The Power of Habit

“Doers are more successful than dreamers because they take consistent, purposeful action, while dreamers never get started or quickly burn out. Doers have the ability to purposefully effect change in their lives. They accomplish extraordinary things, whether it’s starting their own company, getting elected to public office, running a marathon, or any other extraordinary accomplishment, while dreamers are somehow stuck on the sidelines only dreaming about doing such things.

… The force that empowers the doer yet holds back the dreamer is one and the same. It is HABIT.”

“The one common denominator of all successful people is a routine built on good habits. The most successful people in any field—the most successful athletes, lawyers, politicians, physicians, business leaders, musicians, and sales people, those who are the best at what they do have one thing in common: good habits.”

“Sarasate, the greatest Spanish violinist of the nineteenth century, was once called a genius by a famous critic. Sarasate sharply replied, “Genius! For thirty-seven years I’ve practiced fourteen hours a day, and now they call me a genius.” Clearly Sarasate understood it was not his genius or talent that made him the greatest violinist of his time, it was his habit of daily persistent practice that made the difference.”

“I chose daily running to help me develop a higher degree of self-mastery. Teddy Roosevelt chose a variety of physical activities and exercise. It doesn’t matter what you choose, but it has to be something you have to force yourself to do. It also has to be something you can do daily. Finally, it should be something with beneficial side effects (e.g., exercise provides the benefit of physical fitness, increased energy, increased confidence, improved cognitive function, etc.).

Your daily drudgery can be any form of exercise such as running, weight training, swimming, biking, walking, aerobics, yoga, or martial arts. The choices of exercise are nearly endless. But it doesn’t have to be exercise or physical activity. It can be practicing an instrument, educational reading or writing, correspondence through letters or e-mail, etc. The act itself is not important; the consistency of the act is. It’s the self-discipline, the resolve, and the commitment that results from consistently doing something you hate every day that builds self-mastery.”

“After identifying which habits you wish to develop and which habits you wish to change, it’s important to understand how changing a habit works. It’s often said that habits are hard to break. This is an inaccurate statement. Habits aren’t broken; they are replaced. In other words, you replace, not erase, bad habits. This is an important distinction because if we are to change a bad habit we must carefully consider which habits we are to replace it with.

… Another friend of mine had the bad habit of watching TV while in bed at night until he fell asleep. He purposefully replaced that habit with the habit of reading each night in bed until he was sleepy enough to fall asleep. Again, purposefully choosing new habits to replace old habits will greatly increase your chances of changing bad habits.”

“We all know how difficult habits are to change, and we’ve established many reasons why this is so. In order to change habits, we have to get the attention of, communicate with, and train our subconscious. This is no easy task. That is why it’s so important to attempt changing only one habit at a time. Changing habits requires the power of focus. To illustrate the power of focus consider the analogy of focusing light.

Diffused light has very little power, but you can concentrate the energy of light by focusing it. When rays of light from the sun pass through a magnifying glass, the light is focused and now has the power to set fire to paper or grass. When light is focused further, such as in the beam of a light from a laser, it can cut through steel.

Such is the power of focus when it comes to changing our habits. Focusing our conscious effort on changing one habit at a time gives us incredible power to reprogram our subconscious. Attempting to change more than one habit diffuses our efforts and drastically decreases our abilities to change our habits.”

“A high school football coach was attempting to motivate his players to persevere through a difficult stretch of close losses on the road. Halfway through the season, he stood before his team and said, “Did Michael Jordan ever quit?” The team responded, “No!” He yelled, “What about the Wright brothers? Did they ever give up?” “No!” the team resounded. “Did John Elway ever throw in the towel?” Again, the team yelled, “No!” “Did Elmer Williams ever quit?”

There was a long silence. Finally one player was bold enough to ask, “Who’s Elmer Williams? We’ve never heard of him.” The coach triumphantly snapped back, “Of course you never heard of him—he quit!””

“Early morning is the most critical time of each day. How you spend the beginning hours of your day sets the stage for the remaining hours. If you purposefully establish a routine for spending your early morning as you want to, you will have taken a giant step toward spending the rest of your life the way you want to. How we spend our mornings is the litmus test for our degree of self-mastery. Do we wake up with a plan for the day or are we scrambling, wasting time figuring out what we must do? If we have a plan for the day, do we consistently follow it? Do we follow a purposefully predetermined, set routine which makes us more efficient and productive, and allows more time to think and relax? Or do we haphazardly scramble to get ready and out the door to make it to work just in time? Our mornings expose the power of our routines. Whether our routines are made up of good habits or bad habits is most evident in how we spend our early morning hours. If we are to get the most out of life and come closer to reaching our potential, it’s crucial that we establish good morning habits that allow us to more effectively utilize our early morning hours.”

“Beware of shortchanging your potential by accepting the world “as is” rather than exploring the possibilities and applying your energies to “what can be.” The following story by Mark Twain illustrates how people often don’t live up to their potential.

A man dies and meets Saint Peter at the pearly gates. Realizing Saint Peter was a wise and knowledgeable fellow, he said, “Saint Peter, I have been interested in military history for many years. Tell me, who was the greatest general of all time?”

Saint Peter responded, “Oh, that is a simple question. It’s the man right over there,” as he pointed nearby. The man said, “You must be mistaken, Saint Peter. I knew that man on Earth and he was just a common laborer.”

That’s right, my friend,” replied Saint Peter. “But he would have been the greatest general of all time… if he had been a general.”

We all can do much more than we think is possible. Don’t sell yourself short.”