The Power of Persistence

By Z. Hereford

I tend to write articles on concepts I want to understand better myself, so when the quality of persistence came to mind, I saw it as an opportunity to enhance my insights on the subject.

I begin with the ubiquitous quote by Calvin Coolidge which aptly sums up the quality of persistence:

"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

The conventional definition of persistence is: "Refusing to give up or let go; persevering obstinately; firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition."

Is it any wonder then, that persistence is the fundamental difference between a successful outcome and a failed outcome? In that case, it behooves us to develop the vital quality of persistence.

Here are some tips on developing persistence or perseverance:

Tips on How to Develop Persistence

➢ Decide what you want to accomplish and set goals. We all know how important setting goals is for achieving success in any endeavor, so take some time to figure out what it is you want. Do you want to lose ten pounds, graduate from college, run a marathon or be a business success? In a study done in New York several years ago researchers surprisingly found that people who set clear, concise goals succeeded in achieving them 95% of the time! Interestingly, the one caveat or stipulation was that they only achieved their goals if they refused to quit and continued to bounce back from difficulties along the way.

Indeed, no significant feat has ever been accomplished without the trials and tribulations that go along with it. In his wonderful poem Don't Quit Edgar Albert Guest gives us plenty of inspiration and encouragement to forge ahead, particularly when the going gets tough. (Have a look at the poem: Don't Quit).

➢ Prepare for Obstacles and Setbacks. Know and accept that there will be obstacles and setbacks; then prepare for them. Nothing important was every accomplished without adversity, setbacks and difficulties to contend with along the way. Henry Ford went bankrupt three times before he managed to design his first automobile. As we all know and are grateful for, he subsequently succeeded to become one of the richest men in the world. He said: "Failure is merely an opportunity to more intelligently begin again.” Thomas Edison is said to have tried 10,000 times to create the light bulb before he succeeded. His attitude was: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work." Persistence is definitely the difference between a successful outcome and a failed one due to giving up.

One of the ways you can prepare for setbacks and obstacles is to anticipate potential problems and have a contingency plan. For example, if you're trying to lose weight, you must know that there will be occasions when it's not possible to stick to your weight loss regimen. In such cases, you will need to prepare alternative meals ahead of time or be mentally prepared to deviate from your regimen. Unfortunately, instead of allowing for and being prepared in such situations, many people give up entirely declaring it impossible to stick any diet. In doing so, they often sabotage all healthy eating and give up in despair.

Another example would be endeavoring to become a marathon runner and you fail on your first attempt at finishing a marathon. Should you give up and never try again? No, not at all! You would have to figure out where you may have miscalculated your fitness level, the type of food you ate and your training patterns. After doing some research to find out how improve, you would then give it another whirl!

Also keep in mind that when we are overwhelmed with a problem or difficulty, we don't have time then to develop the persistence necessary to deal with the particular obstacle or set back. However, if we plan in advance for life's inevitable ups and downs, we will be psychologically ready when they come upon us.

➢ Take the first step. You cannot persevere; much less succeed, if you never try to accomplish something. So many of us procrastinate, fear failure or are too frozen in our tracks to take the first step towards achievement. You will not fail if you don’t try something, however, you will never succeed either. As the popular saying goes, "The only real failure in life is the failure to try."

➢ Review, reevaluate and revise. If things do not work out the way you hoped then review the steps you took and the process you followed. Reevaluate by examining what went wrong and where. What didn't work? What could you have done better? Did you have all the necessary skills and tools? Your findings will be most illuminating, and in turn, allow you to set up a better, more comprehensive approach. You will revise and improve the current strategy.

➢ Garner support and encouragement. Stay away from naysayers; instead seek advice from those experienced in your field of endeavor and those who want you to succeed. They can assist you by making suggestions and recommendations based on their experience and expertise. You will still have to do the hard work, but there is nothing more encouraging than having positive reinforcement.

