These “dreamers” are oftentimes household names – we know them because they’ve reached the pinnacle of success. But it wasn’t always that way for all of these folks. Why is this important? It provides perspective on the struggle that people have to face when they’re chasing their dreams; it’s not always going to be Easy Street for you as well.

So, don’t be afraid to dream big. Don’t be afraid when someone tells you that something can’t be done; it can be done. Don’t cower down due to some underlying fear that’s buried deep within you. Dare to dream big. Chase your dreams. Run your dreams down until they don’t elude you any longer. And, even though no one said that life was going to be easy, through perseverance, over time, it does get easier. But before you reach there, you’ll have to cross the dreaded oceans of struggle in stormy waters.

 

#1 – Oprah Winfrey

One of the best examples of a person who dared to dream big is Oprah Winfrey. Oprah was fired from one of her first TV jobs because the producer said that she was “unfit for television.” Oprah Winfrey has gone on to become one of the richest women in the world, and it was all because she dared to dream big.

 

#2 – J.K. Rowling

While working a secretarial job, Rowling, now famous for the Harry Potter series of books, was fired because she was spending more time working on the book at work than she was with her secretarial duties. Rowling spent 7 years toiling away at the book, suffered through the death of her mother, a divorce, and living on government assistance. But she dared to dream big and is now the wealthiest author in the world.

 

#3 - Walt Disney

Disney was a dreamer from an early age. But, his reality didn’t catch up with his dreams that quickly. Walt Disney was fired from his job as a newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” After leaving that job, Disney formed an animation company in 1921, which ultimately went bankrupt, leaving him unable to pay his rent and reportedly forcing him to survive only on dog food.

 

#4 - Jerry Seinfeld

One of the most successful comedians of all time learned to dream big. But success didn’t come easy for him. In fact, the first time Seinfeld stepped on stage to do his act he was booed off. But that didn’t deter him. Seinfeld was a dreamer and he kept at it.  Even though he failed and was embarrassed and humiliated, he kept at his dreams; he kept them alive in his mind’s eye.

 

#5 - Colonel Sanders

The founder of KFC, Colonel Sanders, dared to dream big. But it wasn’t until late in his life that he was able to achieve those dreams. The story goes that Sanders, then 65, took to the road after his chicken restaurant was shut down due to a highway impasse project, with a $105 Social Security check and a single chicken recipe to his name. He suffered through 1,009 rejections from restaurants who refused his franchising proposal for his chicken. But it only took one “yes” to eventually make those dreams come true.

 

#6 - Henry Ford

We all know the name Henry Ford, the founder of the illustrative automotive group, Ford Motor Company. But, we don’t all know the story of this remarkable individual who dared to dream big. You see, Ford’s first company, founded in 1899, went bankrupt. It was later reorganized under a different name, but he ended up walking away due to a dispute with his financial backers. But he didn’t give up. In 1903, his third time was a charm, and is now one of the largest and most profitable privately held companies in the world.

 

#7 - Elvis Presley

We all know the name of the King of Rock & Roll, but did you know that Elvis Presley was fired after his first gig? He was told that he should go back to driving trucks and that his career as a singer was heading nowhere. Estimated to have sold more than one billion records worldwide, could you imagine what would have happened if he hadn’t dared to dream big?

 

#8 - Stephen King

One of the most popular authors of all time most certainly dared to dream big. But, his beginnings were no walk in the park. Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie, was rejected 30 separate times by publishers. He worked a part-time job as an English teacher just to make ends meet before he tossed the manuscript in the garbage. But, due to his wife begging and pleading him, King resubmitted the manuscript to Double Day, who later offered him his first book deal.

 

#9 – Katy Perry

A successful singer who dared to dream big, Perry had a rocky start. She was first signed to the Christian music label, Red Hill Records, and released her debut album in 2001, which only sold an estimated 200 copies. That label later went out of business. Her second attempt, with Island Def Jam, was also a failure, as she was dropped by that label; and, her third attempt with Columbia Records went bust as well. It wasn’t until she went on board with Virgin Records in 2008 did she finally succeed commercially speaking.

 

#10 - Oliver Stone

One of the most celebrated directors of our time, Oliver Stone, dropped out of Yale to pursue a career in writing. His novel, published in 1998, wasn’t well-received. He subsequently moved to Vietnam to teach English, and later enrolled in the military, winning two Purple Hearts. Stone went on to to write and direct some of the most iconic films of all time, including Platoon and Natural Born Killers.

 

Overcoming Obstacles

We all have obstacles in our lives. We all have stumbling blocks that tend to sidetrack us, get us down, deter us, help us to procrastinate and avoid our dreams, and overwhelm us. Most people allow those obstacles to get in the way of their goals; they’re overpowered and their hopes are snuffed out. But you can overcome your obstacles; anyone can overcome their obstacles.

Oftentimes, failure is hard. It’s hard to fail, especially in the face of others. When others see us fail we take it as the biggest blow to our egos. We don’t want to fail; no one wants to. But failure is a part of life; it’s a springboard for achieving anything you want in your life. There will always be negativity. People will try to dismiss you, insult you, and dissuade you from achieving your dreams, but you can’t let it stop you.

In the past, if you allowed obstacles to stop you and you gave up on your goals, just realize that you can start anew any day you want. No matter how many failures or setbacks you had to dredge through, you can still achieve your hopes and your dreams, it just depends on how badly you want it. If you set some goals that you’re looking to accomplish in life, then as long as those goals are meaningful enough to you, then you can do anything. But they have to have a strong enough meaning.

 

Top 10 Best Daily Health Habits to Have

To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. — Buddha

 

Ensure Life-Long Health with Good Habits

There will come a day when wearable computers will allow us to manage and track our biochemical makeup from moment to moment. These “devices” may even help to recommend what our body is lacking, what it’s receiving in an over-abundant amount, and quite possibly, what changes should be made for optimal health. However, that day isn’t here yet. And, until then, it’s important to insitute some health habits that will provide for longevity of life, the minimization of health risks, and the avoidance of diseases that could be onset by the abuse or lack of attention to our health and hygiene.

But, firstly, it’s important to note that I’m not a doctor. I don’t have a PhD, an MD, or a BS. I’m not a nutritionist, a physical therapist, or a personal trainer, but I do practice what I preach. I have been a long and firm believer in the promotion of positive habits in all areas of life, and if you follow along with some of these suggestions, you will most likely see some positive benefits yourself as well.

So, what are these positive habits for health, and how do we institute them?

 

The Best Health Habits

Some of the best health habits to institute don’t take a considerable amount of time or effort; they merely take an active awareness and daily action towards their implementation. But many of us tend to get sidetracked. We allow life to interrupt our routines and we forget to take care of ourselves. But health habits are just as important as financial habits, career habits, or any other habit. Caring for your health should be a priority, because without your health, you won’t be able to focus on your career, relationships, family, or anything else. So, health habits are incredibly important.

In a recent post that I published I spoke about the 101 best habits for a successful life. In that post I outlined how to develop habits and the best habits to have in every area of your life. But, in this post, I wanted to go into more detail about the health habits because they’re so integral to the optimal performance in anything that we do. Without health we can’t strive towards our daily goals, we can’t reach for our hopes and our dreams, and we can’t wake up with an unrelenting spirit to never give up as we push towards whatever we want, or break through some self-imposed limitations that held us back in the past.

 

Health Habits List

These health habits are the top habits that you can institute on a daily basis. There are, of course, other health habits that need to be practiced on a yearly basis as well. Some habits, like seeing the doctor and the dentist, don’t have to happen every single day of course, but they do need to happen. And, although some of these habits might seem very trivial to you, they are integral to your overall health and wellness. Below is a list of the top 10 daily health habits that you can develop. If you want to see the full list of success habits, please check out the post on 101 Successful Habits (And How to Form Them).

 

#1 – Eat Breakfast Every Day

Why? Well, you might have heard your mom or dad say this while growing up. But, many of us may have taken this all-important health habit for granted. In our busy and chaotic existences, breakfast sometimes takes a backseat in the car of our lives. We opt for things like sugary coffee drinks or a big lunch, all of which are detrimental to health.

According to a survey done by market research firm NPD Group, 18 percent of males and 13 percent of females that are in the ages between 35 and 54 will tend to skip breakfast. These “breakfast skippers,” lose out on all the important health benefits that are associated with the habit of eating breakfast every day.

According to a July 2013 study by the Journal Circulation, skipping breakfast can increase a woman’s risk for diabetes. Women who didn’t eat breakfast every day of the week were at a higher risk of developing Type II Diabetes than those women who ate breakfast every single day. The habit of skipping breakfast also affects the potential for heart disease in men, according to the same study that found a lower incidence in hypertension, elevated blood sugar, and insulin resistance in men aged 45 to 82 that ate breakfast every single day.

 

#2 – Eat One Apple Every Day

Why? You’ve heard this before in the past. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” So is it really true? Yes, this is a critical health habit to develop. Not only do apples contain soluble fiber, which has been shown to reduce things like intestinal disorders, but it also helps to control daily insulin levels by releasing sugars slowly into the system. Other studies have shown apples to reduce skin diseases, cleanse and detoxify the blood, reduce cholesterol levels, decrease mucous, lubricate the lungs, and control hunger.

There are tremendous benefits associated to developing the healthy habit of eating at least one apple per day. For example, several studies conducted have shown that not only will eating apples reduce the chance of Parkinson’s disease, but it will also help to avoid Alzheimer’s Disease and curb the chance for getting cancer. The natural fibers and antioxidant properties of apples make it enormously beneficial as one of the leading healthy foods. Make sure that you’re eating an apple every single day, because it’s been most certainly proven that it will keep the doctor away.

 

#3 – Get a Good Night’s Rest

Why? One of the best healthy habits that you can have is to ensure you get a good night’s rest. When there’s a lack of slumber in your life it not only throws off your biorhythm, but studies have also found that a lack of sleep can lead to an increase in diseases such as heart attacks, heart disease, diabetes, and weight gain.

The habit of getting a good night’s sleep doesn’t mean that you have to sleep 10 hours a night. However, getting 6 to 8 hours of solid shuteye is an imperative health habit to develop early on. That added sleep can also do things like boost your sex life, lead to less chronic pain, and lower the risks associated with common injuries. Develop this health habit from early on and your body will thank you.

 

#4 – Use Sunblock

Why? Harmful exposure to the sun not only causes us to age too quickly, but it can also result in long-term health-related issues such as skin cancer. When you use sunblock or sun protection, you’re blocking the sun’s harmful rays. SPF, which stands for Sun Protection Factor, is the indicator that tells us just how much of the sun’s rays are being blocked out. An SPF of 15 or higher should always be used no matter if you’re a man, woman, or child.

Get into the health habit of applying sunblock whenever you’re out in the sun. And, if you don’t think you’ll get enough Vitamin D, all a person needs is 15 to 30 minutes of exposure to the sun twice per week to get their daily allotment of 600 IU or 15mcg of Vitamin D. Additionally, consumption of milk, eggs, fish, or other Vitamin-D-rich foods will provide more than enough of the required supplement. This habit is simple and easy and can not only protect your skin from signs of aging, but it can also prolong your life.

 

#5 – Floss & Brush Daily

Why? Flossing and brushing daily might seem mundane, but it’s a very important health habit to have. When you don’t floss and brush daily, you can cause bacteria to build up on and between teeth. The excess build-up of that bacteria can enter the bloodstream where it can do the most harm. This build-up of bacteria can lead to things like heart disease, diabetes, erectile dysfunction in males, and more health hazards.

With the onset of gum disease, the inhibition of the production of nitric oxide, which limits blood-flow to the penis, can cause problems not only in men, but also in conception for women as well. Australian researchers found that women with gum disease were likely to conceive 2 months later than women without it. Make sure that you develop the health habit of brushing your teeth twice per day and flossing at least once.

