Million Dollar Habits
By Brian Tracy
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Introduction
You Are What You Do
Chapter-3
Becoming A Person of Value
Chapter-4
The Habits You Need To Succeed
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my three fine brothers- Robin, Dalmar and Paul –
each of them remarkable in his own way, each of them possessed of fine qualities,
buttressed by great habits, and destined for wonderful things.
INTRODUCTION
You Are What You Do
“Habit my friend, is practice long pursued, that at last becomes the man himself.” (Evenus)
Thank you for reading this book. In the pages ahead, you are going to learn a proven and practical series of strategies and techniques that you can use to achieve greater success and happiness in every area of your life. I am going to share with you the so-called “Secrets of Success” practiced by every person who ever achieves anything worthwhile in life. When you learn and practice them yourself, you will never be the same again.
The Great Question
Many years ago, I began asking the question, “Why are some people more successful than others?” This question became the focal point of a lifelong search, taking me to more than 80 countries and through many thousands of books and articles on the subjects of philosophy, psychology, religion, metaphysics, history, economics, and business. Over time, the answers came to me, one by one, and gradually crystallized into a clear picture and a simple explanation.
It is this: “You are where you are and what you are because of yourself. Everything you are today, or ever will be in the future, is up to you. Your life today is the sum total result of your choices, decisions and actions up to this point. You can create your own future by changing your behaviors. You can make new choices and decisions that are more consistent with the person you want to be and the things you want to accomplish with your life.”
Just think! Everything that you are or ever will be is up to you. And the only real limit on what you can be, do and have is the limit you place on your own imagination. You can take complete control of your destiny by taking complete control of your thoughts, words and actions from this day forward.
The Power of Habit
Perhaps the most important discovery in the fields of psychology and success is that fully 95% of everything that you think, feel, do and achieve is the result of habit. Beginning in childhood, you have developed a series of conditioned responses that lead you to react automatically and unthinkingly in almost every situation.
To put it simply, successful people have “success habits” and unsuccessful people do not. Successful, happy, healthy, prosperous men and women easily, automatically and consistently do and say the right things in the right way at the right time. As a result, they accomplish ten and twenty times as much as average people who have not yet learned these habits and practiced these behaviors.
The Definition of Success
Often people ask me to define the word “success.” My favorite definition is this: “Success is the ability to live your life the way you want to live it, doing what you most enjoy, surrounded by people who you admire and respect.”
In a larger sense, success is the ability to achieve your dreams, desires, hopes, wishes and goals in each of the important areas of your life.
Although each of us is unique and different from all other human beings who have ever lived, we all have four goals or desires in common. On a scale of one to ten, with one being the lowest and ten being the highest, you can conduct a quick evaluation of your life by giving yourself a grade in each of these four areas.
Healthy and Fit
The first goal common to all of us is health and energy. We all want to be healthy and fit, to have high levels of energy and to live free of pain and illness. Today, with the incredible advances in medical science, the quality of our health and fitness, and our lifespan, is largely determined by design, not by chance. People with excellent health habits are far healthier, have more energy, and live longer and better than people who have poor health habits. We will look at these habits, and how we can develop them, later in this book.
Excellent Relationships
The second goal that we all have in common is to enjoy excellent relationships, intimate, personal or social, with the people we like and respect, and who like, love and respect us in turn. Fully 85% of your happiness will be determined by the quality of your relationships at each stage, and in each area, of your life. How well you get along with people, and how much they like, love and respect you, has more of an impact on the quality of your life than perhaps any other factor. Throughout this book, you will learn the key habits of communication and behavior that build and maintain great relationships with other people.
Do What You Love
The third goal that we all have in common is to do work that we enjoy, to do it well, and to be well paid for it. You want to be able to get and keep the job you want, to get paid more and promoted faster. You want to earn the very most that is possible for you at each stage of your career, whatever you do. In this book, you will learn how to develop the habits of the most successful and highest paid people in every field.
Achieve Financial Independence
The fourth goal we all have in common is to achieve financial independence. You want to reach the point in life where you have enough money so that you never have to worry about money again. You want to be completely free of financial worries. You want to be able to order dinner in a restaurant without looking at the right hand column to decide how hungry you are.
Developing “Million Dollar Habits”
In the pages ahead, you will learn how to develop the “Million Dollar Habits” of men and women who go from rags to riches in one generation. You will learn how to think more effectively, make better decisions, and take more effective actions than other people. You will learn how to organize your financial life in such a way that you achieve all your financial goals far faster than you can imagine today.
One of the most important goals you must achieve to be happy and successful in life is the development of your own character. You want to become an excellent person in every respect. You want to become the kind of person that others look up to and admire. You want to become a leader in your community, and a role model for personal excellence to all the people around you.
In each case, the decisive factors in the achievement of each of these goals that we all hold in common is the development of the specific habits that lead automatically and inevitably to the results that you want to achieve.
All Habits Are Learned
The good news about habits is that all habits are learned, as the result of practice and repetition. You can learn any habit that you consider either necessary or desirable. By using your willpower and discipline, you can shape your personality and character in almost any way you desire. You can write the script of your own life, and if you are not happy with the current script, you can rip it up and write it again.
Just as your good habits are responsible for most of your success and happiness today, your bad habits are responsible for most of your problems and frustrations. But since bad habits are learned as well, they can be unlearned and replaced with good habits by the same process of practice and repetition.
George Washington, the first President of the United States and the General in command of the Revolutionary Army, is rightly called “The Father of His Country.” He was admired, if not worshiped, for the quality of his character, his graciousness of manner, and his correctness of behavior.
But that is not the way George Washington started off in life. He came from a middle class family, with few advantages. One day, as a young man aspiring to succeed and prosper, he came across a little book entitled “The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.” As a teenage boy, he copied these 110 rules into a personal notebook. He carried it with him and reviewed them constantly throughout his life.
By practicing the “Rules of Civility,” he developed the habits of behavior and manners that led to him being considered “First in the hearts of his countrymen.” By deliberately practicing and repeating the habits that he most desired to make a part of his character, George Washington became in every respect a “self-made man.” He learned the habits he needed to learn to become the kind of man he wanted to become.
The First Millionaire
During the same period, Benjamin Franklin, who began as a printer’s apprentice and went on to become the first self-made millionaire in the American colonies, adapted a similar process of personal development.
