Habits

New Year's Resolutions are a commitment that an individual makes to a project or the reforming of a habit, often a lifestyle change that is generally interpreted as advantageous. The name comes from the fact that these commitments normally go into effect on New Year’s Day, and remain until fulfilled or abandoned. The concept, regardless of creed, is to reflect upon self-improvement annually.

Do you want to achieve success and avoid failure? Success, and failure are simply habits, and the good news is that good habits are just as difficult to break as bad ones. You don’t believe me? Would you stop brushing your teeth for one month if I were to pay you fifty dollars? Probably not. How come? Because good habits are just as difficult to break as bad ones! Motivation is the ignition that gets us started on the road to success and good habits are the fuel that keeps us making progress. Just as bad habits left unchecked snowball and lead to a downward spiral, good habits escalate and lead to an upward spiral. Each good habit we gain frees us to focus on bigger and better things

The truth is life does not just happen, and success is not an accident. Your life and success are a result of your daily habits. Successful people have successful habits. Did you know that 90% of normal behavior is based on habit? That is amazing when you think about it - you can reprogram any aspect of your life at anytime if you choose to do so. No one drifts to success. It is the result of clear choice and successful habits today that create the tomorrow you desire. If you want to improve the quality of your life you must embrace habits that produce quality results. Quality is not an act, but a habit. Negative habits result in negative consequences; successful habits in your life will produce a steady stream of positive rewards.

Change takes an instant to occur and time to mature. You can turn your negatives into positives by changing your habits now. How much time does it actually take to change a habit? The most common response is 21 days. Studies have shown that if you practice a new habit for an average of 21 days or longer in some cases, it actually becomes easier to do the new habit then it is NOT to do the new habit.

This is just a baseline. For any habit you want to change you must ask yourself how long you've owned that habit. Some habits will take longer to change depending on how long and how often they have been practiced. The important thing above all will be to remain committed to establishing new habits that build a better future and not falling back into old habits that will only produce the same unhappiness and failure that you may be trying to move away from.

Your actions are product of how you think as all actions flow from your mind and from thought. Habits are those automatic behaviors that have their roots in your thought processes somewhere. Understanding that habits are a result of repeated behavior is powerful for you because therein lies your greatest hope and victory for positive change: Reprogram those automatic habits! If you are to make excellence a habit, you must thoroughly examine your actions and see whether they match what you desire. If they do not, you must make the choice to respond differently than you have in the past.

‘Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit,’ Aristotle.