by Scott Allan
When we accept that life is hard and not always fair, we are open to the idea that everything is driven by the power of choice. You can choose to live as you always have, or you can choose to adopt a new set of principles and habits that foster change.
Instead of performing work just for the sake of keeping busy, your actions will be driven by your purpose. Your passion becomes an unbreakable obsession.
We must constantly focus on ridding ourselves of any negativity that makes us ill. Old thoughts must be replaced. Destructive habits must be cast aside and new habits created. The old ways that no longer serve the vision you hold for yourself must be replaced by a new set of strategies. If you do these things with consistency, commitment to creating an empowering life will become the cornerstone of purposeful living.
Integrating Habits into Daily Living
The core of any discipline begins with controlled action. Integrating habits with purpose leads to successful results. When you are in control of your best habits, you can effectively master anything you set out to learn. If you’re looking to redefine the way you’re spending your life, take a look at the habits occupying your time.
Ask yourself:
How can I do this better, more efficiently, or more creatively?
What habits do I need to create to get what I want?
Do I have any habits that are lessening my chances for a better future?
The habits you form today will define who you are. Match your choices with habits that lead toward living your ideal lifestyle.
For example, if you want to have more money, but compulsive shopping is a problem, you need to create a system in which you are saving money regularly.
Adjust your behavior and you’ll see a different result. Perform the right kind of behavior in alignment with your goals and you’ll find the formula for success.
“If you will discipline yourself to make your mind self-sufficient you will thereby be least vulnerable to injury from the outside.”
— Critias of Athens
Negative habits like excessive television watching become automatic reactions when you have time alone. The result is lost opportunity, money, and freedom as you become a slave to your weaker impulses.
If you spend a lot of time watching TV, that means less time exercising, reading, meditating, writing, or working on your dreams. You are exchanging future fulfillment for temporary pleasure.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying some television, but when it takes the place of fulfilling our dreams, we are trading our futures for the sake of entertainment.
The habits you choose to live by are made through smart choices. Be sure to choose what is best for your growth and self-development.
Letting Go of the Material World
Going without the things we want to own is considered a form of personal deprivation in today’s world. Many people eat what they want, buy what they want, and possess whatever they want through any means necessary.
Advertising and marketing campaigns have made it quite clear that the wait is over. Thanks to credit cards, there’s no need to hold out for a well-paying job before owning everything we desire. As long as you have the basic means to cover the minimum monthly fee (not the principle), you can own whatever you want and do whatever your heart desires.
With the right connections, the world and everything in it is ours for the taking. Sadly, many people have bought into this alternate reality and the “buy now, pay later” mindset.
We have adopted the attitude that to live without is to be without. This, combined with poor spending habits, has reinforced the path of least resistance. The result is a complete loss of control with very little discipline for managing our lifestyle or financial future.
Learning to live without is simply learning to say no to impulsive, irresponsible actions so that you can say yes to something positive. Learning to live without is learning to live with more—more choices, more freedom, more money, and more time.
Overindulgence is one of the biggest downfalls of hard-working people. When you focus on overcoming compulsive habits, you will discover a new freedom and a better way of life.
When you make a conscious choice to follow your path, your old life will fall away. You are free to reinvent yourself in any way you like.
When we condition ourselves to live without, we gain more. Decide today that you are going to fill up your life with the riches of harmony and joy. Cast aside addiction to material objects. Become someone who gives more to others. Your life will expand to include better choices and opportunity, richer relationships based on trust, and friendships that last a lifetime.
Instead of trying to acquire more stuff, seek to attract more positive influences into your life. Build higher quality relationships and you will become more fulfilled in ways you never imagined. The fulfillment you seek already exists within, so there is no need to go looking for it.
Breaking Resistance
Putting off vital tasks that are uncomfortable turns into a poor habit that supports the quick fix addiction. The things we avoid are still there the next day.
There is a strong attraction to take the path of least resistance. Instead of doing what we don’t want to do and getting it over with, we procrastinate.
Here are two suggestions to get you moving. Remember that when you put something on the back burner, it eventually goes up in flames.
1. Do the one thing you resist, first
Make a list of tasks you’ve been avoiding. Ask yourself why. Is it because there is paperwork involved, or a phone call you’ll have to make that you’ve been dreading? People resist doing things for what they feel are good reasons. They know this reason, even if they haven’t admitted it to themselves.
