The choices we make lead to the character we build
What Are Success Habits™?
To me, success habits™ are the things we use to create our best life. In my own life, they are things focused on positive behaviors to grow myself. After I put some of these things in place I started seeing the benefits of them and my life was starting to get noticeably better and more joyful.
Then I named them SUCCESS HABITS™ for an ongoing positive reminder. After years of growing I realized that I wanted to help others apply these ideas and recreate some of the goodness I was seeing in my life. Every person and path is different, but what I believe is ALWAYS the same is how they got there and for me it seemed the answer was building what I now call Success Habits™ and doing them daily.
These could be big or very small things. So for example, one of my own Success Habits™ is reading. Since I committed to this years ago, I have read over 100 books a year for several years in a row. This blew me away that this was even possible in my world, but I started small and grew this habit. I try to read at least an hour a day or 30+ hours a month. I play and work in the personal development space so these ideas and practices grew me as a person, not to mention growing my brain and building more healthy habits.
A small habit could be something like – committing to opening the door for every person you come in contact with. It could be smiling at every person you see. It could be packing little lunch packs that do not need to be refrigerated that you hand out to homeless folks on the corner.
Whatever it is, these are little skills and habits that make the world a little better, but the key is consistently doing them day in and day out.
Years ago, I read the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. This book is good and the concept in this video helps us understand the Habit Loop for building habits – Cues, Routines, and Rewards. I have been studying this stuff for a long time. A decade or so ago, I studied Jeff Olson’s audio The Slight Edge. The biggest take away is this stuff is easy to do, but also easy not to do. So How Do we commit to them? James Clear also added some new insights in his book Atomic Habits. One of the big takeaways was – start small micro-habits. These micro habits can grow into more solid and stable bigger habits.
Wisdom From the Ages…
Okay, so I was originally introduced to this quote as it was something coming from The Dhammapada (rumored to be the most widely read Buddhist scripture in existence). It seems maybe it wasn’t from the Buddha but there are a handful of other folks it is linked to. The origin may not mater as much as the message – at least for me. Here it is and I think it ties in so perfectly with the idea of Success Habits…
The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings…
As the shadow follows the body,
as we think, so we become.
Thoughts…
When we think bad or evil thoughts, these turn into negative words. So how can we cultivate positive thoughts? Well, I think we can do this by the friends we keep and those we hang out with most. We can also plant seeds of positivity by being careful what we consume. What I mean here is things in the media, music, movies, video games, books, websites, and the like.
You know the old saying… You are what you eat. So consuming negative or violent content can lead to acceptance of these ideas. So seek positive books, movies and the like to plant those seeds of positivity, kindness, respect, and love.
Words…
Your thoughts moving to your words can bring out kind words or negative words. The choice is yours and those thoughts we just mentioned cultivate the words you start using. I have a foul mouth and I can tell you these words were influenced by my thoughts and exposure to the things I consumed.
Do these words serve my children? Not really. Is it easy to break a lifetime of using them? Not at all.
Although these things ARE a choice, it does mean disrupting the conditioning society has built for us and honesty, breaking free of this conditioning is not that easy. It takes commitment and I truly believe life purpose, but that opens up a bigger topic that I cannot cover today.
Deeds…
The definition of a deed is – an action that is performed intentionally or consciously.
I grew up on a bit of AC/DC back in the late ’70s early ’80s and you may know where this is going… I recall Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheep. Ha!
So this is where my mind first goes when I think of “deeds”. The next thought is doing good deeds for people. But I ask, why are “Dirty Deeds” where my mind goes first? Probably from my consumption over the last 30-40 years.
Now I try to put a lot more positivity out into the world, but it takes work and strategy and even some reprogramming of my past conditioning.
Habits…
In the last 25 years I have spent a lot of times learning about habits and trying to learn how to build positive habits. Mostly to grow my business, but over time these strategies started moving towards growing me as a person and becoming a better more honorable person. As I’ve mentioned already though, I’ve had my fair share of less than stellar habits and some that still hang on.
I will say however that as you become aware of this path you start doing the small intentional things to to find a better way, it gets easier to change bad habits and/or create new better ones. It is that intentionality or the more purposeful direction you go with these more positive habits that reap the greatest rewards. The silly thing about all of this stuff is it is all a choice. As with the two internal wolves analogy – the one you feed wins the battle. What wolf are you feeding?
Character
And with all of that and walking this path of thinking healthy thoughts, spreading kind words and healing supportive actions you build the habits that turn into character. The character you build is the new way of life it can be positive or full of strife.
This is the success path to bring you joy, to end your suffering, and change the world. Oh Boy!
Want to try building a healthy habit?
Try the 30-Day Daily Meditation Habit Builder Challenge!
