Success is a few simple right actions repeated every day. Here's the list of habits I built — and the things I gave up.
I once read a very good line in Jim Rohn’s wonderful book The Treasury of Quotes: “Success is a few simple disciplines practised every day. Failure is a few errors in judgement repeated every day.”
Over the last few years I’ve had the chance to see how true that is. Most of the good results in my life today are the consequence of a handful of right habits. I’m far from thinking I’ve achieved anything extraordinary, but I know how to be grateful and to notice what is working.
Here’s a short list of the habits I’ve built:
- The habit of growing spiritually — reading the Bible, praying, going to church.
- The habit of taking an interest in the lives of the people close to me and spending time together. Keeping an emotional connection with the person I love, every day.
- The habit of looking after my health and not eating harmful food (meat, sugar, pastry, anything with carcinogens in it).
- The habit of learning something new and working on myself every day — books, seminars, useful YouTube, conversations with smart people.
- The habit of thinking and working systematically. Building a work ethic in myself. Wanting to give clients more than what they paid for.
- The habit of exercising every day — three times a week at the gym, the rest of the days at home.
- The habit of setting goals and planning my life. Leaving nothing to drift.
At various points I gave up a number of things that were keeping me stuck and blocking real growth:
- As a teenager I stopped playing computer games and started reading books.
- From around 17 I stopped spending everything I earned and started saving regularly.
- I stopped blaming the government, circumstances, the people around me, fate and God for my failures. I took full responsibility for my life and started building it as well as I knew how.
- I don’t watch television, don’t read the news, don’t spend more than 10-15 minutes a day on social media, and don’t spend time with people who gossip or behave without integrity.
- I don’t expect anything from anyone. I believe God made us with a very high degree of autonomy, so we can do an enormous amount with our own lives without waiting for someone else’s permission.
- I don’t invest money in risky, dubious projects — I put it into my business and into my own head.
- I don’t spend time and energy on pointless conflicts with other people. I once heard Pastor T. D. Jakes say you have to be very careful about which confrontation you walk into and with whom. He said we should be careful not to squander our lives fighting pointless battles with the wrong people.
I genuinely believe that if we do a few simple right things every day, then over years of that behaviour we accumulate very good results across different areas of life.
Why people choose instead to spend several years of their life scrolling a meaningless feed, unable to remember the clip they watched 30 seconds ago, I don’t know.
It’s a mystery to me why people find the time to go to a job they hate for eight hours a day over forty years, but don’t have 20 minutes a day for their own growth and the right book — the one that could change their life and let them do work they love.
I don’t understand why most couples find several hours to argue and shout at each other, but can’t find 30 minutes a day for a real conversation that keeps the emotional connection alive and makes the family happy.
If you change your beliefs, your habits change after them. When our line of behaviour changes, we get new results — and those results can take us to another level.
Every one of us has the chance to work on ourselves and change our life, our health, our marriage, our work for the better. The only question is whether we actually want it.
Do you have bad habits that hold you back? How do you fight them?