Do not allow yourself to make self-defeating excuses. Once you start down this road, the habits you will develop over the years will determine your success or failure. If you develop good habits based on achieving specific goals, you will reach that successful plateau in your life. But if you are feeding into bad habits that rob you of your health, finances, or steal your time away, the results you get will drag you down and failure will be your experience.
Always strive to build the habits that make a positive difference in your life and the lives of other people.
By committing to doing one thing every day that you don’t feel like doing, and completing it, you build the strands of a new habit. If you do this repeatedly for thirty days, your resistance will turn to persistence and you will no longer be making excuses as to why you should be doing something
Instead, you will be making good reasons why it needs to be done right away. And the best part is, once the task is finished, you will have taken control of a big part of your life that was out of control. There is nothing that feels better than knowing you have the power to make choices that govern your own life. Imagine how you would feel after completing the task.
You may discover that the path of least resistance carries no merit. You are avoiding doing things that in fact build your confidence and make you feel better about yourself. Instead of putting things off, form the habit of doing the toughest item on your list first.
Do anything that contributes to progress, whether it means filling out a necessary form or making an outline for a business meeting on Monday. Put the ball in forward motion and do anything that gets you working toward completing your task.
Imagine the project completed. See yourself succeeding at every turn. Imagine what it would be like knowing you have tackled the task, finished it, and now you can take a break and do anything you desire—because you took care of business first.
Developing this habit is the essence of integrating discipline into your daily action plan.
2. Challenge your comfort zone
Most of us live within the confines of a small box. It is in this space that we feel at home, comfortable, unchallenged, and at ease. If you have ever stepped outside this zone, you likely experienced fear, anxiety, or insecurity.
People who stay within limited boundaries rarely make any significant progress. The comfort zone suppresses your potential. Skills remain undeveloped, talents wither and fade, and the mind and body grows lethargic with boredom.
Decide right now to do something every day that challenges you to step out of your safety zone. Try something new. Do something you’ve always wanted to try. Join a gym or take a course you’ve been putting off. Challenge your greatest fear and push hard when you come up against resistance. If you do it once, you will eventually create a new habit for taking on any challenge that comes your way.
Right now, make a list of things you have been resisting. Once you have your list, decide on something you are going to do right away. You will feel out of place and your instinct may be to run and retreat but don’t do that until you’ve given it your everything.
Get into the habit of doing things you’ve always wanted to do, but always feared attempting. The outcome of this habit may lead to life changing events.
Five Habits to Building
Better Discipline
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
— Jim Rohn
Develop Your Plan
In order to train yourself to get the important tasks done first, you have to have a plan for achieving these things. This can be the development of a project you are working on, or the action steps required to complete a long-term goal.
Right now, take out a pen, highlighters, and paper. In the middle of the page, write down the goal or dream you are passionate about pursuing. Now highlight your goal.
Next, brainstorm all the steps you can think of that are necessary to achieving this goal. Don’t worry about the order. You can fill in the details later. Flush out all the ideas and actions that come to mind as you think about this work. Now, on a separate page, organize your thoughts further by writing out the steps needed to carry out these tasks.
Commit to Working Toward Your Plan
A calendar or schedule book would be convenient at this stage. I use a wall calendar to plan my week and my tasks. This is a great form of self-discipline: Getting organized!
Now that you have a list of actions, ordered by priority, you can start penciling in the steps on a calendar. The calendar will serve as a reminder of the actions you are focusing on.
Once you know what to do, it is a matter of committing to it. Know what you have to do, commit yourself to the plan, and then….
Follow Through with Consistent Action
Get busy. Once you commit to your plan, stick with it. The longer you work the action steps and move closer to achieving your goals, the more you will have defeated the path of least resistance. It isn’t enough just to do something every now and then and expect to improve. It has to be consistent. Work until it’s finished.
There is a world of difference between somebody who sits down to practice the piano whenever they feel like it, as opposed to doing it with a set schedule that puts them in the practice seat almost daily.
Consistency is the key to molding a habit. The actions you fix your focus on over a long period of time determine the results you accomplish. By devoting 10 to 20 minutes a day toward mastering a specific skill set, you can set this habit on autopilot after 60 days.
Implement the Seinfeld strategy and use a wall calendar to mark an “action taken” for each day. If you exercise that day, put a check on the calendar for that day. But miss a day and nothing gets checked. Don’t break the chain method which builds consistency.
