I recently read a quote that said “You do NOT decide your future, you decide your habits and your habits decide your future”. WOW as much as I study people including myself, I can honestly say that is 100% TRUTH! It really is that simple because you can decide all day long what you want out of life but if you do not change your daily habits to match what you want then you will never get what you want. Those daily habits make you a success or a failure plain and simple.
I can hear you saying that you want this or that but you work so much and you just don’t have the time to accomplish your dreams because you have a family and you have no choice to work. I am telling you, you can make excuses or you can make your dreams come true, but you can’t do them both at the same time. People who accomplish many things in their lives are very poor at making excuses and people who accomplish little to nothing are rich in making excuses. Excuses are useless!
Here is a great story to make this point from the book You INC. Before becoming a full-time writer, Grisham was a lawyer who often worked 60 and even 80 hours a week. Despite this schedule, he wanted more than anything to write a novel. For a while, Grisham had many excuses not to write his first novel like the fact he had no “Creative” writing experience…that he had family obligations for his wife and kids….that he didn’t have the time because he was working 10 hour days, 6 days a week…that he had incredible stress at work. But Grisham knew when it was all said and done, he had a choice. He could either find reasons to write or find reasons not to write. Fortunately for his readers and his family, he chose to write anyways.
He wrote his first book “A Time to Kill” by making one simple adjustment to his life. He changed his morning habits. He started getting up at 5:00 AM to work on that novel which was 2 hours earlier than normal. In effect, he didn’t have enough time in the day to write so he created time in the morning to do so. Less than one year later Grisham had a completed manuscript to send to publishers.
Don’t tell me you don’t have the time to succeed in life doing what you want. You have to put first things first. You have to create time sometimes to do the things you want but once you create that habit, it will start to create your future. Here is a great little poem I found that makes this point.
I am your constant companion. I’m your greatest helper or your heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I’m at your command. Half of the tasks that you do you might as well turn them over to me and I will do them quickly and correctly. I’m easily managed, you must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done and after a few lessons, I will do them automatically. I’m servant of all great people and lord for all failures as well. Those who are great I have made great. Those who are failures I have made failures. I’m not a machine, but I work with all the precision of a machine, plus the intelligence of a person. You may run me for a profit or you may run me for fun; it makes no difference to me. Take me, train me, be firm with me and I will lay the world at your feet. Be easy with me and I will destroy you. I am HABIT!
Is that not a powerful little poem? There is so much truth in that last paragraph. Whoever wrote that knew exactly how powerful the truth of habit is. So remember no matter what you do in life you have to create the good habits and take away the bad habits if you are going to live out your potential!
Living a God-Inspired Life!
Chris Benton