As a young man, Benjamin Franklin felt that he was a little rough, ill mannered and argumentative. He recognized that his attitudes and behaviors were creating animosity toward him from his associates and coworkers. He resolved to change by rewriting the script of his own personality.
He began by making up a list of 12 virtues that he felt the ideal person would possess. He then concentrated on the development of one virtue each week. All week long, as he went about his daily affairs, he would remind himself to practice that virtue, whether it was temperance, tolerance or tranquility, on every occasion that it was called for. Over time, as he developed these virtues and made these habits a part of his character, he would practice one virtue for a period of two weeks, then three weeks, then one virtue per month.
Over time, he became one of the most popular personalities and statesmen of the age. He became enormously influential, both in Paris as an Ambassador from the United States during the Revolutionary War, and during the Constitutional Convention, when the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for the United States was debated, negotiated and agreed upon. By working on himself to develop the habits of an excellent person, he made himself into a person capable of shaping the course of history.
You Are in Complete Control
The fact is that good habits are hard to form, but easy to live with. Bad habits, on the other hand, are easy to form, but hard to live with. In either case, you develop either good or bad habits as the result of your choices, decisions and behaviors.
Horace Mann said, “Habits are like a cable. We weave a strand of it every day and soon it cannot be broken.”
One of your great goals in life should be to develop the habits that lead to health, happiness and true prosperity. Your aim should be to develop the habits of character that enable you to be the very best person that you can imagine yourself becoming. The high purpose of your life should be to ingrain within yourself the habits that enable you to fulfill your full potential.
In the pages ahead, you will learn how your habit patterns are developed, and how you can transform them in a positive way. You will learn how to become the kind of person who inevitably and relentlessly, like the waves of the ocean, moves onward and upward toward the accomplishment of every goal that you can set for yourself.
“We first make out habits, and then our habits make us.” (John Dryden)
CHAPTER 3
Becoming A Person of Value
“Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny.” (Tryon Edwards)
Almost everything you are or will be will be determined by your thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Fully 95% of everything you think, feel and do will be determined by your habits. The key to becoming a great person, and living a great life, is for you to develop the habits of success that lead inevitably to your achieving everything that is possible for you.
Fortunately, all habits are learned, and are therefore learnable. If you have bad habits, or if you have not yet developed the habits that you need to become everything that you are capable of becoming, you can develop these habits by a systematic process of practice and repetition, just as you learn any other subject.
Good habits are hard to learn, but easy to live with. Bad habits, on the other hand, are easy to learn but hard to live with. In either case, once you have developed a habit, it becomes automatic and easy. Like breathing in and breathing out, you find it easier and easier to engage in thoughts, feelings and behaviors that are consistent with the person you want to be, and the goals you want to achieve.
Where Habits Come From
A habit has been defined as “a conditioned response to stimuli,” but where do they originate? A habit is developed as the result of your responding in a particular way to a particular stimulus, often starting early in life. It is very much like driving down the road and taking a fork in one direction or another. Whichever direction you go, good or bad, largely determines where you end up.
Fortunately, you are born with no habits at all. You have acquired them all from infancy. Different habits take different time periods to develop, if you desire them, or to overcome, if they are habits that you want to get rid of. As it happens, there is a proven system that you can use to accelerate the process of new habit pattern development.
Behavioral psychologists refer to “operant conditioning” to describe how people learn certain automatic behaviors. They sometimes refer to the “SBC Model” of new habit pattern formation. These three letters stand for “Stimulus-BehaviorConsequences.” First, something happens in your life that stimulates a thought or feeling. Second, in response, you behave a particular way. Third, as a result, you experience a certain consequence. If you repeat this process often enough, you develop a new habit.
The Pavlovian Response
In Pavlov’s experiments with dogs, one of the first major experiments on the role of operant conditioning, a hungry dog was given a piece of meat and a bell was rung at the same time. This process was repeated several times, over several days. Each time the dog received the meat, the dog would salivate in anticipation of the food, and the bell would ring. After repeating this stimulus-response action several times, the dog would salivate automatically upon hearing the bell, even when no meat was present.
In the same way, you can develop conditioned responses to people and situations as the result of previous experiences, either positive or negative. For example, if there is someone in your life that you love and care about, the thought of that person, or the sound of that person on the phone, will immediately cause you to smile and feel happy.
If there is a person in your life, usually from your past, who has hurt you, and made you angry or unhappy, the very thought of that person, or even the person’s name, will immediately trigger feelings of anger or sadness. Many people become trapped by memories of unhappy experiences, which have become habitual responses, and are often unable to let them go.
As Simple As ABC
There is another model of habit pattern development called the “ABC Model.” These three letters stand for antecedents-behaviors-consequences. What psychologists have discovered is that the antecedents, what has happened in the past, stimulate only 15% of your behaviors. Fully 85% of your behaviors are motivated by what you expect to happen in the future, by the anticipated consequences.
For example, if you are preparing to give a presentation, or apply for a job, 85% of your motivation will be determined by what you expect to happen if you are successful. Only 15% of your motivation will be decided by what you have done in the past in similar circumstances.
Expectations Theory
There is a large block of work in psychology called “expectations theory.” The conclusions they have reached are that people are motivated to act in a particular way by what they expect to happen more than any other factor or influence. In other words, you do the things you do because of the consequences you feel you will experience as a result. Expectations Theory explains small things, like what you do and say in a social situation, and large matters, such as capital movements in the international financial markets.
As we discussed in Chapter One, you can actually manufacture your own expectations. You can develop the habit of expecting good things to happen, no matter how they may appear at the moment. Your expectations then influence your attitudes and the way you treat other people. Your attitudes, expectations and behaviors will then have an inordinate influence on the way things actually work out. In effect, you can control much of your own future by expecting things to happen in a positive way.
Unfortunately, negative expectations also become self-fulfilling prophecies. If you expect something to turn out poorly, this will affect your attitude and behavior. Your negative attitude then increases the likelihood that you will experience the negative consequences that you anticipated. If you repeat this often enough, you will develop a negative and pessimistic attitude. This way of thinking will become a habit.
New Habit Pattern Development
How long does it take to develop a new habit? The time period can be any length from a single second to several years. The speed of new habit pattern development is largely determined by the intensity of the emotion that accompanies the decision to begin acting in a particular way.
Many people think, talk about and resolve to lose weight and become physically fit. This may go on for years. Then one day, the doctor says that, “If you don’t get your weight down and improve your physical condition, you are in danger of dying at an early age.”