Manage Your Minutes
Perhaps the greatest test of a person’s disciplinary power is their ability to effectively manage time. Your time is the most limited and precious resource you have. It is more important than money, because even though you can afford to waste your hard-earned cash, time is the one resource you cannot afford to lose. Every day counts.
Keeping a rigorous schedule helps manage your time. When you commit time to a project or task, you are investing in that activity.
The discipline to apply your time and organize it toward actions that make a difference in building the quality of your life is what separates achievers from the drifters.
People who are disorganized and have failed to acknowledge the actions they need to commit to on a daily basis suffer a great loss. They drift from one idea to the next, and one interest to another, without really committing to anything.
In order to manage your time effectively, you must know with accurate precision the actions that need to be taken. Then set aside the time to do the work.
For the rest of the week, take a project or task you have been putting off, or something you’ve been meaning to start but haven’t gotten around to yet. Block off a chunk of time and commit to working during that block of time. Don’t stop concentrating your efforts until the time is up.
Do this for several days and you will have formed the fine strands of a good habit. Do it repetitively for several weeks and those strands will form into unbreakable cables. You will find that your most precious resource is being used to its maximum efficiency.
Take Daily Inventory
Before going to sleep, take a few minutes to review your day. Look at the problems, challenges, and situations you faced and make mental notes of the methods you used to deal with these challenges. How could you have reacted differently? Was the problem resolved, or is it still unfinished?
Take a look at your interactions with people and come up with ideas you can use to improve your communication with them. Make this step a daily habit! This is one of the most important exercises you will do because it is a great way to clean your slate. It will provide you with some perspective as to how you deal with situations and where your weaknesses are in relation to your strengths.
Action Plan
In what areas of your life do you require the greatest self-discipline? Is it your job, family, physical exercise, eating habits, or finances?
How can you apply the principle of discipline to make changes in any or all of these areas?
Who is responsible for teaching you about self-discipline? What are the habits you have acquired that you would like to change? How are you going to change these habits?
What are some core characteristics that separate successful people from those who constantly fail or produce only mediocre results? What do you think are ten habits of successful people? Write out your ideas.
CHAPTER THREE
The Science of
Goal Engineering
“Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.”
— Napoleon Hill
Goals forge powerful roots that build toward long-lasting success and achievement. A system of motivating goals, supported by a commitment to a consistent plan of action, is part of the formula that drives people to succeed.
Creating a system of goals that excite you adds incredible value to your life. A big goal constructs the building blocks for a prosperous future. By creating a system of goals that inspire and motivate us to engage in positive action, we plant the roots of success and design a system that expands on every opportunity.
Goals have the power to unleash your greatest desires and aspirations. With these tools, you can reinforce the vision you have for the life you want to build. All things are possible as soon as you have decided on the course of action that must be taken.
As Lewis Carroll stated, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.”
Your goals provide you with a sense of direction and are the blueprints to construct the reality of your dreams.
Goals provide clarity. Without a concise plan, we shift from one idea to the next. Our dreams become lofty prospects that never materialize into anything concrete. Once you know where you are going, it is much easier to reach your destination when you have a clear line of sight ahead, driven by a system of progressive steps to get you there.
Getting the Details Right
&
nbsp; In its most basic form, a goal is a unit of measurement—your own personal success meter—that tells you how far you have come and the distance to your destination. To have your goals eventually materialize as tangibles in the real world, you must know precisely what you want.
This is achieved when you approach your goals as a creative visionary and by integrating as much detail as possible into your plan.
If you want to build a new home, figure out as many of the details as you can. How does it look from the outside? What is the exact size and model? Where is it located? How many rooms are there, and what does it look like inside? Is there a garden in front? What color is it? Is it made of brick or stucco? Does it have a Jacuzzi or a sauna? Does it have a hobby room or workspace?
Detail builds reality. It moves you from a dreamer to a believer. What the mind can see, it will achieve.
Immediately follow through with a concrete plan that takes you from A to Z. First, build the details in your mind with absolute accuracy. This will give you an incredible insight by helping you to focus on the right actions needed to get where you want to be.
Identifying and being specific about exactly what you want enhances your vision and makes it all the more real. From building a new home to writing a book, taking a trip around the world or designing a new product for your company, everything begins with an idea. This molds the future and the vision becomes reality.
When you know what you want, the journey becomes more real. Being explicit in what you are setting out to achieve makes a difference between following a well-detailed map with all the roads and places labeled and just following a simple drawing with vague directions.
The Steps to Creating Goals