 

#6 – Drink Plenty of Water

Why? Drinking enough water is integral to health. Water is a building-block of life and our bodies are comprised of approximately 60% of H2O. But, many people don’t get enough water in their diets. If you’re a male, this health habit means that you should be drinking approximately 3 liters of water per day (or roughly 13 cups). If you’re a female, this health habit means you should be consuming approximately 2.2 liter of water per day (or roughly 9 cups).

Drinking water should be habitual in nature, and the health benefits are enormous. Water not only helps to flush out toxins from your system, but it also helps to promote weight loss by flushing out the by-products of fat in the system and reducing hunger by naturally suppressing the appetite. It also boosts immune system functionality, increases energy levels, naturally cures headaches, elevates mood levels, and so on. Get into the habit of drinking plenty of water every single day and your body will thank you.

 

#7 – Eat Green Vegetables

Why? Leafy greens or vegetables contain a high-dosage of phytochemicals, which aid in the fight of diseases. These are chemical compounds that tend to occur naturally in plants. For example, you might have already heard of one type of phytochemical, which is called antioxidants. Studies have shown that these phytochemicals can potentially ward off things like cancer, strokes, and metabolic syndrome.

This is certainly one health habit that you should create and stick to if you’re not already doing so. But, how many green vegetables are necessary to eat on a daily basis? Well, you should be eating 2 and 1/2 cups of green vegetables daily. These foods are also rich in fiber, which will help to ward off hunger, fight against the risk of diabetes, and provide you with so many more health benefits. This habit should become ingrained in you; habitual in nature; instinctive.

 

#8 – Avoid Cigarette Smoke

Why? This doesn’t just mean to avoid smoking cigarettes yourself, which should be a no-brainer to you in today’s day-and-age, but it also means avoiding second-hand smoke. Smoking harms nearly every organ in your body and causes many diseases, lowering your overall health, according to the CDC. It’s also the leading preventable cause death in the United States.

Did you know that cigarette smoking has caused more deaths in a year than HIV, Illegal drug use, alcohol use, car accidents, and firearm-related incidents all combined into one? Stay away from cigarette smoke and second-hand smoke and keep your family away as well. Make this a health habit that you adopt early on and if there’s a smoker in your family, persuade them to quit immediately.

 

#9 – Walk 10,000 Steps Daily

Why? Forget about counting carbs or calories, and achieve life-long health by walking 10,000 steps each day. Most average adults in the US don’t walk much. In fact, according to findings that were published in the October issue of Magazine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Americans, on average, took just 5,117 steps per day. This was compared to the Japanese, who took 7,168 steps on average per day, Switzerland, who’s citizens took an average of 9,650 steps per day, and Australians at 9,695 steps per day.

So, why is this such an important health habit? Well, we don’t realize just how beneficial walking is. In fact, it can help not only with weight loss, but it can also help to improve cholesterol, blood pressure, and help in so many other health-related areas. You don’t have to run a marathon every single day; all you have to do is make it a health habit to walk at least 10,000 steps. Institute this health habit by downloading a pedometer app for your smartphone and tracking your daily steps. Start small and work your way up, but always ensure you hit or exceed 10,000 steps every single day.

 

#10 – Eat Fiber Daily

One of the most important dietary supplements that we can consume are fibers. Fibers are an excellent way of slowing down your body’s breakdown of carbohydrates and its absorption of sugar. This can assist with helping to regulate sugar levels. It has also been found that there is an indirect relationship between amount of fiber consumed and risk of heart attack. Studies have found that people who eat a diet rich in fiber are 40% less likely to get heart disease. Researchers have also come to the conclusion that for each additional 7 grams of fiber consumed that there is a 7 times less likelihood of stroke.

So, this is an all-important health habit to institute. But, where do we get our fiber from? Well, oatmeal is one excellent source. Another would be through beans or whole grains, along with brown rice. You can also opt for bran cereal, nuts, or berries. Make it a habit to consume at least 25 grams per day for women, and 38 grams per day for men.

 

 

How to Get Ahead in Life and Exit the “Rat Race”

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. — Winston Churchill

Building a Better Life

Getting ahead in life may mean many different things to many different people. However, thanks to the global personification from mainstream media, the general consensus of getting ahead in life relates to monetary gains. We see the portrayal of the “American Dream” everywhere we turn – from radio, to television, and, of course, on the Web. There are constant accounts of immigrants crafting a better life for themselves and achieving financial freedom.

But this dream doesn’t just apply to America; this is a global dream. It’s the dream to have a better life, not only financially speaking, but overall in every aspect. And, the reasoning is that, once you have money, everything else will fall into place. Who could possibly have problems when they have an exorbitant amount of cash, right? Who could think that life was anything but a beautiful gift when they could wake up and spend what they wanted, where they wanted, and with whom they wanted, right?

Well, not necessarily. 

But I’m not here to bash “the dream.” What I want to do is put some perspective to the dream. Because, although getting ahead in life, monetarily speaking, is great, it’s not everything. Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely no issues with having a lot of money, but without first possessing some financial traits and following a basic set of rules that are fundamentally necessary at the foundational core of any successful person, more money just means more problems.

 

Happily Succeeding

Money might make the world go round, but it certainly doesn’t equal happiness. If you’re equating having more money to being more happy, then you’re trying to succeed in order to be happy, and not happily succeeding. And there’s a big difference. Primarily speaking, when money is looked at as a source of happiness, rarely is a person every truly happy.

Now, this goes into a much bigger discussion about happiness levels pitted against income. But, what you might find interesting is that, across the globe, studies have found that more money doesn’t equal more happiness. As people make more money, they tend to accumulate more things, and their spending catches up with their earning. They’re on the hedonistic treadmill, so to speak.

In a book that I published in 2013 entitled, How to be Happy, I spoke about some of the effects of what psychologist Stephen Goldbart coined as Sudden Wealth Syndrome (SWS). Sudden Wealth Syndrome is something that afflicts anyone who receives a windfall of cash too soon in their lives. When that money wasn’t earned, its presence is abused. This affects everyone from lottery winners, to inheritors of large sums of cash, lawsuit settlement recipients, and so on.

On that same note, in a recent study conducted in 2010 by researches at three universities, which included Vanderbilt University, the University of Kentucky and the University of Pittsburgh, showed that the more money that was won by lottery winners, the more likely a person was to go broke. The researchers split the participants into two groups: (a) those that won $10,000 or less, and (b) those that won $50,000 to $150,000. They concluded that the more money they won, the more likely they were to have filed bankruptcy within 5 years.

People who receive sudden windfalls of cash don’t know how to deal with it because they didn’t have to work hard to make the money in the first place. So, the point here is that, it’s not about having lots of money or receiving it suddenly; it’s about understanding how to build and nurture money from the ground up. To do this, you have to take some necessary steps, institute some important financial traits, and follow a basic set of rules. You won’t get ahead overnight. But, over time, you will most certainly find yourself succeeding.

 

Must-Have Financial Traits

In order to get ahead in life, then, one must embody a certain set of financial traits. These allow us to lay the groundwork for getting ahead and not succumbing to our every impulse and desire. Of course, mainstream media is no help with all of its portrayals of the rich-and-famous, and neither are all of those offers for credit that stream in moment after moment. But, when you can embody these must-have financial traits, you can get ahead in the long term.

This isn’t about overnight success. Anyone that tries to jump on the bandwagon of some get-rich-quick scheme is likely to fail, because success has more to do with persistence than it does some natural talent or ability. But, by embodying these financial traits, and not giving up, anyone get exit the rat race over time. These are the same financial traits that I discussed in The Millionaire Method

 

Trait #1 – Honest & Integrity

Exiting the rat race and getting ahead in life takes one major financial trait at the core that you absolutely must harbor, and that is honest and integrity. This trait must be embodied wholeheartedly if you want to get ahead at anything that you do. By being deceitful or deceptive, you might experience some short-term gains, but you will most certainly suffer with some harm to your long-term name.

When you’re honest and conduct your life with integrity, you might experience a slow and steady crawl while trying to get ahead in life, but you won’t suffer the ridicule and embarrassment of what happens to people when they try to take shortcuts. We’ve all seen the successful fall from grace when they attempted to take the dishonest route. From politicians, to athletes, business persons, and celebrities alike, this is something that has affected everyone.

 

Trait #2 - Skills Mastery

To exit the rat race and get ahead in life you must commit yourself to mastering a skill, and doing it to the nth degree. In a book called The Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000-hour rule, which  has been harnessed by all of those who have become masters in their trade. He argues that talent isn’t something that we’re born with, it’s something that’s derived from constant practice, learning, and growth.

So, if you want to excel in this world and get ahead, commit yourself to mastering a skill, and do it with all of your heart. Take up something that you love and pursue it with a passion. Always be learning and educating yourself because you can never stop growing. If you want to be a master at something, then commit yourself to 10,000 hours and beyond. What you’ll come to find is that whatever it is that you’re peddling will be highly sought after once you cross this threshold.

 

Trait #3 - Communication

Without the ability to successfully communicate your thoughts and your desires, you can almost assure yourself of never being able to exit the rat race and get ahead in life. Why is communication so important? Well, the ability to communicate rests at the foundation of any successful person, company, or organization because it helps them to convey ideas, build strong arguments, and address problems as they arise in life. Communication is the key to the doorway of success.

This might not sound like a financial trait that will allow you to get ahead in life, but it most certainly is. Whether it’s the long-term goals or just the short-term day-to-day life we lead, successful communication aids in the progression of not only careers, but also relationships, finances, health, and everything in between. Master the art of communication and ensure that you embody this trait if you want to get ahead in this thing called life.

 

Trait #4 - Conviction

I’ve talked about this trait in countless books that I’ve published including The Art of Persistence, and How Not to Give Up. This is such an important trait to embody that it really rests at the core of the successful person. Exiting the rat race, getting ahead in life, becoming financially free, or whatever you want to call it, is hard. In fact, it’s down right excruciatingly difficult. So, you have to be convicted to what you want in life. It has to be a passion that’s burning in your heart.

Without the trait of conviction, we can’t persist through all the perils that life throws at us. Without this trait, we would be jumping ship every chance we got, and that’s not the way to get ahead in life. By embodying conviction and finding your source of inspiration, you can see anything through. Nothing will be impossible for the convicted heart; absolutely nothing. Search deep down inside your heart and find something your passionate and convicted about, and the sky can only be the limit.

 

Trait #5 - Adaptability

One of the best traits for getting ahead in life is adaptability. This is adaptability towards whatever you do, whatever goal you strive towards, and whatever obstacles come in your way that seem to be impermeable. When you’re pushing towards a goal, you have to be able to change your approach, just like an airplane would that has a final set destination. The airplane doesn’t know the exact route down to the second, it has to adapt to changing conditions in order to arrive.

When you can adapt, you can not only survive, but you can also thrive. When it comes to a business environment, people that can’t adapt can’t thrive, and sometimes they can’t survive. You have to be able to adapt your approach towards whatever you’re doing in order to help you see your way there.

 

Rules for Getting Ahead (and staying there)…

Beyond the traits that we require to embody to get ahead, there are a set of rules that we must follow in order to succeed in life and exit the rat race. These set of rules are what I like to call the “Millionaire Rules,” because it’s the same roadmap instituted by the world’s financially free in governing their everyday lives.

Just how many of these rules do you embody and how many of them are you violating?

 

Rule #1: Always Make More than you Spend

The first cardinal rule for exiting the rat race is to make more money than you spend. Sound simple? Well, you would be surprised at just how many people violate this rule on a monthly and yearly basis. For the most part, people end up falling further behind with each passing month than getting further ahead. In fact, statistics show that the average U.S. household as of 2014 has $15,191 in credit card debt, $154,365 in mortgage debt, and $33,607 in student loan debt.