Suddenly, the thought of dying can be so intense or frightening that the individual immediately changes his diet, begins exercising, stops smoking and becomes a healthy and fit person. Psychologists refer to this as a “significant emotional experience,” or a “SEE.” Any experience of intense joy or pain, combined with a behavior, can create a habitual behavior pattern that may endure for the rest of a person’s life.
For example, putting your hand on a hot stove or touching a live electrical wire will give you an intense and immediate pain or shock. The experience may only take a split second. But for the rest of your life, you will have developed the habit of not putting your hand on hot stoves, or touching live electrical wires. The habit will have been formed instantly, and endure permanently.
According to the experts, it takes about 21 days to form a habit pattern of medium complexity. By this, we mean simple habits such as getting up earlier at a specific hour, exercising each morning before you start out, listening to audio programs in your car, going to bed at a certain hour, being punctual for appointments, planning every day in advance, starting with your most important tasks each day, or completing your tasks before you start something else. These are habits of medium complexity that can be quite easily developed in 14-21 days through practice and repetition.
How do you develop a new habit? Over the years, a simple, powerful, proven methodology has been determined for new habit development. It is very much like a recipe for preparing a dish in the kitchen. You can use it to develop any habit that you desire. Over time, you will find it easier and easier to develop the habits that you want to incorporate into your personality.
Seven Steps To A New Habit
First, make a decision. Decide clearly that you are going to begin acting in a specific way 100% of the time, whenever that that behavior is required. For example, if you decide to arise early and exercise each morning, set your clock for a specific time, and when the alarm goes off, immediately get up, put on your exercise clothes and begin your exercise session.
Second, never allow an exception to your new habit pattern during the formative stages. Don’t make excuses or rationalizations. Don’t let yourself off the hook. If you resolve to get up at 6:00 am each morning, discipline yourself to get up at 6:00 AM, every single morning until this becomes automatic.
Third, tell others that you are going to begin practicing a particular behavior. It is amazing how much more disciplined and determined you will become when you know that others are watching you to see if you have the willpower to follow through on your resolution.
Fourth, visualize yourself performing or behaving in a particular way in a particular situation. The more often you visualize and imagine yourself acting as if you already had the new habit, the more rapidly this new behavior will be accepted by your subconscious mind and become automatic.
Fifth, create an affirmation that you repeat over and over to yourself. This repetition dramatically increases the speed at which you develop the new habit. For example, you can say something like; “I get up and get going immediately at 6:00 AM each morning!” Repeat these words the last thing before you fall asleep. In most cases, you will automatically wake up minutes before the alarm clock goes off, and soon you will need no alarm clock at all.
Sixth, resolve to persist in the new behavior until it is so automatic and easy that you actually feel uncomfortable when you do not do what you have decided to do.
Seventh, and most important, give yourself a reward of some kind for practicing in the new behavior. Each time you reward yourself, you reaffirm and reinforce the behavior. Soon you begin to associate, at an unconscious level, the pleasure of the reward with the behavior. You set up your own force field of positive consequences that you unconsciously look forward to as the result of engaging in the behavior or habit that you have decided upon.
Overcoming Procrastination
For example, procrastination is a problem that bothers almost everyone. Learning to overcome it is an exercise that will pay off for you all your life. To overcome procrastination, you can practice the seven steps described above.
First, make a decision to start in immediately on your most important task each day. Second, never allow an exception until the habit is firmly entrenched. Third, tell others that you are going to stop procrastinating in a particular area. Fourth, visualize and imagine yourself starting right in on a task and working at it non-stop until it is complete. Fifth, repeat over and over, “I start and work immediately on my most important task” Sixth, discipline yourself to persist every day until it becomes automatic for you to start in immediately on your top task. And seventh, reward yourself each time you overcome procrastination and complete an important job. Ever after, practice this process on any new habit you want to develop.
Make new habit pattern development a regular part of your life. Always be working on the development of a new habit that can help you. One new habit per month will amount to twelve new habits each year, sixty new life-enhancing habit every five years. At that rate, your life would change so profoundly that you would become a whole new person in a very positive way.
Take It Easy On Yourself
Where do you start in new habit pattern development? When people first learn about the importance of new habit pattern development, and how positive patterns of thought and behavior can have a wonderful effect on their lives, they often make the mistake of resolving to develop several new habits at once. They decide to improve in every area of their lives simultaneously. They very excitedly draw up a list of new habits that they desire for their work, their financial lives, their business activities, their relationships, their family, their health and their personal organization skills. As a result, they very quickly hit a mental wall, and no improvement takes place at all.
Here is the rule in developing new habits: be patient with yourself. It has taken you an entire lifetime to become the person you are. It is not possible for you to change everything overnight. You should therefore select a single habit that you feel can be more helpful to you at the moment than any other particular habit. Write it down and create a positive affirmation, combined with a visual image, of yourself acting exactly as if you already had that new habit.
You then launch immediately, and never allow an exception. Talk to yourself positively and tell yourself that you already have this habit. Imagine yourself behaving as though you had already learned this behavior. Tell others. Give yourself rewards and reinforcement each time you engage in the new behavior. But only try to change one habit at a time.
Permanent Fixtures of Your Mind
As it happens, old habits do not die. They don’t disappear. When you stop practicing them, and instead discipline yourself to behave in a new way, they become weak and withdraw into your subconscious mind. Your new habits may override and replace the old habits, but you never eliminate them completely. They lurk below the surface, waiting to reemerge at a later time, when the stimulus that originally created them is repeated.
For example, when you were young, you learned how to ride a bicycle. Eventually you began driving a car. Many years, even decades later, you can get onto a bicycle and within a few seconds, you can be riding with the same balance and skill that you had programmed into your subconscious mind as a child.
Many people first learned how to drive a car with a standard transmission, a stick shift. Today most cars have automatic transmissions. You may drive one for years. However, if you were required to drive a car with a stick shift, even after many years, you would slip into the old habit of shifting gears easily and naturally in a few seconds. The old habits never completely go away.
Being and Becoming
You are unique in the entire world. There never has been, nor will there ever be, anyone just like you. And what makes you different and special is your mind. It is you ability to think, to decide and to act.
The sum total of your thinking and experiences in your past is contained in your actions of today, in your habitual ways of reacting and responding to other people. It is only your actions that tell who you are and what you have become.