➢ Maintain focus. One of the obstacles to attaining success is losingmotivation and focus. A good way to maintain focus is to visualize yourself accomplishing your goal no matter what it takes. Vividly see yourself accomplishing your goal – keep your eye on the prize. Likewise, avoid getting caught up in negative or unproductive thinking such as, "This will never work." "I can't do this." Instead, keep inspiring slogans handy, pictures of those who have persevered in life, and whatever else will motivate and boost your drive.

➢ Enjoy! The greatest feelings of accomplishment derive from knowing you've overcome obstacles and conquered adversities to achieve your goals. Your ultimate success will be exponentially more satisfying and fulfilling when you know what it took to get there.

People who have persisted in spite of disabilities and obstacles:

• Ludwig van Beethoven (composer, pianist) became deaf at the age of 30 and composed most of his beloved works after he lost his hearing.
• Helen Keller (author) was deaf and blind from the age of 19 months. She wrote 12 books, various articles and was the first blind person to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree.
• Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder (musicians) both of whom are blind have achieved much in their genres of music.
• James Earl Jones (actor) known for his booming resonant voice was once a stutterer.
• Marlee Matlin (academy award-winning actress) is deaf.
• Itzhak Perlman (virtuoso concert violinist) has legs paralyzed from polio.
• Terry Fox (runner) was an amputee from cancer.

As you can see from the wonderful examples above, obstacles and adversity need not stop you from accomplishing great things. If anything, courageous persistence is the one quality more than any other that can guarantee success.
http://www.essentiallifeskills.net/persistence-perseverance.html

3 Mind Hacks To Boost Your Motivation

• Motivtion

by Chris Delaney - 

Image Credit | willis

The question I am always asked by the unmotivated is “how do others become motivated?” Motivation is created by both internal and external stimulus.

When motivated your energy levels increase, your interest in the task amplifies and your commitment to work towards your goals peaks. So, how can two people doing the same task have different motivational levels?

The reward for finishing a task is highly motivational, but this alone is not enough, as many people set goals with the reward in mind but never take action. The secret to motivation is knowing how to overcome personal procrastination to proactively take positive action.

Here are the 3 Mind Hacks To Boost Your Motivation:

Mind Hack #1: Trick the mind

The brain is a complex muscle that solves complex mathematical problems, creates innovative ideas that have put humans on the moon, invented the internet which changed the way we live and the mind gave us the intelligence to cure serious diseases saving countless lives.  But the mind can be tricked

Read this statement out loud; “I Love London In The The Summer Time”

Did you notice the double use of word “the?” Most who read this didn’t. This same psychology can be used to trick the mind into Motivation: 

• Think of a task that you need to complete but procrastination has stopped you in your tracks

• When thinking about this goal, do you imagine how hard this task is, the amount of steps you have to take, and do you second guess how you will fail?

With a focus on the problems and pain of the goal, your mind magically deletes the positives, the potential fun and your optimistic outcome:

• Picture again, the negative images that stop you from taking action

• Push this image away from your mind’s eye so you can imagine seeing it in front of you

• Turn the image into a black and white picture (if your image plays like a movie pause the movie)

• Move the black and white further and future away from you so it becomes smaller and smaller, until it becomes a dot on the horizon

• Replace this image by imagining a large, coloured film. This film is you at your best, enjoying each step towards your goal and the film ends with you seeing you achieving your goal and the positive effect it has on your life

Mind Hack – Focusing on the positives deletes procrastination

“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney

Mind Hack #2: Mind the steps

Over thinking the required steps to any goal creates stress. Research has shown that when you are stressed the brain actually shrinks in size. Keep the steps required to your goal simple and small as this becomes manageable and creates motivation. Over thinkers make an easy task complicated by predicting too many problems;

Goal – Get a haircut “first I need to decide which stylist I should attend. I could go to ‘Anne’s Hair’ but there is no parking nearby, which means I will need to walk, if it rains I will get wet and I haven’t got an umbrella, I could buy one but I have no cash, so I will have to drive to a cash machine. My car is running on empty so I need to fill up first, hmmm that takes me away for the stylist, but I can get cash out at the petrol station, even though the card machine at that petrol station swallowed my card last time I used it, which would mean ringing up the bank, I hate that, they keep you on the phone for an age, asking you loads of security questions that I can never remember the answer to……..”

