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Tip 12 - How to get the success habit

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Probably the best set of habits for success are those described by Stephen Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. A summary of these appears later on. Most of life is habitual. We do many of the same things we did yesterday, the day before and probably every day for as long as we can remember. It’s estimated that out of every 11,000 signals we receive from our senses, our brain only consciously processes 40; that leaves 10,960 potential habits. Of course there are good habits and bad habits and most habits arrive without really thinking about them. So how do you go about consciously developing new good habits and getting rid of old bad habits?

Here’s a way to re-engineer many aspects of your life. You may want to use these tips to improve your health, change your diet, exercise regularly, cut out television, enhance work routines and/or get the Covey success habits in your life. These may be small changes that, when put on autopilot, can result in a hugely improved quality of life.

One Habit For 30 Days - Steve Pavlina, popularised the 30 day trial. You focus on one change for just thirty days. After that time it has been sufficiently conditioned to become a habit. It works to mould the automatic programs that run in the background of your mind.

Keep it Simple - Your change should involve one or two rules, not a dozen. Exercising once per day for at least thirty minutes is easier to follow than exercising Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays with yoga the first day and mountain biking the third day, except when it is raining in which case you will do… Simple rules create habits, complex rules create headaches.

One Habit at a Time - A month may seem like a long time to focus on only one change, but trying to change more than a few habits at a time rarely works. With just one habit change you can focus on making it really stick. Multitasking between three or four often means none become habits.

Consistency is Key - The point of a habit is that it doesn’t require thought. Variety may be the spice of life, but it doesn’t create habits. Make sure your habit is as consistent as possible and is repeated every day for thirty days. This will ensure a new habit is drilled in, instead of multiple habits loosely conditioned.

Get Leverage - Give a friend fifty pounds with the condition to return it to you only when you’ve completed thirty days without fail. Make a public commitment to everyone you know that you’re going to stick with it. Offer yourself a reward if you make it a month; anything to give yourself that extra push.

Balance Feedback - The difference between long-term change and giving up on day 31 is the balance of feedback. If your change creates more pain in your life than joy, it is going to be hard to stick to. Don’t go to the gym if you hate it. Find diets, exercise, financial plans and work routines that are fun to follow and support you.

Use Milestones - Most habits go through a series of phases in terms of conditioning. The first is after thirty days. Here it doesn’t require willpower to continue your habit, but problems could get in the way of continuing. After ninety days the change should be no more difficult to continue than to discontinue. At one year it is generally harder not to run the new habit than to continue with it. Be patient and run habits through the three Milestone checks to make them stick.

Use an Anchor - An Anchor is a short ritual you perform before ‘practising’ a new habit. If you wanted to wake up earlier this might mean jumping out of bed as soon as you hear the sound of your alarm. If you wanted to stop smoking this could be snapping your fingers every time you feel the urge for a cigarette. An Anchor helps condition a new pattern more consistently. The anchor will no longer be needed when the habit is bedded in.

Replace Lost Needs - You can’t just stop bad habits without replacing the needs they fulfil. Giving up television might mean you need to find a new way to relax, socialise or get information.

Use “But” to Kill Bad Thoughts - Usually avoid using the word “but”. The exception to this is when you feel yourself thinking negatively about yourself. Use the word “but” and point out positive aspects. “I’m not good at doing this – but – if I keep at it I can probably improve.”

Write it Down - Don’t leave commitments in your brain. Write them on paper and put them somewhere you can see every day. This does two things: first, it creates clarity by defining in specific terms what your change means; and second, it keeps you committed, since it is easy to dismiss a thought, but harder to dismiss a promise printed in front of you.

Experiment - You can’t know whether a different habit will work until you try it. Play around with key habits until you find ones that suit you. Don’t try to follow habits because you should, but because you’ve tested them and they work in your life.

Summary of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Covey lays out 7 proven principles for success.

Number 1 - Be Proactive.
That’s self explanatory. It means you are taking the initiative. You are not living reactively, but are taking a proactive stance in your life.

Number 2 - Begin with the End in Mind.
The End is really your goal or your goals. Effectiveness is not just a matter of reaching a goal but rather of achieving the right goal. Imagine yourself sitting at the back of the room at your funeral, and what people could honestly say about you based on the way you are now. Do you like what you hear? Is that how you want to be remembered? If not, change it.

Number 3 - Do first things first.
This means to focus on your most important priorities, your top priorities. This doesn’t always mean urgent. The phone is ringing, and picking it up might seem urgent, but the caller is not always important. Don’t get distracted from your goals. Make sure you know what your top priorities are and focus on them.

Number 4 -Think Win Win
In personal, business or other relationships, exercise ‘interpersonal leadership’ to make both parties winners. Two wins make everyone better off; two losses hurts everyone. A win/lose relationship creates a victor and leaves someone injured. Think Win Win.

Number 5 - Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Communication is a two-way street. To develop win/win relationships, find out what the other parties want, and what winning means to them. Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.

Number 6 - Synergise
Cooperation multiplies the power of one. In fact, ‘creative cooperation’ may yield a
force greater than the sum of the parts. The buzzword to describe this kind of relationship is “synergy”, which means bringing together a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.

Number 7 - Sharpen the Saw
There’s an old story about a man sawing a log. The work is going slowly and the man is exhausted. The more he saws, the less he cuts. A passerby watches for a while and suggests that the man take a break to sharpen the saw. But the man says he can’t stop to sharpen the saw because he is too busy sawing! A dull saw makes the work tiresome, tedious and unproductive. Highly effective people take the time they need to sharpen their tools, which include: their bodies, souls, mind and hearts. It’s ‘self-renewal’ time.