The good news is that you are not just a human being. You are a “human becomingness.” You are in a continual state of growth and evolution, shedding old ideas and habits and developing new ones. It doesn’t matter where you are coming from; all that really matters is where you are going. And where you are going is only limited by your own imagination.
Action Exercises:
What one habit would you like to have, more than anything else? What one action could you take immediately to begin developing this habit?
What are the most important results or consequences that you want to enjoy: what habits would help you to the most to achieve them?
Select one habit you would like to develop in your financial life and activities: define it clearly and then begin work on it today.
Select one habit you would like to develop in your family life, and the way you interact with others; begin practicing it today.
Select one health habit that could contribute to your health and fitness more that anything else you could do; start it today.
Select one habit that would help you to be more effective and productive at work and begin acting as if you already had that habit.
Imagine that you have no limitations on what you could do, have or be, or on the habits you could develop; what goals would you set for yourself?
“What happens to a man is less significant than what happens within him.” (Louis L. Mann)
CHAPTER 4
The Habits You Need to Succeed
“Self command is not only itself a great virtue, but from it all the other virtues seem to derive their principle luster.” (Adam Smith)
The most important habit you can develop for success, achievement and happiness is the habit of self-discipline. Perhaps the best definition of self-discipline comes from Elbert Hubbard, “Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.”
The habit of self-discipline is closely tied to the Law of Control that we talked about earlier. As you recall, the Law of Control says that, “You feel happy about yourself to the degree to which you feel you are in control of your own life.”
Self-discipline is the key to self-mastery and self-control. The more capable you become of disciplining yourself to do what you have decided to do, whether you feel like it or not, the more positive and powerful you will feel.
The Source of Personal Power
There is a direct relationship between self-discipline and self-esteem. The more you discipline yourself to behave in the manner that you have decided, the more you like and respect yourself. The more positive and confident you will feel. The stronger and more in charge of your life and situation you become.
Every act of self-discipline strengthens every other discipline at the same time. Every weakness in self-discipline weakens your other disciplines as well. Like working a muscle, your ability to discipline yourself to behave in the way that you have decided grows stronger each time you exercise it. This is why the happiest, most successful and most respected men and women in our society are all men and women of great self-control, self-mastery and self-discipline. And this is a habit you can learn, with practice.
Become A Lifelong Optimist
Perhaps the most helpful mental habit you can develop is the habit of optimism. Optimists are usually the happiest, healthiest, most successful and most influential people in every group and society. According to Dr. Martin Seligman, in his book Learned Optimism, people learn to become optimists by thinking the way that optimists think. They in effect learn to be optimists just as pessimists learn to be pessimistic.
We said earlier that the greatest discovery, and the summary statement of psychology, religion and philosophy is, “You become what you think about most of the time.”
What is it that optimists think about most of the time? In its simplest terms, optimists think about what they want and how to get it, most of the time. They think about where they are going and how to get there. The very idea of thinking about what they want makes them happy and positive. It increases their energy and releases their creativity. It motivates and stimulates them to perform at higher levels.
Pessimists, on the other hand, are the opposite. They think and talk about what they don’t want most of the time. They think about the people they don’t like, the problems that they are having, or have had in the past, and especially, they think about who is to blame for their particular situation. And the more they think about the things they don’t want and who is to blame for their problems, the more negative and angry they become. The more negative they become, the faster they attract into their lives exactly those things that they do not want to happen.
Developing a Hardy Personality
There is a relatively new field of medicine called “psychoneuroimmunology.” Research in this area has concluded that the quality of your thinking has an enormous impact on the strength of your immune system. The habit of optimism, combined with a positive mental attitude, seems to strengthen and increase the tcells in the body which are responsible for resisting and overcoming the various factors that contribute to disease and illnesses of all kinds.
Psychologists have now developed a profile of what they call the “hardy personality.” This is the man or woman who seems to respond positively and effectively to adversity and setbacks. He or she is optimistic and forward thinking. It seems that the more optimistic you are, the stronger and more resilient is your mind and body. As a result, you will have higher levels of energy and a quicker recovery rate from fatigue. You will seldom be ill for any reason. If you catch a cold or flu, which will be rare, you will bounce back quickly as the fortified t-cells in your body quickly counter attack and eradicate the infection that is causing it.
Think About What You Want
You develop the habit of optimism by disciplining yourself to keep your thoughts and words on what you want, and off of what you don’t want. You become an optimist by thinking continually in terms of the specific actions that you can take immediately to achieve the goals that are most important to you. The busier you become working toward the accomplishment of goals and objectives that you have set for yourself, the more energy and enthusiasm you will have, the faster you will move ahead, the more you will get done, and the happier you will be.
Earl Nightingale once wrote that, “Happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” When you are working hour by hour and day by day toward the achievement of something that is worthwhile and important to you, your brain releases a steady stream of endorphins that gives you a feeling of happiness and well being. You feel more positive and creative. You have more energy and enthusiasm. This positive feeling acts as a reward or reinforcement that motivates you continually to think the thoughts and take the actions that move you even more rapidly in the direction of your hopes, dreams and goals.
The Orientations of High Performance
Optimistic people think very differently than pessimistic people. They develop a series of “orientations” or general tendencies of thinking that separate them from the average person. These orientations soon become habitual ways of thinking and acting that propel them forward toward the success and happiness they desire. Like all habits, these habitual ways of thinking are learnable through practice and repetition.
As you develop the habits of thinking in these ways most of the time, you become a different person. In a way, these are the habits of “mental fitness.” Just as you would become physically fit if you went to health club and worked out with the equipment regularly, you become mentally fit, positive and optimistic, as you work out your mind practicing these orientations.
Think About The Future
The first way of thinking practiced by optimists is future-orientation. Optimists are those who develop the habit of “idealization.” In the process of idealizing, you take your thoughts off the present situation and you instead imagine a perfect future for yourself in your business, your finances, your family, your health or any other area. You imagine that you have a “magic wand” that you could wave and create your ideal future vision. Instead of worrying or becoming preoccupied with the details of the present moment, you ask yourself, “What would I ideally like to be, have or do sometime in the future?”
You develop the habit of practicing “back from the future” thinking. In this type of thinking, you project forward into the future to your ideal result and imagine what it would look like in every way. You then look back to the present and ask yourself, “What would I have to do, starting today, to create the ideal future that I desire?”