Even reading this gives me a headache and she hasn’t even considered the other two stylists yet! Keep the steps to your goal to a minimum by stacking small task under one heading:

• Goal – Get a Haircut; Choose a stylist within walking distance of my house

• Book appointment

• Attend appointment on date

Mind Hack – Manageable tasks create motivation

Mind Hack #3: The innovative mind

When working towards a goal you can easily become stuck due to a mental block. The problem or barrier your goal requires you to overcome is de-motivating when you can’t find the solution.

Once inspired to achieve your goal you can easily fall into the trap of overthinking the barriers you come across:

• Problem that needs solving

• You ask “What’s the answer? What should I do? I should know this!”

This common action creates a mental block because your focus kills your creativity:

1. Re-ask the question from different perspectives as this will access your brains creativity
2. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and relax. In this state your subconscious will find the answer and you will have an “ah-ha” moment
3. Day dream as this allows your mind to focus on the motivation of your goal and will give you the solution, often in a metaphor form to your barrier

Mind Hack – Creativity solves the problem

http://addicted2success.com/motivation/3-mind-hacks-to-boost-your-motivation/

3 Ways To Stay Healthy When You’re Really Busy

08 Jun 2015

Simas Skuzinskas

by

Have you been on the extreme busy run schedule lately?

Get up, get kids to the school, go to work, come back, take kids from the school, and by the end of the day feel SO tired that you just want to lie down and do nothing?

Perhaps you are missing one specific piece on your daily basis that keeps you away from the energy and enthusiasm driven life.

1. Cultivate A Morning Ritual

We, as people, expect a lot from ourselves every day. And how we begin the day will result in how we end the day.

Amazingly, many of us “forget” that we take care of the outside world so much leaving ourselves behind the picture.

When the gas tank is empty, we know we need gas to fill it up. Otherwise, we cannot move further.

But when our bodies feel exhausted and sick, we go for a quick fix (food full of sugar to get a fast energy boost), and in afternoon we feel sleepy, moody, out of balance.

How come we never pour diesel into the car that is run on gas when the tank is empty? Yet, we eat the food that has ZERO or MINIMAL nutritional value to our bodies?

2. Take Care Of Your Body

To feel great from the start of the morning, follow a simple effective formula that nourishes your body, mind and soul.

Implement a morning ritual that consists of:

• Water upon waking up.
• An exercise of 2 minutes to awaken your body and mind (can be squats, push ups, burpees, or Ab routine)
• Meditation of 15-20 minutes to CLEAR the mind (I personally find Rebirthing the MOST effective, as Tony Robbins finds this as well). Meditation not only calms your mind and soul, but also provides the energy to kick off the day!
• Moment for gratitude and appreciation for your current life
• Read a book or listen to an Audio for personal growth to build some new brain cells, open up your mind for new thoughts and opportunities.
• HAVE a breakfast. Many people skip it, or just grab a coffee and a bagel/muffin and go. By noon, their energy levels drop significantly. Implement a new habit of starting the day with a Green Shake.

3. Get Fit – And Stay Fit

A 15-20 minute workout of HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) in the morning or at night 3-4 times per week WILL get you fit and help you STAY fit.

Now, what you do every morning is you prepare your body physically, your mind mentally, to go through the day with full capacity to perform at your best.

More energy at your work, with kids and wife, workouts, better sleep – more productive life.

You need to spend the time nourishing yourself, inside and out.

The best part of it is that YOU are responsible for this, and how you have been spending mornings is a direct reflection of how you LOVE yourself.

Treat yourself best! The better and well you are, the more you can give to others. And…

You do not need to do this all right away.

Start off with just ONE thing (exchange coffee with green shake, then after a week or two start doing one exercise after you wake up, later meditation and etc.), and gradually create new patterns in your daily habits. At the beginning, won’t be easy, but will be WORTH it!

You MUST plant the seed in order to reap.