Now, it’s true that some debt is good to carry. But, the accumulation of things like credit card debt, especially those with high-interest rates, make getting ahead remarkably difficult. But most people have a hard time when a shiny credit card is in their wallet with room to spend on. And of course, some people take this to another extreme. But, regardless of your situation, you have to ensure that you make more than you spend every single month.

No matter what you have to do, whether it’s downgrading your house, car, or lifestyle, making more than you spend should be a priority. You can never get ahead in life if you’re merely slaving away to pay back debt that you’ve already accumulated. Can you imagine just how difficult it will be to exit the rat race in this scenario? There are always room for cuts in expenses, and depending on how determined you are to get ahead, you’ll do what it takes.

 

Rule #2 – Save your Money

The second rule for getting ahead in life, earning financial freedom, and exiting the rat race, is to save at least 10% to 20% of your income. Don’t have 10% to save? Then, that’s when you really need to save money. Start by cutting expenses. How about that $5 per day latte habit you have? How about that membership to some Website that you no longer use? How about turning off your cable for a month?

There’s always ways to cut expenses and save money. It doesn’t seem like much in the near-term, but if you can save $200 or even $500 per month, over time it adds up. And it’s not just about saving the money itself that matters. It’s about having moment-of-the-opportunity cash lying around. What do I mean? Well, part of what allows us to succeed long term is being able to strike when there’s an opportunity to do so. That’s when moment-of-the-opportunity cash comes into account.

If you don’t save your money, you can forget about getting ahead. This is a habit that you have to build up early on. If you’ve gone years and years and are continually in the hole, then set some real goals for yourself and stick to them. Get out of debt and embark on the road to a more stress-free life.

 

Rule #3 - Own the Roof Over your Head

Sounds simple enough right? Own the roof over your head. But most people don’t, which is a huge no-no in this world. Why is that? Well, a home is typically the biggest investment that a family has, and it’s an asset that can appreciate over time. When you don’t own the roof over your head, you’re simply paying someone else’s mortgage.

Financially speaking, renting can seem like a sound option due to it’s low overhead. However, you have to make some sacrifices and cut expenses, save money, and own the roof over your head. There’s a sense of pride that also goes into owning something that’s yours. If you don’t own your own home, then now is the time to set some goals and put a plan of action into place. Meet with a loan officer immediately to discuss your options. Don’t wait another moment!

 

Rule #4 - Own your Own Business

We’ve all heard the saying that time is money. It’s a phrase uttered everywhere we turn. We don’t have time to waste when we’re trying to get ahead because time literally is money. But, one of the biggest financial no-no’s in life is trading your time, directly, for money.

What do I mean?

Well, think about this for a moment, when there’s a direct and proportionate relationship between the amount of money that you spend to earn money, and your expenses generally catch up with your expenses, how can you possibly get ahead financially speaking? It’s incredibly difficult to do so, and only seldom few have been able to achieve long-term financial freedom with this method.

So, what are you supposed to do?

Well, in order to get ahead in life, you have to indirectly trade your time for money. In another words, you have to make money while you sleep. Sound impossible? Well, it’s not. And, even if you have a 9-to-5 job, you must commit the most valuable resource that you have, which is your time, to creating an income flow that will allow you to get ahead in life and not just life month-to-month.

But this takes some sincere commitment on your part. If you’re totally committed to exiting the rat race and getting ahead, then you need to take steps to owning your own business or creating a passive income stream that will pay you while you toil away at your “day job.”

 

Rule #5 - Death and Taxes

We’ve all heard the famous quote by Benjamin Franklin, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes,” but what does it really mean? Well, financially speaking, taxes are going to be one of the single largest investments that you have to make. You must understand tax law and plan your finances accordingly or end up in hot water.

Too many people ignore this rule until it’s too late. Don’t fall into this trap. Plan ahead so that you can get ahead. Understand your tax implications, especially if you plan on embarking on new endeavors such as launching your own company, or engaging in some investment. Don’t procrastinate! Plan it out!

 

Rule #6 - Add Value to the World

To absolutely get ahead in life and exit the rat race you must always be adding value to the world. No matter what it is, wherever you go, whatever you do, however you act, always add value. If you find yourself trying to do the least amount of work for the most amount of pay, you won’t find yourself making very much long-term progress. You’ll be stuck in neutral, spinning your wheels, like a car caught in the sand on a deserted beach.

However, when you add value, and I mean real inherent value, then anything is possible. Focus on giving as much of yourself and your time in exchange for money. If you work a menial job, do it to the absolute best of your abilities. Don’t try to do as little as possible. Work hard, and eventually you’ll get ahead. It won’t happen overnight; it never does.

 

 

 

How to Organize your (chaotic) Life

 

Organizing your Life

For many individuals, life can only be summarized by one word: chaotic. The term, which is described by Merriam Webster as “complete confusion and disorder,” is something that has become commonplace in our lives. From managing and juggling your home, work, relationships, finances, health, errands, and everything in between, life can certainly be described as chaotic.

So, how do you transcend life’s “noise” to rise above and organize that same chaos that seems to wreak havoc on your life? Is it even possible? Well, it’s most certainly possible, but it will take some awareness and consistent effort on your part to organize your life into something that’s less likened to an unpredictable mathematical system.

 

Building Better Routines

Life is a series of routines that are based upon habits. These habitual sets of behaviors are aggregated together to form our typical day. For the chaotic person, routines are generally interrupted by unexpected occurrences that result from either a lack of planning, some form of procrastination, or the result of some constant or on-going emergency or crisis in the life.

For example, when relationships, health, or financial problems reach epidemic levels, life tends to get more chaotic and less organized. When you’re so busy dealing with something that’s taking so much of your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical resources, it’s difficult to get centered and make any progress.

However, by building better routines, you can help to manage the day-to-day chaos and help bring some order to your life. Without positive routines, life merely becomes a set of responses to stimuli that are hurled from every direction. Without a routine in place that will help to promote both a happy and healthy lifestyle, along with a positive response to things outside of our control, life can take on a very disastrous tone.

 

How to Organize your Life

Organizing your life, then, boils down to developing and managing better routines and habits that can help to better assist you as you tackle your day-to-day duties. The problem is that most of us don’t take the time to get organized from the ground up because we’re too busy tackling what’s happening in the here-and-now. You have to break this pattern and eliminate the cycle once and for all.

So, how is it done?

Well, organizing your life starts with a complete make-over from top to bottom. In this life-overhaul, as I like to call it, not only do your daily routines change, but so do the habitual responses to external stimuli. What do I mean? Well, when you’re not organized, and something arises that needs your attention, you’ll learn to address it differently. You’ll tackle the important things first, then move onto the things that might be urgent but aren’t so important to deal with immediately.

 

Start by Decluttering your Life

To start organizing your chaotic life, you have to declutter your life. You have to remove all of the “fat,” so to speak, and focus on the important parts. How is this done? Well, grab a pen and paper, or whip out some digital device you can transcribe your thoughts onto.

 

Step #1 – Build a Mission Statement

As strange as this might sound to you, the first step to organizing your life and decluttering your mind is to build a mission statement. And if you thought that missions statements were only for companies then that’s where you’re wrong. Building a mission statement helps to give you a brighter and hotter focus on what you want and don’t want in your life.

So, how do you write a mission statement?

Well, you have to think about what you want out of life. What is important to you and what isn’t important to you? To start out, separate a piece of paper into two columns. On the left-hand side you’ll write down single words for what you want out of life. On the right side you’ll write single words for what you no longer want out of life.

For example, on the left-hand side you might write out words like: love, contribution, community, family, religion, integrity, travel, business, and so on. On the right-hand side you might write out words like: conflict, deceit, fear, defeat, anger, sorrow, regret, and so on.

When you have your list, look at what words you came up with. Then, organize those words from most important to least important. Take the top 5 on each side and draft a mission statement out of it that’s three or four sentences long. For example, you might say:

“I am committed to contributing to my community, growing as a person, finding and loving someone wholeheartedly, and building a business from the ground up with integrity. My plan is to travel the world and share experiences with people that will allow me to see life from a better perspective. I will no longer tolerate or involve myself with people that help to bring about conflict, deceit, and anger in my life. I will no longer feel sorrow, or regret my decisions. The past is the past and now it’s on to a better and brighter future.”

So, why is this so important? Because when you don’t have a mission statement in life, you’re shooting in the dark. You don’t have a target for what you want and no longer want in life so you’re caught simply responding to things based on patterns and routines. By building a mission statement you’re laser-focusing your life and organizing your mind in the process.

 

Step #2 - Set Goals

To build on the mission statement, you need to set some clear and concise goals. Goals will help you to further your agenda in life by giving you a target of what you’re aiming at. Now that you understand the things you want and don’t want in your life, put some spatial recognition to it. Figure out when you want certain things by, why you want them, and specifically be able to measure your progress towards it.

Goals are an important to decluttering your mind and organizing your life because they give you something to move towards. So, how do you set goals the right way? Well, read this post on goal setting first. Basically, you need to specifically define what you want. So, if you want to own your own business, what kind of business is it and when will you open up shop? What do you need to do in order to achieve that goal and specifically when do you plan on doing it?

If you want to travel the world, how many cities do you want to see by when? Specifically write out all of the cities you’ll visit in your life and when you’ll do that. This way, you have a moving target. Your goals can also then be broken down into milestones that will help you to see what you need to achieve this week, month, and year. It’s so important to organizing your life. Without a concrete set of goals we’re like fish that are floundering out of water.

 

Step #3 – Home & Office Organization

If you’ve ever heard the saying “Clean house, clean mind,” this is completely true. In order to organize and declutter your life, you have to organize your surroundings. When your home is messy, cluttered, with things strewn all about, it’s difficult to have any sense of mental organization or purpose.

Most of us live with clutter surrounding us; we bask in the chaos and plead that we have our own system. Well, it doesn’t serve us whatsoever. To organize your life, do a deep clean from top to bottom. Everything from your house, to your car, to your office, all needs to be cleaned and fully organized.

If you don’t organize and clean your surroundings, your mind has a funny way of cataloging your to-do’s in the depth of your subconscious and using it to help you put other things off. If you have trouble with procrastination, decide that you will spend just 10 to 15 minutes each day cleaning and organizing. Everyone has 10 or 15 minutes. What you’ll come to find is that you’ll end up doing more than spending 10 or 15 minutes once you get started. The hard part is simply getting started.

 

 

Step #4 – Eliminate Stress

Everyone has stress in their lives. In fact, we can’t simply say that we’ll eliminate all of the stress in our lives because we’re at the mercy of external forces at times that includes other people and situations. We can be at the mercy of others but it doesn’t mean that our mental state has to suffer because of it. If you can eliminate stress you can focus more on the things that matter to you in the long-term.

And, when you have a mission statement that you can look back it from time to time, you can help to put stressful situations into perspective. If there’s a problem on the horizon, think about how you can resolve that problem while adhering to your mission statement. Your mission statement will almost be like a constitution for governing your life. You can see what things fit and what don’t. And, for the things that don’t fit, you can come up with some policies for eliminating them from your life.

The other important factor to eliminating stress in organizing your life is that stress can come in the way of our goals and what we want. It can help us to lose sight of what we’re reaching for. That’s also why the goals are so important here as well. The goals will further allow you to put things into perspective. if you have a problem, try to look at it from the perspective of serving you in the long term. Your resolution of that stress or problem will eventually inch you closer to your long-term goals.

 

Step #5 - Manage your Time

I’ve written about time management before in the past. I’m a strong believer in carefully managing your time by using the Eisenhower principle where everything is categorized by its level of urgency and importance. Everything can fall into the category of either urgent or not urgent, and important or not important.

When you can organize your daily tasks and look at things that come up as fitting into these four quadrants in life, then you can better tackle the things that are important. Most of us are busy responding to things that are urgent and not important. We’re also usually busy doing things that are both not urgent and not important, such as mindlessly watching television for hours on end.