You develop the habit of “long-time perspective.” Instead of focusing continually on the moment, and on immediate actions and gratification, you instead think longterm about what you want and where you are going. The greater clarity you have with regard to the results you want to achieve in the future, the better and more accurate will be your decisions in the present moment. When you idealize and practice long-term thinking, you find yourself setting much better goals and priorities in your day-to-day life.
Think About Your Goals
Goal-orientation is the second quality or way of thinking practiced by optimists and all successful people. In future-orientation, you develop a clear, ideal image of what you want to accomplish sometime in the future. With goal-orientation, you crystallize that image into specific, measurable, detailed goals and objectives that you will need to accomplish to achieve that ideal future vision.
Successful people soon develop the habits of personal strategic planning. They sit down and make a list of exactly what they want to accomplish in the short, medium and long term. They then use a powerful, seven-part goal setting methodology to create blueprints and plans of action that they follow every day.
Once you develop the habit of setting goals and making plans for their accomplishment, it will become as natural for you as breathing. By following a proven goal setting process, you will increase the likelihood of achieving your goals by as much as ten times, by 1000% or more. This is just not a theory; it has been proven and demonstrated on a national basis.
In February 2003, USA Today reported on a study of people who had set New Year’s Resolutions the year before. They found of the people who had set New Year’s Resolutions, but not in writing, only 4% had followed through. But of those people who had written down their New Year’s Resolutions, fully 46% had carried them out. This is a difference in success rates of more than 1100%!
The Seven Step Formula for Goal Setting
There are many formulas and recipes for goal setting. As a rule, “Any plan is better than no plan at all.” Here is one of the best and most effective goal setting plans or formulas you will ever learn:
Step One: Decide exactly what you want in a specific area and write it down clearly, in detail. Make it measurable and specific.
Step Two: Set a deadline for the achievement of the goal. If it is a large goal, break it down into smaller parts and set sub-deadlines.
Step Three: Make a list of everything that you will have to do to achieve this goal. As you think of new items, add them to your list until it is complete.
Step Four: Organize your list of action steps into a plan. A plan is organized on the basis of two elements, priority and sequence.
In organizing by priorities, you determine the most important things that you can possibly do on your list to achieve your goal. The 80/20 Rule applies. 20% of the things that you do will account for 80% of your results. If you do not set clear priorities, you will “major in minors” and spend much of your time doing small and irrelevant tasks that do not help you to achieve the goal.
In organizing by sequence, you determine what has to be done before something else can be done. There are always activities that are dependent upon other activities being completed in advance. What are they, and what is the logical order or sequence?
Step Five: Identify the obstacles or limitations that might hold you back from achieving your goal, both in the situation and within yourself. Ask yourself, “Why have I not achieved this goal already?”
Identify the most important constraint or limitation that is holding you back and then focus on removing that obstacle. It could be a certain amount of money, or a key resource. It could be an additional skill or habit that you need. It could be additional information you require. It could be the help or assistance of one or more people. Whatever it is, identify it clearly and go to work to eliminate it.
Step Six: Once you have determined your goal, developed your plan, and identified your major obstacle, immediately take action of some kind toward the achievement of your goal. Step out in faith. Do the first thing that comes to mind. But do something immediately to start the process of goal attainment moving forward.
Step Seven: Do something every day that moves you to toward your most important goal. Make a habit of getting up each morning, planning your day and then doing something, anything, that moves you at least one step closer to what is most important to you.
The habit of doing something every single day that moves you toward an important goal develops within you the power of momentum. Daily action deepens your belief that the goal is achievable, and activates the Law of Attraction. As a result, you begin moving faster and faster toward your goal, and your goal begins moving faster and faster toward you.
I have spoken to people all over the world, for many years, who have told me that the habit of taking action every day on one or more of their major goals has been life-transforming. They have told me that this single habit has been more responsible for their success than any other idea they ever learned. Try it for yourself and see.
Set Your Goals Each Day
One of the most important habits you can develop is the habit of daily goal setting. Countless people I have taught this to have told me over the years that the power of this process is absolutely incredible!
Daily goal setting is quite simple. Get a spiral notebook to write your goals in, and resolve to keep it nearby for the rest of your life. Each morning, before you start out, open your spiral notebook and start a new page. I always begin with the words “My goals are the following: . . .”
You then write down your top 10-15 goals in the present tense, as though you have already achieved them. Your subconscious mind is only activated by commands that are stated in the present, positive, personal tense. So instead of writing a goal such as, “I am going to lose weight in the months ahead,” you would write instead, “I weigh xxx number of pounds by (a specific date.)”
Instead of saying, “I will earn more money over the next year,” you would say, “I earn X number of dollars by such and such a date.”
The more specific you can be in terms of what you want and when you want to achieve it, expressed in the positive, present tense, and beginning with the word “I,” the more powerful the effect will be on your subconscious mind. Goals written and stated in this way activate the Laws of Expectation and Attraction. They cause you to develop new beliefs about what is possible for you. They activate the Laws of Emotion and Correspondence. They increase your energy and stimulate your creativity.
Positive, personal, present tense goals, written down repeatedly each day, activate your subconscious and superconscious minds and step on the accelerator of your own potential. As a result, you start to move more rapidly toward the achievement of your goals and they begin to move more rapidly toward you.
Think About Excellent Performance
An important habit of thinking developed by optimists is the habit of “excellenceorientation.” The fact is that, to achieve something you have never achieved before, you will have to develop and master one or more skills that you have never had before. By the Law of Correspondence, your outer world will always be a reflection of your inner world. If you want to change something in your outer world, or achieve a goal that you’ve never achieved in the past, you are going to have to change your inner world in some way. Almost invariably, this requires the acquisition of a new skill or set of skills.
Here is the good news. A skill is the same as a habit of performance, and like habits, all skills are learnable. You can learn any skill you need to learn to achieve any goal that you can set for yourself. If anyone else around you has developed a key skill that has enabled him or her to be more successful, that is proof in itself that you too can learn and develop this skill. It is simply a matter of practice and repetition.
Identify Your Key Skills
Excellence orientation requires that you make a list of the key skills that are essential for success in your field. There are usually only about 5-7 skills, or key result areas, that determine most of the success that one achieves in any field of endeavor. Your first job is to identify these key skills and write them down.