Not a single seed has grown without sowing and harvesting it!

http://www.finerminds.com/health-fitness/3-ways-to-stay-healthy-when-youre-really-busy/

5 Easy Steps to Reach Your Full Potentia

20 May 2015

Gregory Henderson

by

Do you ever feel like you could be doing more with your life?

But perhaps you continually find yourself stuck because life just feels like it hasn’t turned out the way you thought it would.

Your heart yearns to be somewhere else, do something else, and be someone else.

You should listen because it knows what you must acquire to achieve your full potential in life.

You have a power deep down within you that can intuitively tell you how to overcome the hurdles in life, which you face each and every day.

Something that when triggered will give you the answers to your most pressing questions.

Are you interested in finding such a power if it were to truly exist?

You Have The Power To Reach Your Full Potential Inside You…

Every living thing on this planet has a guidance system, somewhat like the Global Positioning System (GPS) you find in your automobile.

But it’s better defined as an Automatic Success Processor (ASP) which helps in finding solutions to necessary objectives to successful living.

In simpler forms of life like insects, reptiles, and animals, their success goal is twofold:

• Physical survival, which is limited to finding food and shelter, and escaping or subduing enemies and threats.
• Reproduction for the survival of the species.

Humans have the same two survival instincts embedded in our DNA. This is where the fight, flight, or freeze response comes from when we perceive a harmful event, attack, or threat.

However, humans have a brain far more developed and complicated, which gives our guidance system the ability to act on even more areas of our lives than our animal friends.

Producing a meticulous plan for escaping financial debt or creating a blueprint to build self-esteem and confidence are just two amazing examples of tasks your ASP is capable of performing.

Which means we (you) have the ability to create the life you want, and that’s exactly what you’re doing right now.

Believe it or not, the life you live today has been created and reinforced by your ASP.  

But before we go into more detail on your ASP’s capabilities, let’s briefly discuss the reaction to instinct.

Instinct: The Inevitable Driving Force Of Nature

Instinct is by definition an inborn pattern of activity or tendency to action common to a given biological species.

With this definition, that means every creature has an inborn system (instinct) already set in place with the sole purpose being to help achieve success (survival):

• Baby sea turtles hatch on a beach; without hesitation, they head to the ocean for safety.
• Honeybees communicate by dancing in the direction of a food source without instruction.
• Squirrels in the forest know to gather during the fall and store nuts for the winter.
• Birds have no nest building instructions, but instinctively they know how.

Nature is full of such examples, which really have no explanation other than they have internal instincts, a guiding force that helps them in their natural environment.

But the one thing you have over all other creatures is you can reason, make choices, and create realities in your world with your imagination.

Imagination: The Key To Creating Reality In Your Life

Everything on this planet that has been made by man was just a thought in the beginning, and with imagination, that thought became a reality.

Think back to a time when you thought of someone but couldn’t remember their name no matter how hard you tried.

Your brain sent imaginary pictures to your mind of the person; in some cases you even received an image of the situation in which you met them, but you still couldn’t recall the name.

Then several hours later, while you were doing something else, the name popped into your head.

This was your ASP; it continued scanning all information stored in your brain to find your answer, even though you weren’t conscious of the search at the time.

When you learned to drive a car or ride a bicycle, your brain continuously sent signals to your body to readjust until you succeeded.

Imagining yourself riding around, without the drudgery of having to walk everywhere, created such intense positive emotional thoughts of success that yourASP was stimulated to its highest degree.

So when these emotions were processed, your ASP jumped into overdrive, influencing your muscles to perform appropriately to the task at hand.

Even though riding a bicycle isn’t a natural instinct, but rather a created one by yourASP, imagination along with stimulation was the integral factor in sending strong performance signals to the muscles.

The more imaging your ASP received, the more precise your results.

Now, you perform these task without the slightest thought of how.

Mainly due to that intense focus on images of your results your imagination created in the beginning.

Your Brain is The Ultimate Source of Potential

Your ASP is more powerful than anything known to man, using your brain and nervous system that consists of over 100 billion cells, 100,000 miles of blood vessels, firing information at over 270 mph to make 20-million billion calculations per second to create the life you live.

