In his new book ‘Million Dollar Habits,’ Brian Tracy provides a proven and practical series of strategies and techniques that you can use to achieve greater success and happiness in every area of your life. He shares with us the so-called “Secrets of Success” practised by every person who ever achieves anything worthwhile in life. When you learn and practise these secrets yourself, he assures, you will never be the same again. “Habit my friend, is a practice long pursued, that at last becomes the man himself.”
The Great Question
Many years ago, Tracy began asking the question, “Why are some people more successful than others?” This question became the focal point of a lifelong search, taking him to more than 80 countries and through many thousands of books and articles on the subjects of philosophy, psychology, religion, metaphysics, history, economics, and business. Over time, the answers came to him, one by one, and gradually crystallised into a clear picture and a simple explanation.
It is this: “You are where you are and what you are because of yourself. Everything you are today, or ever will be in the future, is up to you. Your life today is the sum total result of your choices, decisions and actions up to this point. You can create your own future by changing your behaviours. You can make new choices and decisions that are more consistent with the person you want to be and the things you want to accomplish with your life.”
Everything that you are or ever will be is up to you. And the only real limit on what you can be, do and have is the limit you place on your own imagination. You can take complete control of your destiny by taking complete control of your thoughts, words and actions from this day forward.
The Power of Habit
Perhaps the most important discovery in the fields of psychology and success is that fully 95 per cent of everything that you think, feel, do and achieve is the result of habit. Beginning in childhood, you have developed a series of conditioned responses that lead you to react automatically and unthinkingly in almost every situation.
Succinctly, successful people have “success habits” and unsuccessful people do not. Successful, happy, healthy, prosperous men and women easily, automatically, and consistently do and say the right things in the right way at the right time. As a result, they accomplish ten and twenty times as much as average people who have not yet learned these habits and practised these behaviours.
The Definition of Success
Often people ask Tracy to define the word “success.” His favourite definition is this: “Success is the ability to live your life the way you want to live it, doing what you most enjoy, surrounded by people who you admire and respect.” In a larger sense, success is the ability to achieve your dreams, desires, hopes, wishes and goals in each of the important areas of your life.
Although each of us is unique and different from all other human beings who have ever lived, Tracy believes we all have four goals or desires in common. On a scale of one to ten, with one being the lowest and ten being the highest, you can conduct a quick evaluation of your life by giving yourself a grade in each of these four areas.
Healthy and Fit
The first goal common to all of us is health and energy. We all want to be healthy and fit, to have high levels of energy and to live free of pain and illness. Today, with the incredible advances in medical science, the quality of our health and fitness, and our lifespan, is largely determined by design, not by chance. People with excellent health habits are far healthier, have more energy, and live longer and better than people who have poor health habits.
Excellent Relationships
The second goal that we all have in common is to enjoy excellent relationships, intimate, personal or social, with the people we like and respect, and who like, love and respect us in turn. Fully 85 per cent of your happiness will be determined by the quality of your relationships at each stage, and in each area, of your life. How well you get along with people, and how much they like, love and respect you, has more of an impact on the quality of your life than perhaps any other factor.
Do What You Love
The third goal that we all have in common is to do work that we enjoy, to do it well, and to be well paid for it. You want to be able to get and keep the job you want, to get paid more and promoted faster. You want to earn the very most that is possible for you at each stage of your career, whatever you do. In Tracy’s new book, you will learn how to develop the habits of the most successful and highest paid people in every field.
Achieve Financial Independence
The fourth goal we all have in common is to achieve financial independence. You want to reach the point in life where you have enough money so that you never have to worry about money again. You want to be completely free of financial worries. “You want to be able to order dinner in a restaurant without looking at the right-hand column to decide how hungry you are.”
Developing ‘Million Dollar Habits’
In the pages of the book, Tracy enunciates the “Million Dollar Habits” of men and women who go from rags to riches in one generation. You will learn how to think more effectively, make better decisions, and take more effective actions than other people. You will learn how to organise your financial life in such a way that you achieve all your financial goals far faster than you can imagine today.
“One of the most important goals you must achieve to be happy and successful in life is the development of your own character.” You want to become an excellent person in every respect. You want to become the kind of person that others look up to and admire. You want to become a leader in your community, and a role model for personal excellence to all the people around you.
The decisive factor in the achievement of each of these goals is the development of the specific habits that lead automatically and inevitably to the results that you want to achieve.
All Habits Are Learned
The good news about habits is that all habits are learned, as the result of practice and repetition. You can learn any habit that you consider either necessary or desirable. By using your willpower and discipline, you can shape your personality and character in almost any way you desire. You can write the script of your own life, and if you are not happy with the current script, you can rip it up and write it again.
Just as your good habits are responsible for most of your success and happiness today, your bad habits are responsible for most of your problems and frustrations. But since bad habits are learned as well, they can be unlearned and replaced with good habits by the same process of practice and repetition.
You Are in Complete Control
The fact is that good habits are hard to form, but easy to live with. Bad habits, on the other hand, are easy to form, but hard to live with. In either case, you develop either good or bad habits as the result of your choices, decisions and behaviours. John Dryden said, “We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.”
One of your great goals in life should be to develop the habits that lead to health, happiness and true prosperity. Your aim should be to develop the habits of character that enable you to be the very best person that you can imagine yourself becoming. The high purpose of your life should be to instill within yourself the habits that enable you to fulfill your full potential.
BY CAPT. SAM ADDAIH (RTD)
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