Here is an interesting discovery. You have achieved your of success in your field today because of your talent and ability in certain key areas. But at the same time, you are being held back by your weaknesses in other areas. The rule is that your weakest key skill determines the height of your results, and your income. In other words, you could be excellent at six out of seven key result areas, but your weakness in the seventh area will determine your overall results and rewards in that job or field.
You therefore ask yourself this question, ”What one skill, if I developed and did it consistently in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on my career?”
This is one of the most important questions that you ask and answer throughout your career. You must develop the habit of continually identifying and working on your weakest key skill. Bringing up your ability in this one area will usually have a greater and more immediate impact on your results than anything else you can do.
If you do not know the answer to this question (and most people don’t), go to your boss or your coworkers and ask them, “What one skill, if I developed and did it in an excellent fashion would help me the most in my job?”
Pick Up the Pace
Sometimes I ask my audiences, “If a group of children goes for a walk, which child determines the speed of the entire group?” They will always reply and say, “The slowest child.” Exactly.
Your “slowest kid” is your weakest key skill. It sets the speed at which you move ahead in your career, and determines the heights that you reach. And here is another important point. You are almost invariably weak in an area that you do not particularly like or enjoy. But the reason that you do not like or enjoy that area is because you have not yet mastered that area. As soon as you write it down, make a plan, and develop excellence in a particular skill area, you will like and enjoy performing in that area for the rest of your career.
The fact is that you could be only skill away from doubling your productivity, your performance and your income. The acquisition of one key skill where you are currently weak could make it possible for you to use all your other skills at a higher level, and accomplish more in your work than you ever thought possible. What one skill could that be?
Decide today to develop the habit of excellence-orientation. Resolve to join the top 10% of performers in your field. Find out what you have to do, and how much you have to earn, to be in the top 10%. Set it as a goal. Make a plan, work on your plan to develop the essential skills you need every single day. In no time at all, you will be amazed at how quickly your life changes for the better.
The Pursuit of Mastery
The reason that many people underachieve in their careers is because they do not realize how long it takes to achieve mastery in any field. Extensive research in this area suggests that it requires about five to seven years of hard work for you to move to the top of your field. This means five to seven years of focused, concentrated, determined work on yourself to get better and better in the key result areas that are responsible for your results and rewards. And there are no short cuts.
Sometimes people say to me, “Five to seven years is a long time to achieve mastery in my field.” This is true. But I then remind them that, “The time is going to pass anyway.”
This is very important. The biggest regret that many people report is that “they did not start early enough.” But the time is going to pass anyway. Five to seven years from now, five to seven years will have passed. The only question is, “Where are you going to be five to seven years from now in your field?”
The good news is that, if you set it as a goal, make a plan, and work on it every day, five to seven years from now you are going to be in the top 10% of people in your field. You are going to be one of the highest paid and most respected people in your career. You are going to be enjoying the great results and rewards of the top performers in your business.
Remember this. Nobody is better than you and nobody is smarter than you. If someone is doing better than you, it just means that they started work on themselves in a certain way earlier than you did. And whatever anyone else has done, you can do as well. There are no limits except the limits you place on yourself with your own thinking.
The very fact that others have been able to excel in a field, after having started off in that field with no experience or skills, is proof that you can excel in that field as well. Your job is to put your head down, get busy, and go to work on yourself. Resolve today to develop the habit of personal excellence, and focus all your energies on joining the top 10% of professionals in your field. Once you do that, your entire future will open up in front of you. You will become unstoppable.
Commit To Lifelong Learning
Another key habit of thinking and acting practiced by top people is growth orientation. It is the high road to excellent performance and essential to developing the habit of optimism. This method of thinking and living is the foundation of excellence orientation, and is essential for you to develop if you want to move into the top 10% of your field.
Growth orientation requires that you develop the habit of continuous learning, the habit of continuous personal and professional development. Just as you exercise physically on a regular basis to remain fit and healthy, you must exercise mentally on a daily basis to become better and better in your chosen field.
Increase Your Income 1000%?
In my book Focal Point, I explain my “1000% Formula” in detail. In summary, what it says is this: if you work on yourself continually, you can increase your productivity, performance and output by 1/10th of 1% (1/1000th) each working day.
1/10th of 1% per day improvement translates into approximately 1/2 of 1% per week.
1/2 of 1% per week improvement translates into 2% improvement per month.
2% improvement per month translates into about 26% improvement in productivity, performance and output each year.
Almost anyone who dedicates himself to continuous personal growth and learning can upgrade his performance and productivity by 26% each year. An improvement of 26% each year, compounded year by year, means that you will double your productivity, performance and output in 2.7 years.
Over the course of 10 years, by improving yourself by 1/1000th per day (1/10th of one percent), 26% per year, you will increase your productivity, performance and rewards by 1004%. This is an increase in your income of 10 times!
Not long ago, I was giving a daylong seminar in Seattle. A young man approached me at the break and reminded me that he had been through my program and had learned this 1000% Formula some years ago, when he was in his early 20s.
He said, “I just wanted to tell you personally that your formula doesn’t work.”
As you can imagine, I was a bit surprised. I asked him, “How do you mean?”
He smiled broadly and said, “It’s too conservative. It doesn’t take 10 years. It only took me seven years to increase my income 10 times by following that formula every single day. Last year, I earned exactly 10 times what I was earning when I first heard that formula from you when I was 23 years old.”
He told me that his income as a car salesman seven years ago was $35,000 per year. In the previous year, he had earned more than $350,000 and is now one of the top marketing consultants in the automobile industry in the Pacific Northwest. His previous employer pays him as much today, on retainer as a consultant, as he used to pay him for working full time.
Are these kind of results possible for you? Of course they are! The Law of Cause and Effect says that if you do what other successful people do, you will eventually get the same results other successful people get. This is not a wish or theory. It is a universal law. The law itself is neutral. It works for everybody, everywhere.
Three Steps Onto the Fast Track
There are three parts of the continuous learning process. By practicing these activities daily, weekly and monthly, you will increase your productivity, performance and output by 1/10th of 1% per day, compounded. You will eventually become one of the highest paid and most successful people in your field. There are no exceptions.
Step One: Arise early each morning and read for 30-60 minutes in your field. Underline and take notes. Think of how you can apply what you are learning to your day-to-day work. Throughout the day, think of how you can use what you read to be more effective. At the end of each day, review the day based on your new knowledge and skills and evaluate your results and progress.
There is an important psychological principle called the “Hawthorne Effect.” In short, what this principle says is that, “The very act of paying attention to a particular behavior causes you to improve your performance in that area.”