The goal here is to tackle the not urgent but important quadrant of things that need to be done in your life. These are what help you to strive towards your long-term goals. So, to better organize your life and declutter things, by using your mission statement and goals, you can help to make daily lists that will allow you to effectively manage your time much better.

 

Step #6 - Building Better Routines

Life is a set of routines and habits that become ingrained in us. There are some must-have success habits, and there are also other habits that will help us to achieve long-term success in life. In order to organize your life and declutter things you have to build better routines. This doesn’t take an enormous amount of effort on your part; it just takes consistent and daily action to build the habit over time.

Since we’re all a set of habits that have become ingrained in us as the years have dragged by, changing or rebuilding new habits is going to take time. This is why most people have problems with things like weight loss, over drinking, over smoking, and so on, because all of these things are based on routines and patterns that have become habitual in us. We will always revert back to what we know until we can completely redefine those things so that we can grow.

This really is the key to organizing and decluttering your life but this step doesn’t work by itself. You must adhere to all six steps if you want to achieve some sort of organization in your life. Get started today with these six steps and commit yourself to live not only in adherence to a mission statement, but also in accordance with a set of goals that you’re constantly striving towards. You’ll realize, over time, just how effective this method will be to allowing you live a happier, healthier, and more successful life.

 

 

101 Successful Habits (And How to Form Them)

 

The Origin of Our Habits

We are habitual creatures. From the genetic origins of our species, we’ve been designed and programmed to run certain sequences that will help aid us in the daily development, growth, regeneration, repair, and sustainability of our lives from the micro level to the macro level. We are selfish-survivors from an evolutionary standpoint and the CPUs of our minds have been etched with programs along neural pathways that are habitually instinctive by nature.

Of course, we all know that there are pre-programmed functions that are coded directly into our genetics that allow us to do things like digest food, supply oxygen to our blood, fight off diseases, process images or hear sounds, and so on. And, although the autonomous pre-programmed functions of our minds and bodies are important, so are the other non-instictive functions that are created over the course of our lives. These habits – both good and bad – either help to serve us or hinder us in the pursuit of all things.

Habits, and the formation of our habits is an important subject because we are, in essence, an aggregation of our habits. From the moment that we awake to the moment that we fall asleep, our minds are running these habitual sequences that we’ve come to know. Sometimes, those habits are successful habits that allow us to make a little bit of progress each and every day. However, unfortunately, most of the time, those habits are bad habits that hold us back from living the life of our dreams.

 

Why Habits Are So Important

When you stop to think about it, good habits, or the lack thereof, are attributable to the success or failure at any endeavor in life. When you look at a habit, such as smoking a cigarette after a meal, your mind might not portray it as ultimately detrimental to your physical well-being.

The single occurrence of having one cigarette after a meal once in your life probably isn’t too bad. However, it’s the habitual set of autonomous functions that is played out by the mind over and over again that can help to degrade health over time. It’s not just the cigarette after a meal anymore – it’s a cigarette after a meal, before work, during break, during lunch, after work, at night before bed, at the bar while drinking, and so on.

Clearly, habits are escalating, in nature; they grow and expand over time. What starts out as a 1-cigarette-a-day habit, turns into one or two packs as time passes. The mind has a tendency to build up the neural pathways that it etches in order to put our lives on autopilot. If it thinks that something is giving it pleasure in the near-term, it gravitates towards it. However, when it does this with bad habits, it can create huge deterrents in every area of our lives including health, finance, and relationships.

 

The 10 Must-Have Success Habits

In a recent post, I spoke about the 10 must-have success habits. These are the absolute fundamental habits that are required at our core to succeed in life. But there are so many more habits that help to comprise a successful person. They involve habits in areas such as your health, finances, relationships, career, time management skills, and goal-setting. But, before I get into the list of 101 successful habits, let’s look at just how to form those habits.

In fact, at the very core of forming successful habits is the habit of habit formation itself. Sound strange? Well, we are an amalgamation of our habits. Those habits form over time with a little bit of effort each day; this happens almost without our noticing. If you’re used to grabbing a candy bar at around 3pm without paying much attention to it, then it’s a habit. If, on the other hand, you’re used to lacing up your running shoes in the morning and sprinting out the door, that’s another habit.

But, habits are hard to break. If you have a set of habits that have formed over years and years of repetitious behavior that includes emotional, social, mental, and physical cues, it’s remarkably hard to break. So, you have to get into the habit of habit formation. This will only take you 5 or 10 minutes per day, so anyone can do it. There’s absolutely no excuse for not doing this, and it precedes all other success habits.

So, what are the 10 must-have success habits?

Well, if you didn’t read that post, then here’s a quick and simple breakdown for you:

Set Goals Daily
Manage your Time Efficiently
Measure and Track Everything
Budget and Spend Wisely
Pay yourself First
Exercise Every Day
Make Healthy Choices
Get Proper Sleep
Daily Gratitude
Take Daily Action

 

Now, some of these might sound like common sense to you. If you didn’t read that article on how and why each of these are important, then go back and do so now. But, what I wanted to do here was to give you a breakdown of not only the core success habits, but all 101 success habits that should literally become habitual to you (no pun intended).

Now, these success habits don’t just apply to your daily routine, they apply to your monthly and yearly routine. You want to ensure that you get into the habit of having success habits and ensure that you’re doing a little bit each and every single day towards the attainment of a better life.

 

So, How Does Habit Formation Work?

Well, before I get into all 101 success habits, it’s important to look at how habit formation works. When you can understand how the habits are formed, you’ll be better able to manage and tackle both building positive habits and eliminating those pesky bad habits as well. Now, I know this is easier said than done.

Building positive habits is hard and eliminating bad habits, especially the ones that we’ve had for years and years, is even harder. But it’s not impossible. 

So, how are habits formed exactly? What is the specific process in the mind that leads to the formation of a habit? Well, habits are incremental. They start small and grow larger. Thing about the strands in a rope for a moment. A thick piece of rope can be made from thousands upon thousands of strands.

 

Many Strands Woven Together

Imagine if you will for a moment as this thick piece of rope (the kind that would tether a large ship to a dock) as a habit. This thick rope (also called mooring lines) is strong. In fact, they are very strong. They can pull and moor a massive ship to a dock and keep it there, even under the heavy strain of high winds and tides.

Habits, like mooring lines, are very strong. Oftentimes they’re there to stay. And bad habits are seemingly impossible to break. And, if we feel like we break a bad habit for a while, eventually it comes back around. So, why is that? Why is that it’s seemingly impossible to break bad habits and so hard to form good habits?

Well, if you think about that mooring line again, and just how thick it is, imagine it in the beginning first. Think about when there is no habit there, whether good or bad. The first time we do something that eventually becomes habitual, we start with a single strand. That first occurrence involves much more awareness from our minds.

For example, the first time we go to the gym, smoke a cigarette, have an alcoholic drink, eat an apple, and so on, we need awareness from the mind. The mind has to be aware because it’s not used to a certain activity. When the chain smoker who reaches for a cigarette and lights it up, putting it to his or her mouth, without even knowing it on a conscious level, does so due to ingrained habits.

It’s the product of a neural pathway etched over time, like the strands in a mooring line being strung together one after another after another. Eventually, those single strands, when combined together, produce a habit that’s so incredibly strong that it can either be next-to-impossible to break. That’s why the formation of positive habits over time and the elimination of negative habits is so incredibly important.

 

Can Bad Habits Really be Broken?

Yes, bad habits can really be broken. But, like the mooring line of a ship, those habits are strong so it’s going to take acute awareness and daily consistent action. This is why so many people find it so difficult to lose weight, stop smoking, make more money, and so on. We’re such habitual creatures that even if we move away from something for a little while we tend to gravitate back to it.

But you can break bad habits with awareness and application over time. Since bad habits have formed over years and years of repetitious behavior, you have to realize that breaking those bad habits is going to take acute awareness over a 4 to 6 month period. That’s how long it takes to form new habits. And 4 to 6 months is a long time. But if you can get past that 6-month hump, then you’re much more likely to continue through.

To break bad habits you have to ensure that you’re doing a little bit each and every day towards both breaking the bad habit and replacing it with a positive habit. For example, if you reached for a candy bar at 3pm every single day, you have to replace that habit with a healthy habit. This includes awareness and making healthy decisions. It also involves some planning.

 

Using the P.A.R.A. Technique

Bad habits can be broken and good habits can be formed by using what I’ve coined as the P.A.R.A. technique, which stands for Planning, Awareness, Reason, and Action. Anyone can make or break a habit by using the PARA technique; anyone who’s committed enough that is.

So, how does it work?

 

Step #1 – (P) – Planning the Habit

Well, the first thing that you need to do is plan. What is the bad habit that you want to break or what is the good habit that you want to form? You have to plan it out and write it down. If you don’t plan it, you won’t do it. So, if the bad habit involves cigarette smoking then write that down then make a plan. Without a plan you’ll simply revert to those neural pathways.

So, how is a plan made? Well, aside from recognizing the bad habit you want to break or the good habit you want to form, you have to commit a certain part of your day to the habit formation or habit breaking exercise. This is going to take you 5 minutes per day to start with. Just 5 minutes you ask? Is that really possible? Yes it is.

Again, going back to that example of the mooring line, it starts off with one strand. When you started a bad habit, you didn’t dive in at the deepest end. The chain smoker didn’t start off smoking three packs per day. No, they started with a cigarette here and there. Those were the single strands that were woven together little by little over time. So, 5 minutes is all it takes in the beginning.

For example, if you have a bad habit of driving through a fast food restaurant on the way home, plan a different route. Don’t drive home the same way. In fact, plan 3 different routes, none of which pass by that fast food restaurant. And, if you know you’ll get hungry in your car, plan a healthy snack and bring it with you. Pack an apple or a bag of nuts. All it takes it 5 minutes of planning.

 

Step #2 – (A) – Awareness of the Habit

The next step is awareness. You have to build awareness towards your good or bad habit every single day. What do I mean? Well, habits are built on subconscious repetitious behaviors that become routine and commonplace. When we don’t build awareness, we don’t actually see what we’re doing on a conscious level. The mind just institutes what it knows.

So, when you do build awareness towards the bad or good habit’s behaviors, then you’re much more likely to break or make the habit. This always isn’t as simple as it sounds, but when you plan first, you can be aware. If you have something with you that will remind you of the bad or good habit, then you’re much more likely to follow through with it. Awareness is the key.

For example, if you bring an apple with you on your way to work, and you have it ready for when you have that craving, then you will be much more likely to be aware. Because you planned with the apple (or your route driving home from work), you’re more aware. When you force yourself to do things that are out of your comfort zone you have no choice but to be aware. Since the mind hasn’t run those routines before it’s forced to be aware to build new patterns.

 

Step #3 – (R) - Reasons for Making / Breaking the Habit

Reasons are the key to either making or breaking habits. In fact, no matter what you do in life – whatever goal you want to achieve – when your reasons are strong enough, you can accomplish anything. So, what are your reasons for wanting to make or break a habit? They have to be strong enough to help you override your natural tendencies to do something.

Take the time to write out your reasons for wanting a better life and better habits. Figure out why you want to stop smoking, stop overeating, over drinking, or anything else. They can’t just be superficial reasons. These reasons have to actually mean something to you. You don’t want to have a good habit just because you’ll make more money with it. It has to be more profound.

When your reasons run deep you can make or break any habit. The reasons are the gateway to the formation of habits but they aren’t the only thing that will get you there. However, without reasons, we’re left in the dark and our minds can allow us to put things off longer. We tend to procrastinate, saying we’ll get to it another day.

 

Step #4 – (A) - Action to Create or Eliminate the Habit

Last but not least, is the “A” for action. If you’ve tackled the first three, then what you need to do is take action. All you have to do is do a little bit each day to build or break a habit. If you smoke 30 cigarettes per day, cut back to 20, then 10, then 0, and eventually break the bad habit. If you eat junk food three times per day, limit it to one time per day, then one time per week, then once per month, and so on.