The truth is, your ASP is a super-calculating mechanism within your brain and nervous system, which finds answers to problems concerning finances, relationships, health, and virtually anything else.

Its capabilities are boundless.

But it’s crucial that you accept the amazing ability of your ASP as real for you to reap the full benefits it offers because one area of your brain is capable of sabotaging your outcome.

Your Conscious Mind Keeps You From Reaching Your Full Potential

Your conscious mind has the amazing ability to reason and make choices, which is fundamentally a great benefit.

The problem is, it can’t distinguish information coming in as real or unreal, and that’s terrible for your internal ASP because it is there to help you succeed in life.

In fact, the conscious mind has all but destroyed it.

Your ASP is locked up in your brain as if it were a convict on death row waiting to be executed for crimes against the world.

But this happens because your mind has been overloaded with negative informational input over the years.

Your ASP worked fine as a child, but whether intentionally or not, society programmed you not to use this powerful solution-seeking system.

Google Your Brain for Faster Success Solutions

Need an answer? All you have to do is send your brain in search for it.

It’s a lot like a Google search.

Input the information (think – meditate on it), trigger your brain to start the search mode, and wait for the results.

Let’s take a look at the 5 steps to initiate your Automatic Success Processor.

1. Target.

Pick a goal, write it down on a note, and place it somewhere you’ll see it often.

2. Believe.

Imagine yourself having reached the end-result, and believe it can happen.

3. Calm.

Relaxing is part of the game; ASP will achieve the goal from negative feedback and automatically correct mistakes, so let it take its course.

4. Learn.

Reminding yourself constantly of your target, mentally correct your aim until you hit your target imaginatively

5. Action.

Your ASP goes into operation as you act, and you place demands on it by your actions. Trusting that your ASP will work as you act is the key that unlocks the door to success.

By letting it work on its own schedule, your brain will process billions of bits of information to find the specific answer you seek.

Belief is crucial; your ASP operates at levels below your consciousness. It’s impossible to know what’s going on at these levels.

Remember, it works spontaneously according to your present need. It goes into operation as you act and place demands on it by your actions.

Don’t wait for proof. Act as if it’s already there, and it will come through for you.

Repetition furthers the learning process until negatives are removed from your ASPand skills are cemented in a solid, positive foundation.

Devote just 15 minutes three times a day for 21 days, focusing on these five steps. You’ll be amazed at how your ASP can change your life.

You’re Worthy of the Success You Are Capable of Creating

You are a unique one-of-a-kind individual. No human on the face of this planet has your fingerprints, brainwave patterns, or DNA.

Your Automatic Success Processor already makes 95% of your choices each day without you knowing it.

Take control, and decide to create the life of your dreams, today.

Don´t worry about potential consequences; everything is better than what you have now. You deserve the life you desire.

Awaken the sleeping giant locked up in your soul, and become the champion in life you were meant to be.

It’s time to get Fired Up! About living and loving life to the fullest on your own terms.

You can do this!

http://www.finerminds.com/mind-power/5-easy-steps-to-reach-your-full-potential/

The 4 Psychological Triggers That Catalyze Change

By Matt Jager

“Things do not change; we change.” ~Henry David Thoreau

The world knows no joy like an evangelist with an opening. My eyes lit up as I jumped into my sermon on the incredible power of lifestyle change.

The year previous I had decided it was time to take charge of my health, and I had made some big changes.

I transitioned to a whole food diet, put plants at the center of my plate, started meditating regularly, and began attending yoga classes multiple times a week.

I was absolutely astounded at how the synergy of these three lifestyle changes completely transformed my quality of life.

So when my friends began asking me to what I owed my newfound glow, I couldn’t wait to endow them with the key to lasting health, effortless weight loss, and inner peace.

And so my lecture would begin. “It’s so simple! Just change your diet, start exercising, oh and don’t forget to meditate every day!”

Can you guess how many people I converted? Not a one. My regretful interlocutor would begin to nervously shift their weight, looking for any opportunity to end the conversation.