For example, if you decided that you were going to develop the habit of listening more closely to people when they spoke, and interrupting less, the very act of thinking about listening would cause you to become a better listener.
If you decided that you were going to focus on punctuality each day until you developed punctuality as a habit, the very act of thinking about being more punctual would cause you to become more punctual in your personal and professional life. The more you think about a behavior, the better you will become in that area.
When you read in your field for 30-60 minutes each day, and think throughout the day about how you could apply what you have learned, you will tend to become better and better at what you do, both consciously and unconsciously. The improved results you get will accumulate and compound over time. You will become better and better at what you do almost without being aware of it.
A College Degree Each Year
If you read 30-60 minutes each day, this will add up to about one book per week. The average American reads less than one book per year. If you read one book per week, this will add up to about 50 books each year. As it happens, to earn a Ph.D. from a major university requires the reading and synthesis into a dissertation of about 40 to 50 books.
If you were to read one book per week, 50 books per year, you would be getting the equivalent of a practical PhD in your field each year. If you continued reading at this level, 50 books per year, you would read 500 books in the next 10 years. If you were to read 500 books in your field, in a world where the average person reads less than one book per year, do you think that this might give you an edge?
The fact is that you would become one of the best read, most knowledgeable, most expert and highest paid people in your field if you were simply to develop the habit of reading each morning in your field for 30 to 60 minutes. I have never met anyone, anywhere, throughout the world, who has not transformed their lives and their careers by the habit of daily reading.
You must discipline yourself to leave the television or radio off, to put the newspaper aside, perhaps to arise a little earlier in the morning, so that you can invest in your mind. This investment will give you one of the highest pay-offs in terms of results, rewards and satisfaction that you will ever enjoy from anything that you do.
Learn From The Experts
The second habit that you need for growth orientation is the habit of attending every seminar and course you possibly can. Do not make the mistake of waiting for courses and seminars to come to you, or waiting for your company to organize and pay for additional training. You are completely responsible for your own life, which includes your own personal and professional development. No one cares as much about your future and your career as you do. No one cares about your ability to increase your income and move into the top 10% of your field as much as you do. You are responsible.
Over the years, I have spoken to more than two million men and women in 25 countries. I have filing cabinets full of letters, faxes and emails from my students and seminar participants. Many of them write and tell me that they will travel across the country in order to attend a seminar or workshop given by an expert or specialist in their field. They will invest enormous amounts of time and money to acquire the additional specialized skills they need to move ahead more rapidly in their field.
Over and over, my students tell me that they have sometimes saved themselves years of hard work as the result of attending a single program. Some of them have even gone to the top of their fields and become millionaires as the result of learning one new set of skills that was relevant and immediately applicable to their field.
There is something remarkable that takes place in an adult learning situation. It is very different from attending a required course in college or university. The type of people who attend adult seminars are a much higher caliber than you meet in your day-to-day life. They are more positive, more highly motivated, have bigger and better goals, and are more determined to succeed. When you spend several hours in their company, it has a subtle but powerful subconscious effect on you. You actually become a better and more focused person by the very act of associating with other successful people in an adult learning situation or seminar.
Make it a habit to seek out and attend at least four seminar programs per year in your field. If your organization has annual or national conventions, be sure to attend. Eagerly seek out and sit in on the most important talks and lectures at each of these workshops or annual meetings. Sometimes, one good idea from an expert in your field can transform your entire career.
Your University on Wheels
The third habit you need for growth orientation is the habit of listening to audio programs in your car as you drive around, and as you walk or exercise. Audio learning is considered by many to be the greatest breakthrough in education since the invention of the printing press. And I agree.
I discovered audio learning at the age of 23. I was frustrated, working long hours and broke. When I began to listen to audio programs on a portable cassette player that I carried around with me, like a purse, my life transformed in a way that I never thought possible. By learning the critical skills of selling from experienced professionals who had been selling my product for many years, I was able to go from the bottom of my sales force to the top in less than six months.
Eventually, I became a sales manager and trained dozens of people in the same techniques. Over the years I have trained hundreds of thousands of sales professionals in the very best skills and methodologies ever discovered in professional selling. Many of them have gone onto become sales leaders and even millionaires as a result. My own audio program, “The Psychology of Selling” has become the top-selling program of its kind in the world, in sixteen languages.
The average person spends 500 to 1000 hours each year in his or her car. This is the equivalent of three to six months of 40-hour weeks, or the equivalent of one or two university semesters.
In fact, the University of Southern California recently concluded that a person could get the equivalent of almost full time university attendance simply by listening to educational audio programs rather than music as she drove from place to place during the course of the week.
Reid Buckley, the professional speaker, once said, “If you are not continually learning and upgrading your skills, somewhere, someone else is. And when you meet that person, you will lose.”
The Race Is On
There is a race on today, and you are in it, whether you know it or not. If you have not yet developed the habit of reading each day, attending seminars and courses regularly and listening to audio programs in your car as you move around, somewhere, someone else is doing this. Inevitably, that person will win the race, and you will lose.
The good news is that an average person, who develops the habit of lifelong learning, will eventually run circles around a genius who goes home and watches television each night. There is perhaps no habit that will more guarantee your success in life than the habit of continuous personal and professional improvement.
The pay-off in improved results in your field will be tremendous. But the best payoff of all is that you will become more positive and optimistic. You will have more energy, be more creative and be a happier person as you continue to grow and grow toward the realization of your full potential.
The habit of continuous learning enables average people to become top performers in their fields. It enables people to go from rags to riches. It enables people to rise from poverty and frustration to affluence and success. Continuous learning opens every door for you. It increases your intelligence and creativity and puts you onto the fast track in your career. Continuous learning, like nature, is neutral. Anyone can use it to accomplish extraordinary things in life. It is one of the best habits you can ever develop, and the pay-off from continuous learning will last you all the days of your life.
You Determine Your Own Destiny
Each person is essentially self-made. The person you are may have been determined by your childhood experiences. But the person that you become, the person that you may be, is completely under your own control. The great principle, that “You become what you think about most of the time” refers to what you are thinking today, at this very moment. It is not your thinking of the past, or your thinking in the future, that determines the course of your destiny. Everything you are, and everything you will be, is determined by the thoughts that you think at each moment. And you can take complete control of those thoughts at any time you decide to.
