Did you know that habits are incredibly powerful tools for personal growth and success?
Think about the habits you have now and how they affect virtually every aspect of your life. Your weight and health are determined by your eating habits. Your relationships with people are determined by your social habits. Your success at work is determined by your work habits. You have sleeping habits that dictate how well you sleep.
If you ask ten people on the street what the word habit means, nine out of ten will tell you that a habit is a negative action that people do over and over again, like smoking, or procrastinating, or eating too much. Bad habits get all the press. Let’s look at the results of just one bad habit: smoking. Every year, experts say 2,739 people lose their lives every day to smoking-related illnesses in the India. Imagine then, the negative power that exists in just that one bad habit. It is staggering. Now think about an even greater power, a power that can bring you success, health and happiness; a power for positive, permanent, and automatic personal growth: the power of positive habits. Let’s think of the meaning of the word habit. It is defined as an acquired behaviour pattern regularly followed until it becomes almost involuntary. The important words in this definition are acquired and almost involuntary.
You have habits programmed on to your subconscious - some of those habits could lead you to success - some of them could lead you to failure.
If you have a number of negative habits - the kind don't work for you or the habits that actually work against you then you're more likely to be unhappy and not achieve the level of success that you want. Successful and happy people have positive habits that work for them and allow them to enjoy success and happiness. Here's the good news - you can change or get rid of the habits that don't work for you while creating habits that will propel you to success and happiness.
Every habit you have is a result of repeated thoughts and actions that become planted on your subconscious mind - that's how it becomes a habit. Your subconscious mind picks up what you regularly do and think and then you automatically follow what is now a habit. You brush your teeth a certain way because your subconscious mind has picked up on your regular pattern of brushing your teeth - now it's a habit. You drink your coffee or tea a certain way because you've formed a habit. You also have habits of thinking - that you may or may not be aware of - and these thought habits create beliefs - which either work for you or against you. For example: you may have habits of thinking and being negative, you may always think the worst is going to happen, you may always think about why you can't do something, you may always think of why it's difficult to succeed, you may always come up with ways that you will fail - and the list goes on. These negative thought habits will lead to negative actions - and ultimately negative habits that work against you. Any negative thought habit has to be changed or eliminated.
In order to create new, positive thought habits that will catapult you to success - you first have to get a handle on the thoughts that lead to the actions that create the habits. This means recognizing which thought habits are not working for you. Throughout the day - pay attention to what you regularly and repeatedly think about. Make a note of your thought habits. Then take a look and see if those thought habits work for you or against you.
Here's how things get even better. As you instruct your mind and subconscious mind to get into the habit of achieving what you want - your subconscious mind will begin attracting the situations and events to help you accomplish your goals. By taking small steps you follow up on these opportunities. At the same time you move away from the habits that don't work for you because you no longer think about them. Now you're no longer struggling, failing or suffering. Instead, you begin creating the life you want. This is the power of positive habits working at it's very best.