You have to do a little bit each day towards making or breaking the habits. It doesn’t matter how small that is. Take 10 minutes and walk around your block where you live. It might sound like something small at first, but that’s how habits are built. Remember the example of thick mooring line? Start off with little strands that build up over time. You’ll be surprised to see just how much you start doing once you get started.

The biggest deterrent that people have in life is actually acting. Decide and do it now. That’s all you have to do to make or break a habit. Too many people make things out too be much larger in their minds than it actually is. Simply decide to act then act. You can make or break any habit if you stick to these four steps.

 

So What are the Success Habits?

Okay, so, we know how habits are formed and how we can make or break them now. So, what are these success habits? Well, this is my ultimate list of 101 habits that will help you to succeed in all areas of your life. In particular, these habits cover the following 8 areas:

#1 – Health & Wellness

#2 – Finances

#3 – Business & Career

#4 – Relationships

#5 – Spirituality

#6 – Goals

#7 – Education

#8 – Time Management

 

Category #1 – Health & Wellness Habits

#1 – Eat breakfast

#2 – Eat one apple a day

#3 – Get a good night’s sleep

#4 – Use sunblock

#5 – Floss your teeth

#6 – Drink plenty of water

#7 – Eliminate processed foods

#8 – Avoid cigarette smoking

#9 – Walk 10,000 steps daily

#10 – Eat fiber daily

#11 – Exercise

#12 – Reduce caffeine intake

#13 – Eat green vegetables

#14 – Visit the dentist twice a year

#15 – Visit the doctor every year

#16 – Brush your teeth

 

Category #2 – Financial Habits

#17 – Budget your finances

#18 – Save money automatically

#19 – Daily money minute

#20 – Invest your money

#21 – Reduce debt

#22 – Own your home

#23 – Carry one credit card

#24 – Reconcile your accounts

#25 – Organize your receipts

#26 – Monitor credit report

#27 – File taxes on time

#28 – Consult with your accountant

 

Category #3 – Business & Career Habits

#29 – Start your day early

#30 – Organize and prioritize

#31 – Plan and systemize

#32 – Be time-efficient

#33 – Solve problems

#34 – Always follow up

#35 – Double check your work

#36 – Be on time to meetings

#37 – Limit social media

#38 – Be initiative

#39 – Consult with others

#40 – Take responsibility

#41 – Be detail-oriented

#42 – Be open-minded

#43 – Smile and be friendly

 

Category #4 – Relationship Habits

#44 – Don’t lie

#45 – Be faithful

#46 – Show respect

#47 – Learn to listen

#48 – Never go to bed angry

#49 – Eliminate assumptions

#50 – Spend quality time

#51 – Venture out together

#52 – Have a date night

#53 – Be light-hearted

#54 – Show love daily

#55 – Remember anniversaries

#56 – Avoid demands

 

Category #5 – Spirituality Habits

#57 – Meditate

#58 - Do Yoga

#59 – Schedule “me” time

#60 - Give to less fortunate

#61 – Be positive

#62 - Daily gratitude

#62 - Worship

#63 – Breed happiness

#64 - Show love

#65 – Ask for help

#66 – Have belief

#67 – Sing out loud

#68 – Grow with a group

 

Category #6 – Goal-Oriented Habits

#69 - Set daily goals

#70 - Track your progress

#71 - Make adjustments

#72 – Use mantras

#72 – Seek out inspiration

#73 – Confide in others

#74 - Consult with professionals

#75 - Exhibit patience

#76 – Be courageous

#77 – Never give up

 

Category #7 - Educational Habits

#78 – Learn one new word per day

#79 – Study a foreign language

#80 – Learn a new skill

#81 - Eliminate distractions

#82 - Join a study group

#83 – Ask questions daily

#84 – Watch educational videos

#85 – Listen to others opinions

#86 – Read something fascinating

 

Category #8 - Time Management Habits

#87 – Create a daily task list

#88 – Manage time with quadrants

#89 – Review your goals

#90 - Don’t procrastinate

#91 – Set reminders

#92 – Do one thing per day you’ve been putting off

#93 – Avoid distractions

#94 – Change your environment

#95 – Take breaks often

#96 – Remove social media apps from phone

#97 – Give yourself free time

#98 – Delegate tasks where needed

#99 – Outsource tedious tasks

#100 – Buffer time between tasks

#101 – Avoid getting sidetracked

 

 

 

How to Get Out of Debt: A 5-Step Plan

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience? — Adam Smith

Eliminating and Reducing your Debt

Debt is one of the most stigmatized, socialized, loathed, and talked-about words to have ever graced the English language. No matter where you are in the world, debt is something that follows us all. It evades our thoughts like an army come to wage a battle in an endless war of fixed, revolving, and recurring payments. Sometimes we feel like we just can’t escape its shackles.

So, is there a way out of debt?

How do we free ourselves from the seemingly eternal servitude of being obligated to pay out a large portion of our monthly income for the pleasures that we’ve already enjoyed in life? How do we get rid of our debt, and is it really possible? Or, are we just puppets in a very calculated zero-sum game of financial chess that leaves us as mere pawns on the playing field?

Well, the answer is that it is possible to be debt free. It’s possible to escape debt, but it isn’t easy. The accumulation of debt is something that’s habitual. It plays on some of our most basal instincts of the mind that push us towards avoiding pain and gaining pleasure. And, money is merely a tool in our virtually endless quests to constantly gain pleasure.

 

The Psychology of Debt

For the large majority, the most unforgiving debt is debt that’s accumulated from impulsive behavior. It’s those I-need-to-have-it-now moments in life that help us to balloon and max-out credit cards until they’re ready to burst. This behavior stems from deep down within our psychic apparatus, which is the driver of the thing we call our minds.

The psychic apparatus contains three parts:

The Id – This part is purely subconscious and its what controls our impulsive behavior. The id is instinctive; we’re born with the id. It’s part of our selfish survival and it operates on the pleasure principle. It’s what makes us want to eat, procreate, and defecate. If we were only controlled by our id we would do what we wanted to do always without thinking about the repercussions.


The Superego – To balance out the id, the superego forms as we grow and mature into adults. It’s a partly subconscious and partly conscious part of our minds. It develops through the moral guidance of our parents, guardians, and community. It helps us to determine right from wrong and institutes feelings of guilt when we know we’ve done something that we know we maybe shouldn’t have done.


The Ego – This is the referee. It lives in the conscious and subconscious mind, similar to the superego. The ego decides between the impulsive desires of the id and the reasoning of the superego. And, the ego operates on the reality principle. It wants to give us what we want within reality. It knows that certain things aren’t attainable, but it tries its best to reason how it can attain those things in the easiest way possible.

 

Why is this interaction in the mind important to getting out of debt? Well, so much of our behavior has a lot to do with what’s going on in our minds. That impulsive buying habit you have comes partly from this subconscious interaction. So, what we have to learn to do is create some awareness to this interaction and learn to override it.

Now, understanding debt is one thing. We can talk about it all we want. We can extrapolate, analyze, criticize, theorize, and do a slew of other things related to the concept, idea, and reality of debt. But how do we get out of debt? How do we free ourselves from living a life that’s imprisoned by a cycle that seems like it’s never going to end?

 

Escaping from Beneath Mountainous Debt

Recently, Business Insider chronicled the story of a woman, Anna Newell Jones, who escaped from beneath $23,000 of debt that included student loans, a personal loan from her parents for college tuition and fees, and credit card debt. How did she do it? She went on what she likes to call a “Spending Fast,” followed by a “Spending Diet.”

So, what’s a spending fast? Well, as Jones put it, it’s a way to life where “you spend money on the basics needed to live.” Now, this is certainly an extreme measure for getting out of debt, but for those that are willing to jump headfirst into a debt-free life, it’s certainly an option. For Jones, she laid out precisely what she those “basics needed to live” were on her Website. They included:

Rent
Utilities
Cellphone without Internet
Groceries (only necessities)
Gym membership (low cost)
Medical costs
Car payments & gas
Bus pass
Boxed hair dye
Inexpensive photography exhibits for her side business

Now, not everyone can pull this off, but as Jones put it, when you’re absolutely ready to be debt free, that’s when you’re ready for a spending fast. For Jones, she spent one year on her spending fast, eliminating approximately $18,000 of her $23,605.10 of debt. After her first year she switched gears from a spending fast to a spending diet, which allowed for only $100 of extra spending on non-necessiteis per month. After three more months, she paid off her entire debt.

 

The Millionaire Method

In a book that I published not too long ago entitled, The Millionaire Method – How to Get Out of Debt and Earn Financial Freedom by Understanding the Psychology of the Mind, I discussed not only a plan to get out of debt but also the reasons why we get into debt in the first place. I spoke in great detail about the psychic apparatus and just how the resultant interaction can lead us down one path or another.

And, as you may already know, it’s easy to have a plan. Most people can come up with a plan that they don’t ultimately stick to. So, what separates a person like Jones, who can go on a spending fast and eliminate her debt within 15 months, and everyone else? As she stated herself, she was absolutely fed up with her situation. She was sick of being in debt. But, other people are sick of being in debt and don’t do what it takes to get debt free, so what gives?

 

5-Step Plan for Escaping Debt

Not everyone can be as committed as Jones and go on a spending fast; most people can only muster up a spending diet where they institute some basic rules that govern their financial lives. And, getting out of debt isn’t impossible. In fact, everyone can do it if they really try. So, what are the 5 steps to getting out of debt and living a financially debt-free life?

 

Step #1 - Analyze your Debt

You can’t escape from beneath debt without first understanding how much and what kind of debt you have. The biggest problem is that most people don’t want to look. They turn a blind eye. They’re too afraid to see just how much debt they’ve racked up. It’s frightening – I know. However, if you can’t analyze and understand your debt, there’s absolutely no way you can emerge from beneath it.

So, how do you understand your debt? Organize all of your bills on the table in front of you for the past 12 months. Calculate all of your debt from credit cards, to car loans, personal loans, student loans, mortgage, insurance, and everything else. The past 12-month history is important because you’ll want to average everything that you’ve been spending since revolving debt can change from month to month.

Once you have all of the numbers write out all of the figures on paper or a spreadsheet and calculate the interest rate you’ve been paying per month. This will also be important because, for revolving debt, we’ll want to tackle the highest-interest rate cards first in order to wipe those out.

 

Step #2 - Set a Debt-Free Goal

Now that you understand your debt it’s time to set a debt-free goal. Will you go on a spending fast like Jones did? Or, will you merely go on a spending diet? Depending on how badly you want to get out of debt, your situation will be different. However, if you’re truly committed to becoming debt free then get ready to make some drastic changes in your life.

When you set these goals it’s important to not only understand what you want but also why you want it. So, you want to be debt free in 24 months? What are you willing to do to become debt free? And, what are the reasons why you want it? If you don’t have a strong enough reason why you want something it becomes remarkably difficult to achieve it.

So, write out your debt-free goal. If you want to be debt free in 24 months, why do you want to do it? what are the specific reasons why? You have to be incredibly specific here. The more specific you are and understand your goals, the more likely you’ll be able to pursue them and not give up.

 

Step #3 - Create a Budget

Once you have your debt-free goal in hand, it’s time to create a budget. This is where you’ll decide just how much fat you’ll cut away from your spending. Will you only do the bare minimum spending like Jones did, or will you go on some type of spending diet? You have to decide here and be very clear. If you decided that you’ll be debt free within 24 months, then you know just how money you’ll need to pay down your debt every month.

This is why analyzing your bills from the past 12 months is so important (step #1), because you can actually get to see where you spent your money. Most credit cards help to break down categories of money spending. How much did you eat out in the past 12 months? How much did you pay in things like bank fees that might have been avoidable? When you create a budget, you create a plan to help meet your goals.