You become an optimist by taking control of your inner dialogue, your self-talk. Resolve today to develop the habit of talking to yourself in a positive way. Say things to yourself like, “I like myself!” Say, “I can do it!” over and over again. If someone asks you how you are feeling today, always reply by saying “I feel terrific!” When you think about your job, repeat to yourself, “I love my work! I love my work!”
Fully 95% of your emotions are determined by the things you think and the words you say to yourself as you go throughout your day. Use your self-discipline and self-control to think and talk about the things you want, rather than allowing your mind to become preoccupied with the things that you don’t want, or with your doubts and fears.
What You See Is What You Will Be
The most powerful affirmation or message that you can send from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind is a visualization or mental image. Develop the habit of creating clear, positive, exciting pictures of yourself performing at your best, and of your goals as if they were already achieved.
Each time you create a mental image in your conscious mind, you send a message that activates your subconscious mind, triggers the Law of Attraction, stimulates your creativity, and moves you toward the realization of that mental picture in your external world.
Positive, successful people make a habit of continually visualizing the outcomes that they desire, thereby programming their subconscious minds and shaping their self-image and their external performance.
But best of all is when you combine positive self-talk with positive mental imaging. You talk about the things you want and you create exciting mental pictures of your goals and desires as if they already existed in your reality. Positive thoughts and words make you more optimistic, give you more energy, enable you to bounce back faster from disappointment and keep you moving forward throughout the day.
Feed Your Mind With Mental Protein
Develop the habit of feeding your mind with positive mental food, as well. Remember, you are very susceptible to the suggested influences in your environment, whether radio, television, newspapers, magazines, billboards or conversations with other people. Your mind is your most important and precious asset. You must protect it and keep it clean, clear and focused on what you want, rather than allowing it to be polluted by the negative influences around you.
Refuse to watch terror or trash on television. Refuse to read about all the murders, robberies, rapes and tragedies in the newspapers. Refuse to listen to endless hours of mindless radio commentary on all the problems in the modern world. Refuse to engage in endless conversations with people about all the political and social problems in your nation or community. Keep your mind clean, clear, positive and free.
Not only do you become what you think about, but also you become what you feed into your mind on a regular basis. If you want to be positive, optimistic and happy, continually feed your mind with positive books and articles, positive audio learning programs, positive input and information from other experts in your field, and positive conversations with other optimistic goal-oriented people who are going somewhere with their lives.
Get Around The Right People
Make it a habit to only associate with the kind of people that you like admire, respect and want to be like. Do not drink coffee with whoever is sitting there. Do not go out for lunch with whoever is standing at the door. Do not socialize after work with whoever invites you. Be very conscientious and clear about the kind of people that you are going to allow to influence your thinking and feeling by their conversations and opinions.
Dr. David McClelland found that fully your “reference group” would determine as much as 95% of your success or failure in life. These are the people that you habitually associate with and consider yourself to be one of. These can be members of your family, your coworkers, members of your political party, church or social organizations. The fact is that, “Birds of a feather flock together.” Or as Zig Ziglar says, “You can’t fly with the eagles if you continue to scratch with the turkeys.”
Take Action on Your Goals and Plans
Finally, in becoming everything that you are capable of becoming, develop the habit of action orientation. In every study of successful people, in virtually every field, the quality of action orientation emerges as the most outwardly identifiable quality of people who are going somewhere in their lives and careers.
Action orientation means that you develop the habit of moving quickly when you have an idea or opportunity. You think continually in terms of the specific actions that you can take now to move closer to achieving a goal or getting a result that is important to you. Instead of talking endlessly about what you are going to do in the future, you act immediately to do something in the present.
Winners and Losers
The American Management Association reported on a study of managers who had been divided into two groups, those whose careers has flattened out and those whose careers were moving upward and onward at a rapid rate. They interviewed both groups to try to determine the differences that accounted for their relative levels of success and failure.
What they finally concluded was that it was not education, experience, background, networking or intelligence. The critical difference between success and failure was contained in the habit of taking the initiative. Managers and executives who were on the fast track were constantly moving out of their comfort zone and taking the initiative to try new things in new areas.
On the other hand, managers who were being continually passed over for promotion were continually waiting for someone to come along and tell them what to do. Once they had been given clear instructions, they seemed to be quite competent at carrying out their responsibilities. But the idea of initiating in the first place was alien to them.
You Can Do It
Once you have defined your ideal future, set and determined your goals and plans, developed a strategy for achieving excellence in your field, and committed yourself to continuous learning, develop the habit of moving quickly and taking the initiative in each area of your life that is important to you. Instead of waiting for things to happen, develop the habit of making things happen. Instead of waiting for things to get better, take the initiative to change or improve whatever situation you find yourself in.
It is not easy to change your entire way of thinking and become an extraordinary person as the result of your own efforts, and your own work on yourself. But it is definitely possible, when you accept complete responsibility and take full control over the evolution and development of your own character and personality.
The most important part of this chapter, and this book, is action. It is not what you read or learn, but the specific actions that you take. Researchers have found that there is a direct relationship between how quickly you take action on a new idea, and how likely it is that you will ever take action on any idea at all. The very act of moving quickly in one area seems to develop the habit of moving quickly in other areas.
If you have learned something that is important to you in this chapter, or if you have an idea about something that you can do immediately that can improve some part of your life, resolve to take action on it immediately. Do it now. Develop a sense of urgency. Hurry. Resolve to become known as the kind of person who moves fast on any new idea or possibility. This can be one of the most important habits you ever develop.
Action Exercises:
Select a result, outcome or success you would like to have in your life, and then decide upon the one habit that could help the most to achieve that goal;
Develop the habit of future-orientation by thinking and imagining your ideal future in your business or personal life, and working toward it;
Develop the habit of goal-orientation by selecting one main goal, making a plan for its accomplishment, and then working on it every day;
Develop the habit of excellence-orientation by selecting one key skill that would help you more than any other, and then working on becoming better in that area every day;
Develop the habit of continuous learning by reading, listening to audio programs and attending seminars as a normal and natural part of your life;
Develop the habit of writing and rewriting your goals in a spiral notebook each morning before you set out;
Develop the habit of action-orientation by taking the initiative, by daring to go forward, by moving quickly on opportunities, or to solve problems.
“If you can win complete mastery over self, you will easily master all else. To triumph over self is the perfect victory.” (Thomas A. Kempis)
