“Your beliefs become your thoughts, 

Your thoughts become your words, 

Your words become your actions, 

Your actions become your habits, 

Your habits become your values, 

Your values become your destiny.” 

― Mahatma Gandhi

The reality is that you – and the life you lead today – are the result of your habits. Changing habits can seem difficult to accomplish at first, but success is a result of your habits.

If you think about it, you’re living out your habits every day. From how early you get out of bed, to your morning routine, how you dress, walk, exercise, interact with others and even what you habitually think about and how you respond to the world.

These habits got you to where you are today…

The fact is that habits are necessary. They free up your mind so you can concentrate on how to survive day to day. For instance, you don’t have to think about how to drive your car – which allows you instead to be on the lookout for danger while you’re driving.

Unfortunately, habits can also keep you locked in self-destructive patterns, which limit your success. Becoming successful is a result of changing habits. You’ll need to eliminate bad habits and develop new ones that are in alignment with the life you want to live.

The life you want to live won’t just materialize one day… your habits determine your outcomes!

What is Keeping You From Achieving Your Goals?

What are the habits that you live with every day that are keeping you from achieving your goals?

What habits are keeping you from achieving your goals?

I encourage you to be really honest with yourself here…

• Are you always running late?
• Do you forget to return phone calls within twenty-four hours?
• Do you stay up late and never get enough sleep?
• Do you often break promises to your friends and family?
• Do you resist planning out your day?
• Do you spend money you don’t have?
• Do you avoid putting important tasks and events in your calendar?
• Do you drink alcohol more than once a week – and do you have more than two drinks per day?

Imagine the Result of You Changing Habits

• What would your life be like if you ate healthy meals, exercised and got enough sleep?
• What if you saved your money, stopped using credit cards, and paid cash for everything?
• What if you stopped procrastinating, overcame your fears, and began networking with people in your field?
• What if you created a detailed annual plan for success – then chunked it down into monthly, weekly, and daily plans to ensure you stayed on track to achieving your goals?

Would your life be different if you changed your habits? I bet it would!

The 2 Steps to Changing Habits

My suggested action step for you is to write down some productive habits you could visualize, then adopt in your life. Step two is to ‘act as if’ you were living these new habits right now!

To help you get moving toward creating more successful habits right away, I’d like to recommend that you develop four new success habits each year, one for each quarter.

Once you determine the new habit you’re ready to adopt, next you’ll want to create a method that will support your new habit.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• You could write it down on a card that you keep with you and read several times a day.
• You could make it a part of your daily visualization.
• You could also enlist the help of an accountability partner who has habits they also want to change, or work with a personal coach who can keep you on track.

Make a 100% Commitment to You New Habit

It’s important to make a 100% commitment to your new habit, so be specific about the steps that you’re willing to take in order to drop an old habit and adopt a new one. Don’t be vague about how you will change your habits. Spell it out for yourself so you can put yourself in situations that will motivate you to act upon your new habit.

Just developing four good habits a year will dramatically shift your life to be more in line with achieving your vision. And the more focused you are, the easier your other, not-so-good habits will be to replace. Your perspective will shift and you’ll see more clearly how your old habits just aren’t serving you anymore.

Make the decision. Make the commitment. Then watch your new, positive life unfold! @JackCanfield (Click to Tweet!)

I want to leave you with a bit of homework to complete after you’re done reading. Write down the four habits that you want to develop over the next year. Make a 100% commitment to each of your new habits and watch great things happen.

Leave a comment below and tell me which new habit you have in mind to develop first.

As the beloved originator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul^® series, Jack Canfield fostered the emergence of inspirational anthologies as a genre—and watched it grow to a billion dollar market. As the driving force behind the development and delivery of over 100 million books sold through the Chicken Soup for the Soul^® franchise, Jack Canfield is uniquely qualified to talk about success. Jack is America’s #1 Success Coach and wrote the life-changing book The Success Principles: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be and Jack speaks around the world on this subject. Check out his newest book The 30-Day Sobriety Solution: How to Cut Back or Quit Drinking in the Privacy of Your Own Home. Follow Jack at www.jackcanfield.com and sign up for his free resources today!

Image courtesy of Jeremy Cai.