It’s your job to stick to your budget if you want to get out of debt. Being in debt is one of the biggest burdens that any one person can face. When you’re merely working tirelessly just to pay down your debt and not getting ahead in life, it can cast one of the biggest nets of frustration on just about everything that you do.

 

Step #4 – Find your Debt-Free Inspiration

Oftentimes, like any other goal, we find it hard to stick to our plan and see things through. We tend to give up. We throw in the proverbial towel and say things like, “Enough,” or “I’ve had it,” or “I can’t take this anymore,” and, of course, “I quit.” You can’t do that. You have to see your debt-free plan through so you need to find a sense of inspiration. What’s going to inspire you when you’re feeling down and out?

We all know that getting out of debt is difficult, so you have to find a sense of inspiration that’s going to help see you through it. Whatever your debt free inspiration is, you have to find it and place it somewhere that you can prominently see every single day. Maybe you want to get out of debt so you can save for your future,  start your own business, or start putting away money for your childrens’ education.

Find your debt-free inspiration and remember it when you start to feel down and out. Reference and come back to it when you need a pick-me-up to help you over some hump or plateau that you’re experiencing. You’ll be much more likely to overcome debt if you do.

 

Step #5 - Track and Measure Everything

One of the most important parts of any goal-setting activity, including that of becoming debt-free, is to measure and track everything. You want to see all of the money going in and out. This is very basic stuff but not something most people adhere to. Take the time, every day, to measure what you spent your money on. How much did you spend in gas, on groceries, and so on. How closely did you stick to your debt-free goals this month?

The best part about setting goals is being able to determine your milestones. For example, if you want to be debt-free in 24 months, then you know just how much debt you have to pay down each month to get there. Then, you can see just how closely you’re coming to that goal each day, week, and month.

Try to stick as closely to your plan as possible and don’t get discouraged. It’s going to take time to get out of debt and sometimes it can feel like you’re fighting a losing battle. But don’t give up! Stick to it and see things through. When you finally emerge from debt you’ll be relieved and feel like the world has been lifted off your shoulders.

How to Effectively Manage your Time

Time Management Skills

We all wish that there was more time in the day. When the day is over and we look back at what we accomplished, oftentimes we wonder where all of those hours went. If you’re like most other people in the world, then time management might be an issue. We’re all just a little bit crunched for time. We say things like “There’s not enough time in the day,” or, “I don’t know where I’ll find the time,” and “I never have time for myself.”

Effectively managing time is a skill that so many desire but so few have.

We think that we never have enough time because we’re so busy responding to life’s curveballs, if you will. And, when we seem to free up just a little bit of time for ourselves, we get hit from left-field with something that we simply have to respond to. Furthermore, it seems like even when we’re not getting hit with problems, we can’t seem to find the time to manage our daily tasks to begin with.

So, how do we find the time to do anything then? 

 

Time Management Begins with Organization

Time management isn’t this elusive form of Black Magic that so few understand. In fact, anyone can efficiently manage their time as long as they get organized first. Without organization, it’s difficult to see just what needs to be accomplished in the day and how important each of those things are to your long-term goals.

When you get organized with your time, you not only increase your ability to manage your daily tasks effectively, but you also increase the likelihood of putting time where it really counts: towards those long-term goals that you harbor deep down inside. If you’ve never done any goal setting in the past, now is the time to get started because it’s an absolute must-have prerequisite to effective time management.

Why is goal setting so important? 

Well, goal setting is just one part in the four-part process of effective time management. However, it helps to set the playing field because if you don’t know what you’re aiming at you could go about your days spinning your wheels being repeatedly frustrated. If you want to manage your time efficiently and achieve your hopes and your dreams in the process, then you have to make sure you’re clear and concise with what you want out of life, and subsequently, your day.

 

Step #1 – Set Clear Goals

An absolute must prior to being able to manage your time effectively is to set clear goals on what you want in life. You might think to yourself that you already know what you want, even if you haven’t set goals down on paper. If this is the case, then you’re very wrong. Why? Because setting clear goals down on paper is remarkably different than merely setting them in your head.

If you engage in passive goal setting, then you’re less likely to have a good handle on your time management. This can lead to severe frustration, because deep down in your subconscious mind you might know what you want, but you haven’t organized those desires into clear goals. It hasn’t become visceral for you.

Actively set your goals by deciding exactly what you want, when you want it by, and why you want it. You have to be absolutely precise here when doing this. Don’t be afraid to write out exactly what it is, down to the very last detail, that you want. Don’t just say you want a lot of money, say the exact amount of money you want, what specific date you want it by, and why you want it.

 

Step #2 – Get Organized

The second step in effective time management is organization. You have to get organized if you want to properly manage your time. But how do you get organized? Well, first thing is first, you have to set your goals. If you didn’t do that, then stop reading and go do that now.

Once you’ve set your goals, you have to organize them. What are your long-term goals? What are your short-term goals? Break your long-term goals down into milestones so that you have a target you’re aiming at each month, week, and day. When you know what you want to accomplish one year from now, you can easily break that down into monthly, weekly, and daily targets.

Once you have your list of goals organized into milestones, then you know what you’re aiming at. When you wake up in the morning, you can have a better sense of purpose. It will also help to ensure that you’re doing a little bit each day towards those goals, no matter how small of an amount that is.

When you can organize goals into milestones, and you place that list in front of you, your mind can’t ignore what needs to be done. If you choose not to get organized, your mind has an easier way of helping you to avoid those all-important daily tasks every day.

 

Step #3 – Prioritizing Time

In 1994 Stephen D. Covey released a book entitled 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, where he discussed a system for managing time that was originally introduced by Dwight D. Eisenhower. This system splits up activities into four quadrants based upon two factors: urgency and importance.

So, in your day, a task can be categorized by these two factors. They are as follows:

Quadrant 1 – Long-Term Goals: Not Urgent but Important
Quadrant 2 – Emergencies & Crises: Urgent and Important
Quadrant 3 – Interruptions: Urgent but Not Important
Quadrant 4 – Distractions: Not Urgent and Not Important

When you look at your list of milestones and daily tasks, you can categorize what area each of them falls under. The best way to effectively institute this method is to spend a week first tracking everything that you do. Where do you spend your time? Jot it down. If you spent 15 minutes making phone calls to bill collectors, jot that down. If you spent 1 hour at the grocery store, jot it down.

At the end of each day for that first week, write the quadrant down next to each task for what it fell under. How much of your time did you spend watching television (Quadrant 4), or working on your long-term goals (Quadrant 1), or dealing with emergencies or crises in your life (Quadrant 2), and so on.

After the first week, look at how much time you spent in each quadrant. The goal in life is to spend as much time in Quadrant 1 and as little time in Quadrant 4. How much time did you actually spend in Quadrant 1? After you’ve completed this exercise, take your daily list of tasks and jot down the quadrant each of them falls under.

If you watched television for 3 hours, then you lived in the dismal Quadrant 4 that day. You want to spend as little time with Quadrant 4 activities as you can if you want to effectively manage your time. Sometimes we can’t see just how much time we’re wasting unless we look at it in this manner.

 

Step #4 – Destroy Procrastination

One of the hardest parts of time management is the dreaded procrastination that tends to rear its ugly head all too often. How do we avoid procrastination? Well, we can set all the goals that we would like, get organized, and prioritize our time, but if we can’t follow through with our list of things to do each day then we’re wasting our time.

So, how do we avoid this? 

Procrastination has been termed the silent killer and it’s one of the biggest deterrents to our goals. We all say that we want to accomplish something, but when it comes down to managing our time with some sense of efficiency, we can’t seem to get thing accomplished. Procrastination seems to be around every single corner.

However, the only way around procrastination is to be completely aware of what needs to be done. If you can set clear goals, get organized, and prioritize your time, you’ll be well on the way to destroying any propensity for procrastination. If none of that works, then try the 15-minute rule.

Set a timer on your watch, smartphone, or anywhere else, and set to doing something you’ve been putting off for just 15 minutes. That’s all you need to commit to: 15 minutes. What you’ll come to realize is that an object in motion stays in motion; once you get started, you’ll most likely keep going. The hardest part is simply getting started!

 

 

The 10 Must-Have Success Habits

I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom. — George S. Patton

Developing Successful Habits

At the heart of all that we are and do are our habits. Our habits are derived from repetitious behavior over time. The mind etches them into patterns called neural pathways. These neural pathways help to govern our lives and make everyday tasks simpler. But, we don’t all have habits that serve us. In fact, most of our habits aren’t success habits; most of our habits are bad habits.

The bad habits are what set us back. They’re the late-night snacking on not-so-healthy foods, or the over-watching of television, over-surfing of the Internet, smoking cigarettes when we know we should be quitting, and just about anything else. You know what your bad habits are. And, you know what your good habits are. The problem is that most peoples’ bad habits outweigh their good habits.

So, how do we fix this and develop successful habits that will help us in life? And, what are the top must-have success habits that will help us make progress rather than push us behind?

 

Succeeding in Life Takes Harboring Success Habits

We all want to be successful in life at something. We all have hopes and dreams. Some of us plan out our hopes and our dreams, then push tirelessly toward them every day and don’t relent until we accomplish what we set our hearts on. However, that some of us is a very low number.

According to a University of Scranton study, the number of people that accomplish their goals is actually just 8%. Only 8 out of 100 people who set a goal on New Year’s actually accomplishes it. Astonishing? I think not. We’ve all been there before when we’ve set goals, got excited about them, then when that excitement wore off, so did our drive to pursue those goals.

However, when we have success habits, pushing towards our goals becomes simpler. In fact, achieving our hopes and our dreams becomes effortless. All you have to do is etch those new must-have success habits into the neural pathways of your mind. Just as you would, say, reach for a cigarette or candy bar without thinking about it, you’ll institute these must-have success habits without thinking about them.

 

What are the Must-Have Success Habits?

These core 10 must-have habits to succeeding in life are a filtered down version of a longer list of 100 success habits that I’ll feature in an upcoming post. But these are the absolute must-have habits in life that you should harbor. Why are they must-haves?

Well, when you have these habits, you can be assured that you’ll push through your present-day limitations and make the breakthroughs in life that you’re hoping for. If you implement these on a daily basis and you don’t give up on your hopes and your dreams, then you can accomplish anything you set your heart on.

Now, don’t get this “twisted” so-to-speak, because these habits might come across simplistic in nature, but they’re so highly critical to the achievement of just about anything.

So, what are the habits?

 

Habit #1 – Set Goals Daily

The first must-have habit is to set your goals every single day. Don’t just set them and forget them. It doesn’t work that way. Set your goals every single day and look at your progress. Even if you set long-term goals, you have to review them every day. Break them down into smaller goals and milestones that you can accomplish daily.

Goal setting is an important skill to have. I’m not talking about something obscure in your mind. I’m talking about setting actual goals down on paper that you can see right in front of your eyes. They have to be visceral. When your goals are real and on paper, something changes – something just clicks in your head. You have a target.

The habit of goal setting is a must-have success habit because everything in life revolves around your goals. If you set your goals properly, and you know what you want, when you want it by, and why you want it, then your life takes on an entirely different meaning. You have some sense of purpose; you’re not just going about your day on an autonomous zombielike auto-drive.

To develop this habit you have to spend the initial time writing out your long-term goals, then break those down into shorter goals. Then, this must-have success habit will only take 5 minutes of your time each day. All you have to do is look at your milestone goals (i.e. your weekly or monthly goals), then break out your daily goals. Make this a habit that you do every single day! Spend just 5 minutes of your time jotting out the day’s important tasks, and do it habitually.

 

Habit #2 – Manage your Time Efficiently

The second must-have success habit is the ability to manage your time efficiently. Time management is essential to succeeding in any area of your life. We all know just how much time we waste on a daily basis doing things that we probably shouldn’t be doing. We excessively surf the web, chat on social media, text message with our friends, watch television, go out too often, and so on.