Finally, the realization made its way through my thick skull that everyone already knew that they should be eating right and exercising.

The last thing they wanted was to listen to someone else preach the values of diet, meditation, and exercise—what they already knew that they should be doing.

So I finally learned that knowledge isn’t enough to trigger a lifestyle change.

Despite knowing full well the value of yoga, meditation, and eating veggies, few people are able to make and sustain such changes, especially with career obligations, social engagements, and the other demands of modern life.

So I was left with a conundrum. What was it that had allowed me to make these changes? What was I missing in helping others to realize the same health benefits and increased quality of life?

I became obsessed with answering these questions, and thus a quest was born. A few months later I packed up my life and moved to Arizona to work for a holistic healing center.

I spent the next four years at the Tree of Life center in Patagonia, Arizona, where individuals are taught yoga, meditation, and a plant-based diet as a healing modality. I supported hundreds of people as they adopted the same lifestyle changes that I underwent, and the results have been powerful.

But what I was most interested in exploring was not the effects of diet, yoga, and meditation, but rather understanding what allows individuals to make and sustain these changes in their lives.

Why were some able to take these holistic health practices back into their busy everyday lives when they left the center? Why were some successful when others continued to struggle?

I devoured every book on the science of behavior change that I could get my hands on, and had the incredible opportunity of applying the principles in a real life setting.

The takeaway? Behavior change itself is a skill, and there are certain psychological triggers that we can employ to kickstart the process. Anyone can learn these triggers and cultivate the ability to make healthy changes that are sustainable and lasting.

Here are the four best ways to catalyze change:

1. Start small and celebrate success.

Healthy habits are the bedrock of lasting and sustainable health. Why? Because once established, they no longer require willpower to maintain.

But what is the best way to create a habit?

Stanford psychologist BJ Fogg has pioneered an extremely effective behavior change method that he calls Tiny Habits.

The premise? Start small and celebrate your successes.

Want to cook more plant-based meals? Start with putting a recipe book out on the counter on Sundays.

Want to start meditating? Start with just three breaths every time you sit down at the computer.

These tiny actions may seem insignificant, but by starting small we remove the biggest barrier to change—simply getting started.

Engineering (and celebrating) early success is key in reinforcing the creation of new habits and also motivates us to make bigger changes in the future.

Tiny habits transform into big habits, which cascade into big life changes.

2. Understand the motivation myth.

The key to changing behavior is motivation, right? We need to be motivated to cook healthy food, to go to the gym, to wake up early and study.

Not exactly.

Motivation naturally waxes and wanes, and psychologists have found that trying to change how motivated you are at any given moment is hard. Really hard.

The better bet is to use times of high motivation strategically.

Everyone has periods of peak productivity, and the best way to leverage these times of high motivation is to do something that helps structure future behavior.

Next time you find yourself having a super productive day, use that motivation to sign up for a weekly yoga class, invite an interested friend over to explore healthy cooking every Sunday, or plan a plant-based potluck.

These are all examples of setting up future events that will help keep you on track. Using your existing motivation to create accountability and social support increases follow through.

3. Get laser focused on one big win.

The archnemesis of healthy change is a pernicious little devil called overwhelm.

Take getting healthy for example: There are thousands of different dietary theories, conflicting health information, and more exercise programs than I can count.

Should you be fasting one day a week? Eating a low-carb or low-fat diet? Doing yoga? Jumpstarting yourself with a cleanse? Doing three hours of cardio weekly? Eating plant-based meals? Weight training?

The options are endless and analysis paralysis can easily set in.

Focusing on one big win is about identifying what is going to give you the greatest result for the least amount of effort.

For weight loss, a great “big win” is to focus on meals that are low in caloric density, i.e. plant-powered dishes which include a wide range of veggies, beans, grains, and greens.

You can eat as much of these nourishing, delicious, hearty foods as you like and make sustainable progress toward your goal weight.

Whatever your goal, find what gives you the biggest bang for your buck and ruthlessly cut back everything else.