But, to manage your time efficiently, you have to get organized. This literally only takes a few minutes each day. The first thing you’ll need to do is adhere to the must-have success habit #1 and set goals daily. When you break your day down into what you need to do, you can categorize the importance of those things. Based on the Eisenhower Principle of time management, everything can be categorized on a scale of urgent and important.

So, on this scale, there are four quadrants based upon the urgency and importance of any task. Tasks can either be (1) urgent but not important, (2) urgent and important, (3) not urgent and not important, or (4) not urgent but important. Too many of us waste our time with the not urgent and not important tasks in life. These time wasters can kill our progress.

Our success habit, then, must be to first attack tasks that are not urgent but important. These tasks are the long-term goals that we have in life. All you have to do in order to develop this habit is to spend your first 10 minutes of your day writing out what you intend to accomplish. Then, organizing them into the four quadrants and tackle the not urgent but important tasks first.

Then at the end of the day spend another 10 minutes writing out what you did, what quadrants those tasks fall under, and how well you were able to stick to your morning schedule. This is by far a must-have success habit if you want to achieve long-term goals in any area of your life.

 

Habit #3 – Measure and Track Everything

One of the most vital success habits to have is the propensity to measure and track everything. From your goals, to your time, to your finances, to your weight, and everything in between, by tracking over time you’re getting an idea of your progress or deterioration. If you don’t track, and your results deteriorate over time, then you can see it clearer and make efforts to fix it.

This success habit doesn’t take that much time. There is some initial setup, say in building a spreadsheet that can help you track things like your weight, your expenses, and so on. But, the daily input of the numbers doesn’t take that long. Getting into the habit of doing this is the hard part.

So, all you have to do is commit to spending 5-minutes each day tracking everything. You can do it in the beginning of the day for the prior day or at the end of the day for that same day. If you promise yourself you will only spend 5 minutes doing something, your brain realizes that it’s not a huge hurdle for it to make. In fact, any of the 10 must-have success habits won’t take you huge commitments of time. What it will take is actually engaging in them day after day.

When you engage in the success habits daily, your mind builds those neural pathways that can help us along our way. So many of us have bad habits that have been carved into our neural pathways that we must build new empowering habits through the same repetitious behavior. If you’re committed to doing this, just promise yourself 5 minutes each day for each of these habits. That’s all you have to start with.

 

Habit #4 – Budget and Spend Wisely

This is a success habit that a large majority of individuals around the world must implement who don’t have unlimited resources. Oftentimes, we’re impulsive with our spending. We don’t spend wisely and tend to base our decision-making processes to purchase something on the subconscious inner-wranglings of our mind. We’re not sure why we bought something, we just knew we had to have it.

This is a product of misinformation by the conscious mind and an all-out manipulation by the subconscious mind. When you don’t budget yourself accordingly, the ego has a funny way of shrouding our behavior in excuses. You simply had to have that “something” because it was on sale and it might never go on sale again. You know the drill, don’t you?

So, budgeting and spending wisely is a success habit that most of us know we need to implement but that so many of us simply choose not to. So, how do we choose this habit over the bad habit of over-spending? If you can take 10 minutes every single day to budget and track your spending wisely, then your ego will have less misinformation to hide behind. You can use a smartphone app to track your purchases or use the trusty old notepad and pencil.

This won’t be easy at first. Like any of the other success habits mentioned here, it’s going to take effort. But all you have to do is commit yourself to 5 or 10 minutes every day. If you can do that, then you can build on the momentum. The hard part is merely getting started.

 

Habit #5 - Pay yourself First

One of the most important financial habits for success is paying yourself first. When you pay yourself first, you’re saving and investing your money just as soon as it hits your bank account. You should make it a habit to deduct at least 15% of your income from your paycheck automatically. Find an investment program that will make the deductions and put your savings on autopilot.

This takes literally minutes to do through online banking. If your future means something to you then this is a must-have success habit. The goal here is not only to put saving on autopilot, but to review your investments daily. Spend 10 to 15 minutes each day reviewing your investments and directing your investments in the right direction.

Paying yourself first is a habit that invokes so much more than just putting money-saving on autopilot. When you pay yourself first, this success habit actually activates a part of the mind that tells yourself that there’s more than enough to go around. It’s a visceral mental shift that occurs. Even if you say that you don’t have 15% of your income to put away, that’s when you really need to do so.

Change your lifestyle. Make a dramatic shift. You won’t be able to make significant progress in life without these kinds of success habits that will empower you and allow you to build a foundation for growth in the future.

 

Habit #6 – Exercise Every Day

Exercise doesn’t have to be an enormous mental hurdle. Commit to 15 minutes every single day. Start by walking around the block in your neighborhood. What you’ll notice is that the most difficult part is getting started. But if you commit to just 15 minutes every day, then your mind can’t argue with you. Your subconscious can’t help you reason your way out of why you don’t want to exercise today.

This success habit is important to your health, your vitality, and your overall energy level. Learn to embrace this. If you have a hard time getting started in the morning, then place your running shoes and clothes next to your bed. When you open your eyes in the morning, lace up, get dressed, and hit the ground running (or walking). Don’t even think twice about it.

It might be difficult to start up this success habit, but like any of the other habits, it simply takes some carving of patterns in the neural pathways of the mind. Yes, it’s hard at first, but commit to small and incremental periods of time. You’ll see that once you get started, you’ll keep going. The hard part is getting started.

 

Habit #7 – Make Healthy Choices

This s a must-have success habit that literally takes almost no time. All you have to do is decide that you’ll make better decisions on a daily basis on what goes into your mouth. Whether it’s food, drink, prescription drugs, or anything else, learn to make healthy choices. The problem with developing a success habit like this is that many of us simply act from our basal instincts.

So, making healthy choices is a success habit that will reverberate with you in more ways than one. The human body spends more than 50% of its energy digesting foods that are rich in carbs, fats, and sugars. Focus on natural fats and sugars through things like avocados, fruits, vegetables, and naturally sourced foods.

Making these healthy choices are hard, especially when we’re pressed for time. So, further to the habit of simply making the right choices when you have do is to get organized. Plan your meals in the mooring if you have to. Have an apple ready on hand if you get hungry to snack rather than a candy bar because your body will thank you.

 

Habit #8 – Get Proper Sleep

One of the good habits that seem to allude most people is to get a proper night’s sleep. 6 hours is a must for your body to operate efficiently. If you’re only getting 4 hours of sleep then you’re robbing your body of the energy that it needs throughout the day. By providing proper sleep to your body you’re giving it time to rejuvenate and operate at optimal levels.

Sometimes, however, when we get accustomed to over-working ourselves or over-indulging in things like alcohol or socializing, we lose sight of the more important things in life such as proper sleep. The amount of sleep you get each night should be as important to you as any other habit. Over the long term, your body will thank you.

When we overlook success habits that have to do with our wellness and we only focus on those that have to do with our monetary gain, we tend to lose out. Don’t lose sight of the more-important picture of your health and vitality as you strive towards your goals. Getting proper sleep should be one of the success habits that are at the forefront of your mind at all times.

 

Habit #9 – Daily Gratitude

This success habit doesn’t take much time to implement. All you need to do is spend 5 or 10 minutes each day writing out what you have to be grateful for and why. If you say that you have nothing to be grateful for then you’re not thinking hard enough. The problem that we have in life is that we tend to compare ourselves too often to those who are more fortunate than us rather than less fortunate. You have so much to be grateful for!

Developing this habit on a daily basis will take time, but like anything, it will get easier as the days go on. When you wake up in the morning, write out what you have to be grateful for. Even if you’re going through a difficult time write out something pertaining to your problems that you’re grateful for. Maybe it’s going to help you learn an important lesson you wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

Daily gratitude is such an important success habit because the mind has a funny way of chaining the prospective lens of our lives when we look for the good in life. When we live a life filled with gratitude, it’s harder to allow the little things to depress us. We can see the bigger picture in things when we’re grateful. So, implement this success habit in your life and write out what you have to be grateful for in your life every single day.

 

Habit #10 – Take Daily Action

Last but certainly not least in the list of success habits is taking action. You’ve probably seen just about everyone tout this as a key recipe in success, and it’s most certainly true. When you can habitually take action towards your hopes and your dreams, you slowly inch forward each day. Even if the progress is minimal, as long as it’s constant, you can move closer and not be left behind.

But, taking action involves overcoming our tendencies for procrastination, which can be overwhelmingly strong in some people. Yet, like anything else, taking action is a habit can either be built up or eroded over time. You must get into the habit to take action, no matter what it takes. Your mind knows what needs to be done, all you have to do is just do it, like the Nike slogan says.

So, how do we make taking action a habit? Well, every single day, find one thing that you’ve been putting off. Whatever that one things is, write it out in front of you. Then, spend just 10 minutes tackling that mental clutter. Why tackle something you’ve been putting off? Well, the mind has a funny way of cataloging clutter; it tends to hold us back and not clear the pipeline towards our goals.

You might have experienced this in the past if you implemented this success habit to tackle something you had been putting off. Once that task was tackled, you felt recharged. A sense of relief overcame you, and you were able to see things clearer and push full steam ahead. Every single day, ensure that you take action and tackle something you’ve been putting off. You’ll come to realize that 10 minutes will turn into 30 minutes and into longer until you clear the clutter in your mind.

 

How to Succeed in Life

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. — Bill Cosby

Just What Is the Meaning of Success?

What does it mean to really succeed in life? Does it mean having lots of money? Maybe it means jet-setting around the world, hobnobbing with the rich-and-famous, and partying like a rockstar. Or, maybe it means living a charitable life devoted to service and helping the less-fortunate in the world meet some basic human needs like food, water, or shelter.

No matter how you look at it, success can meet many different things to many different people. It’s a little bit different for each individual person. We don’t all want success with the exact same things. We don’t all want the exact same amount of money or prestige, but there are certainly some resounding themes to what succeeding in life means.

 

Succeeding in this “Thing” Called Life

Not too long ago, I wrote a book called The Silk Merchant – Ancient Words of Wisdom to Help you Live a Better Life Today. The story is about a man named Pontus, a silk merchant, who lived two thousand years ago. The tale chronicles his life living in the shadows of his half-brother, Tiberius, the King.

Tiberius was the son that was born in wedlock, with nearly every opportunity afforded to him in life. But, Pontus, was the bastard-child who’s mother was discarded by the king and forced to live in poverty. However, the story details just how success met the two brothers in different ways, and just what the meaning of success was to each of them.

To Tiberius, success meant a unification of the three kingdoms, to pillage and plunder his enemies, and to seek his will at all costs. Nothing was sacred to him other than gold. However, to Pontus, who grew up with no silver spoon in his mouth, succeeding in life could only be done in one way: through persistence.

 

Understanding the Foundational Meaning of Success

I won’t spoil the entire back story of The Silk Merchant here, but the book chronicles Pontus’s journey in life and his discovery of the success laws. Of course, you can imagine just how different even two half-brothers’ lives could be when one was handed all the money, power, and influence in the world on a silver platter and the other had to work tooth-and-nail for it.

The point, however, is that, regardless of your specific definition of success, to truly succeed in life, you must abide by a certain set of rules. This “Success Code” if you will, should be the framework that you govern your life by. Because, succeeding in life isn’t easy; we all know that by now. But, what we fail to do are make the proper sacrifices that are required of us for long-term success.

 

Success Laws to Govern Our Lives

When we fail to live by the success laws, we tend to look to the short-term gain over our long-term name. We tend to take the easy way out. We throw in the towel and look for the path of least resistance because that’s how the human mind is designed to operate. The mind is habitual; basal if you will. It operates on innate desires for pleasure that are rooted in our genetic code.

But, it’s our job to override that desire for instant-pleasure and live life according to the success laws. We can’t simply take the easy way out because we’re afraid of the long and arduous journey littered with obstacles that need to be overcome in order to live the life that we truly desire.