Simplicity empowers change.

4. Learn one thing at a time.

In their book Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard, authors Chip and Dan Heath share some surprising truths about change.

For me, the most interesting revelation is as follows: What looks like resistance is actually a lack of clarity.

When taking up healthy habits, there is almost always a learning curve.

We might go the gym, but we don’t really know how to work out.

We want to cook healthier meals, but the recipe is full of exotic ingredients we’ve never heard of before.

And we most often resist making these changes not because we are unmotivated, but because we don’t see a clear path forward. We don’t know the exact steps to take to begin eating better, exercising, or sitting down to meditate.

The best way to reduce the resistance and get started? Break down the task in front of you into baby steps and learn one thing at a time.

If you are interested in cooking healthier meals, first learn how to shop. Add a new-to-you ingredient to your list every time you go to the store.

Once shopping is a breeze, then devote time to learning to cook up a few quick, easy, and delectable healthy recipes.

Breaking down the learning curve into easy, manageable steps is one of the best ways to catalyze change.

The most important takeaway here is the understanding that behavior change is a skill that can be learned and cultivated.

There is no secret source of motivation, willpower, or discipline that some have and others don’t. Apply these psychological triggers and you’ll be well on your way to creating healthy habits that are sustainable and lasting.

- See more at: http://tinybuddha.com/blog/the-4-psychological-triggers-that-catalyze-change/#sthash.YRpPadXm.dpuf

DAILY HABITS OF SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE: IT’S ALL ABOUT ROUTINE

The most successful people all have certain habits in their daily routines.

They help contribute to their success and can be considered good habits to form. It could be something simple like, setting a goal to, “Do good each day,” like Benjamin Franklin did.

It could also be something more elaborate such as spending most of your morning in bed like Winston Churchill. Churchill would wake up at 7:30am daily, eat breakfast, read his mail and newspaper until 11am.

MY FAVORITE HABITS OF MILLIONAIRES

Habits of Millionaires vary, but I am going to share one of my favorite daily habits of successful people with you. It is something that I use every day and has contributed greatly to my success.

It is the habit of making a list before the day begins.

Let me tell you below why it is so important…

Here are the 3 steps to planning and making your daily list.

1. PLAN YOUR DAY THE NIGHT BEFORE

Every minute spent in planning saves 10 minutes in execution. Sit down with a piece of paper and write down everything that you need to do the coming day. If for any reason you don’t do this, it should be the first thing you do every morning. When you write a list you have a track to run on.

Writing a list clarifies your thinking and goals…

Writing down a list forces you to think at a higher level…

If you start working from a list you increase you output 25% each day.

One of the habits of millionaires is that they start their day working from a list.

2. SET PRIORITIES ON YOUR LIST BEFORE YOU START THE DAY

Work from the 80/20 rule. If you have 10 items on your list of things to do, two will be the more important than all of the other items put together.

Go down your list and answer the question, “If I were to be called out of town for a month, what are the most important tasks that I must accomplish?”

Last fall I was out of the country traveling across 15 countries in 36 days. When I looked at my list of things to do before I left, I had to get my most important tasks done.

Once you identify these most important tasks, it brings us to the final step in starting your day.

3. COMPLETE THE MOST IMPORTANT TASK FIRST

Begin immediately on your most important task and focus on it and only it until completion.

All success in life comes from project completion and living a life of good habits will help you complete more projects.

A project with multiple tasks is called a “multi-task job”. This means that there are several smaller jobs to complete the larger job. Organize your jobs by sequence in a checklist and start on you most important project.

Complete the smaller jobs in you project, until the entire project is complete. This process is called “single handling” and it’s one of the most powerful things that you can use in managing your time. You can increase your productivity by 50% by planning, starting and completing your most important tasks every single day.

CONCLUSION

If you can develop these habits of successful people and do those three things, plan your day the night before, organize your tasks in order of importance, and complete your most important task first thing during your day. You will increase your productivity overnight
http://www.briantracy.com/blog/time-management/daily-habits-of-successful-people-its-all-about-routine/