Yet, when we’re struggling to pay the bills, who can think of launching a business that would take years to get off the ground before we can even see a decent paycheck? When we can’t afford to enjoy life our minds have a funny way of moving us out of pain and into pleasure. We don’t want to suffer. Human beings weren’t made to just survive, we were made to thrive.

But, although we were meant to thrive, the mind has a funny way of putting what it wants into the short-term perspective and not into the long-term perspective. What do I mean? Well, let’s take cigarette smoking for example. Everyone knows that cigarette smoking is bad for them, yet they still do it. Why is that? The mind is doing more to avoid pain than gain pleasure in the short term, not in the long term.

The cigarette smoker won’t quit smoking because their mind has associated smoking with pleasure in the short term. Once that cigarette hits their mouths and they take that first drag, it’s instantaneous pleasure. Even if they know, somewhere in the back of their minds that cigarette smoke can kill them in the long term, they’ve associated more pain to quitting in the short term than they have to the potential pain and illness it will cause them in the long term.

 

How to Succeed Using the Success Laws

So, we’re not all perfect. Whether we smoke cigarettes or we have some other vice, we all want something out of life. But, usually when we’re pushing towards a goal, we fail or we simply give up. Yes, we do more to avoid pain than we do to gain pleasure. However, what we must do in order to succeed doesn’t involve taking the easy road. In fact, it involves taking a windy and twisty road that could lead to dead-ends in many places.

This is when the foundational laws of success can help to guide us. They can offer a beacon of shining light in a sea of dreaded waters. They’re the GPS system for helping us find our way when we’re lost. As long as you abide by the success laws, you can succeed in life, no matter what that success means to you.

So, what exactly are these success laws? 

 

Success Law #1 – Love

Whatever success means to you in life, you must come from a platform of love. Love is the strongest type of vibrational energy in existence, and anyone who approaches their daily tasks and rituals from a platform of love will succeed. This might sound obscure to you if you’re unable to see the deeper meaning in things.

However, through experiential knowledge, we gain an understanding of just how people succeed in life when they come from a platform of love. The actor who loves his job and puts his all into it, succeeds when they don’t give up. The business owner who loves his customers, his products, or his services, and delivers them, not from a platform of greed, but of love, succeeds in the long term when they don’t give up.

Love is the foundational core to all that we do; it’s the concrete foundation to the skyscraper of success. If you have hate in your heart, immediately replace it with love. Why? Hate can take up so much of our mental, emotional, and spiritual resources, that it can completely stop us dead in our tracks from succeeding. Fill your heart with love every day and you’ll watch how success unfolds over time.

 

Success Law #2 – Faith

Not just religious faith. This is faith in good things to come. It weaves together the invisible with the visible. It calls into action the Law of Attraction that simply states that we will move towards what we believe in. If we believe at the core that we can succeed, whatever that success means to us, we will. When we don’t believe, we can’t do so.

So many people out there will simply say that they can’t succeed in life because they don’t have the right amount of opportunity, money, connections, or anything else. But faith is the belief that, no matter what your situation is, you will be able to succeed. It’s telling yourself that you can overcome any obstacles that are thrown in your way on the path to success.

How you implement the law of faith is entirely up to you. But the more fervently you believe, the more you’re likely to move towards that which you believe in. Now, this doesn’t mean you should ignore your problems. It means that you should solve your problems but focus on the bigger picture; believe even when there’s no reason for you to believe.

When Thomas Edison was inventing the first commercially-viable electric lightbulb he had the faith and belief that he would succeed, eventually. It took him over 10,000 failures to get it right. Could you imagine failing at something 10,000 times yet still pursuing it with gusto? Sometimes, that’s just what it takes.

 

Success Law #3 - Gratitude

The third law of success involves gratitude. It means that you should happily succeed rather than succeed to be happy. You can’t base your entire life and self-worth on some monetary dollar amount. You can’t tell yourself that you’re worthless if you don’t have a million dollars in the bank (or euros, pounds, or whatever other currency amounts to a great sum of money in today’s economy).

Having gratitude and being grateful allows you to approach things differently. It allows you to move along the pathway to success with a different perspective. You can’t focus on missed opportunities, fears, worries, and anxieties. Be happy for what you have, and be grateful that you’re not in a worse situation than you are now. There are far more people out there that are suffering more than you.

Look to those that are less fortunate than you on your road to succeed in life, whatever that success might mean to you. As soon as you start doing this, you’ll not only experience life on a higher level, but you’ll find some peace-of-mind. Gratitude helps to fill our mind, body, and spirit with an ease of comfort, like a breeze on a summer’s day that lasts longer than expected.

 

Success Law #4 - Integrity

When we want to succeed, some want to do so at all costs. We’ve all had this battle in our minds. Should we take the easy way out, even if no one is looking? Do we look to the short-term gain and sacrifice our long-term name? Integrity is an important law of success, and one that every individual should live by.

We’ve all seen the notable and successful in business fall from grace due to a momentary lapse in integrity. But how many others fail to reach the top due to a lack of integrity from the get-go? Always do things the honest way if you want to succeed in the long term. Sure, taking a shortcut might give you some short-term boost on the road to success, but karma will come back around and spite you.

Don’t ever sacrifice your integrity for anything. Your word should be your bond in life if you want to succeed. Our entire civilization is rooted in this law. Don’t take it for granted no matter what.

 

Success Law #5 - Contribution

Contribution might not seem like a law of success to some people, but it’s just as important as the other laws are. Why is that? Well, when you contribute, you send a message to your mind telling you that there’s more than enough. But, beyond that, you’re also shifting the focus from a solitary-oriented position to a network-oriented position in success.

This mental shift not only helps those that are less fortunate, but it also helps your mind to realize that there’s more than enough to go around and that more is on the way. Many people don’t value contribution. They don’t value the importance of giving to others when striving to achieve whatever successes they desire in life. But it’s as important.

Without contribution, you can’t succeed in the long term. You have to contribute to others whenever you can. Even if you don’t have the money to give to others, give your time, which is far more valuable than money. When you start contributing to others, it will open up a whole new world of perspective that can help build a greater foundation for success in life.

 

Success Law #6 - Family

Family is one of the most important things that we have in life. And, in life, we only get one family. We mustn’t squander our relationships with our family due to petty disputes. No matter what it is, the importance of family is paramount. When there’s relationship stress or internal family conflicts, succeeding at something in life becomes remarkably difficult.

Don’t take family for granted. A harmonious family is integral to success in any area of life. You can’t succeed if you’re spending all of your mental, emotional, spiritual, and even physical faculties entangled with your family. Your mind has difficulty processing an overall advancement in any area of life when so many of its resources are tackling internal strife.

 

Success Law #7 – Restraint

To succeed in life, you have to practice restraint. This applies to all areas of your life, whether it’s financial restraint in the overspending of money, relationship restraint in being true and faithful, business restraint in being honest to customers, clients, employees, and partners, and so on. The list can go on and on. Restraint is something that must be rigorously practiced if you want to succeed in life.

But the fundamental success law of restraint also boils down to our desire for instant gratification and pleasure that’s akin to all human beings. We’re pleasure-driven animals; it’s instinctive in us to want to satisfy our urges immediately. Think about the impatience of the population as a whole – we want what we want and we want it now, whether it’s high-speed internet, prompt service at restaurants, or anything else; we live in a “now” society.

So, being able to override our internal psychology is akin to succeeding at anything. If you want to shoot for long-term success you must practice restraint in every area of your life. This goes for anything that you could overindulge in from alcohol, to cigarettes, to prescription drugs, to food, and so on.

 

Success Law #8 - Focus

On the other end of the spectrum from restraint lies focus. When we’re able to focus our mind’s eye on something, we can draw it nearer to us. Think about a car that you’ve recently purchased or leased in the past. Suddenly, once the transaction has been completed, you see that car everywhere. Do you think that it’s because, somehow, mystically or magically, more people purchased that car suddenly after you decided to do so? Of course not.

This is an example of the mind’s ability to focus on something and begin to see it everywhere. When we don’t focus on things, we fail to see see them or draw them nearer. Furthermore, focus is an important law of success because, without it, we couldn’t inch closer to our hopes and dreams with each passing day. Focus allows us to succeed over the long term, not in the short term. And, when someone lacks focus, they lack the ability to succeed in any area of their life.

Success in any area of life has a lot to do with your ability to focus on something so wholeheartedly that it becomes almost like an obsession. Find something positive that you want to achieve and focus all of your energy and your efforts on it, and you will be astounded how you’ll come closer and closer to that goal over time.

 

Success Law #9 - Commitment

As you can imagine, commitment is integral to success in any area of life. Giving up is not an option. When the going gets tough, that’s when you have to buckle down. No matter what you want to achieve in life, it’s not going to be easy, especially if that achievement is something that’s notable. Doing something worthwhile is going to be hard and living the life of your dreams isn’t simple, which is why so many people desire it.

Many people start out with goals in life only to give up a short while later. They want to make more money, lose weight, get a better job, have a more fulfilling relationship, and so on, but oftentimes they’re unwilling to do what it takes to attain that. But, for the person that can remain steadfast and committed, eventually, boundless possibilities await. Stay committed to your hopes and your dreams and don’t give up.

When J.K. Rowling was working a menial secretarial job while writing her first Harry Potter book, she certainly stayed committed. In fact, she was so committed to writing that book that she was doing so during her regular work hours, which caused her boss to fire her. Over the course of seven years she suffered through a divorce, the death of her mother, and living on government-assisted welfare, but she stayed committed. And we know how successful that book turned out for her.

 

Success Law #10 – Forgiveness

In life, we must learn to forgive. This is integral to success because if we can’t forgive, we can’t move on. No matter what the situation is, you can forgive but not necessarily forget. When you forgive, you let go of the hatred that holds us back and takes up our precious mental resources. So, you must learn to forgive.

As much as most people want to believe that succeeding in life only amounts to monetary success, it’s far more than that. And, at the heart of a person that’s successful, is a heart that’s pure and forgiving. You can’t achieve ay notable successes when you harbor anger and resentment in your soul and your spirit. Learn to let it go and live a more carefree and success-driven life.

 

Success Law #11 – Action

One of the biggest and most important ingredients to succeeding in life is action. Without action, there is no recipe for success. And, action most certainly is an integral ingredient in the successful life. You must learn to take action, no matter how small that action is. Small actions strung together result in remarkable transformations over time. Get accustomed to taking action in your life. Don’t allow little things to fester into bigger problems due to tendencies for procrastination.

Most of us in life are merely hindered by our inability to take action. We can’t succeed when we’re sitting stagnant and not moving closer towards our hopes and our dreams over time. One of the biggest ingredients of success is the ability to consistently take action day-in and day-out. If you don’t find yourself taking action, then you might either not want something bad enough or you’re stifled by bad habits that are holding you back.

Break the pattern by deciding what you want in life and why you really want it. Set some goals and move towards them each and every single day and learn how to manage your time. Eventually, you’ll succeed, but it won’t happen over night.

 

Success Law #12 – Be Present

Last but not least in the success laws is to be present. When we can be present we can learn to enjoy the journey. By living in the moment we can concentrate on the here-and-now and not worry so much about the past or fret over the future. What’s important is right now. If you can learn to be present you can begin to appreciate the ride.

Remember, succeeding in life isn’t just about the destination, it’s about the journey. The journey is what’s going to make us into better persons.

However, most people have difficulty with being present. If you fit this description, take up meditation or enroll in a yoga class. Learn the skills of how to control your breath and your thoughts so that they serve you in the present moment in time. By worrying and being anxious, you’re only going to materialize those worries into physical ailments due to the stress hormones that wreak havoc on our bodies. When you have mental anxieties, those anxieties can translate into physical illnesses.

 

What Does Success Mean to You?

I would love to hear what success means to you. Feel free to comment on this article below. If you feel like this article was an insightful read, please share it with your friends or loved ones.