Have you ever given thought to your daily routine? We as humans are creatures of habit and I myself, know how easy it is to fall into routine. We find comfort, predicability, and simplicity when our lives remain in a similar fashion. Now, it’s important to break routine from time to time, to keep life interesting, but it’s our habitual nature that leads to success or failure in life. With that said, everyone will have a different version of success, so it’s important to determine what your version of success may look like. Success or failure, it’s the culmination of your habitual routine, so it’s imperative that you build a life revolving around healthy habits.
Healthy vs. Unhealthy Habits
We all have choices in life – television or books, candy or vegetables, exercise or cigarettes. Now, anything we generally label as unhealthy may not affect you much when done in moderation. For example, eating a few potato chips on occasion most likely won’t do any harm. If however, you ate a bag of potato chips everyday for many years, it would most likely lead to an undesirable outcome. We are faced with these types of decisions on a daily basis and can be applied to almost anything. From health, relationships, finances and more, healthy habits lead to healthy outcomes. Let’s break this down into two different scenarios of someone who strives for early financial freedom.
Mike is your average student who just graduated from high school. He has a part-time job and is trying to decide between college and working a full time job. He wants to become wealthy, but isn’t really sure how to get there.
Scenario 1: Unhealthy Habits
Mike decides to skip college and work full time at a local retail store. He figures college isn’t really for him and that he can create wealth by learning on his own. He starts educating himself a few hours everyday after work, but soon finds it boring in comparison to other options. Over the course of a few months, he spends less and less time educating himself and more time doing other activities. He works hard at his job 40 hours a week, but in the evenings and on weekends he finds himself watching TV, playing video games, going to happy hour, smoking, not eating well, and spending his money on useless things. He still wants to be wealthy, but has no clue how to get there.
Now, I would consider this a number of unhealthy habits, but held in short-term moderation, not the worst. If however, these unhealthy habits are carried out for many years, that’s a problem. These habits could eventually manifest themselves as obesity, disease, bankruptcy, unhealthy relationships, and much more. In this scenario, Mike’s dream of financial freedom is simply that, a dream.
Scenario 2: Healthy Habits
Mike decides to go to college and continue working part-time. His schedule is crazy busy, but he’s earning a bachelors degree in business administration and gaining valuable work experience. He graduates with decent grades and lands a good job out of college, working 40 hours a week. After working a few months, he finds himself bored with his free time in the evenings and on weekends. Mike decides he would still like to become wealthy and starts spending his free time learning and staying fit. He starts reading books and attending Meetups about finance, investing, real estate, technology, and anything else he feels is beneficial towards his goal. He wants to become wealthy and is getting a pretty good idea on how to get there.
I would consider this a number of healthy habits. If carried out for many years beyond college, I can only imagine the positive changes in life. These habits could manifest themselves as good health/fitness, financial freedom, wealth creation, positive network of friends, healthy relationships, and a good life! Mike’s dream has become a reality because he chose habits that were in line with his vision.
What’s the Benefit?
When deciding on habits that build your routine, ask yourself: How does this benefit me? Watching TV, having a few drinks with friends, and eating desert on occasion is perfectly fine! When it becomes a part of your daily routine, that’s where issues may arise if they are not in line with your goals. To summarize, here’s a good definition of failure versus success –
Failure: A few mistakes made everyday over a period of time.
Success: A few simple disciplines practiced everyday.
What is Success?
Okay, so we know that healthy habits can lead to success, but what is success? As I said earlier, success will look different depending on who you ask. In determining this for yourself, there are a number of questions you should ask yourself and a few of them are as follows:
- What do I value most in life?
- What am I passionate about?
- What do I want to do in life?
- What goals would I like to achieve?
- Who do I want to become?
Give these questions some thought. You may not have an answer for every one, but that’s okay! The important part is that you start defining what success looks like in your life and find clear answers as you progress.
Building Success
Once you have an idea of what success looks like, it’s time to start creating disciplines that structure your daily routine. Now, Succeed at Scale is generally focused on finances, but this can be applied to anything in life. Want to become a better cook? Want to become physically fit? How about more quality time with your family and friends? All it takes is a structured discipline of habits that lead to the desired outcomes.
Depending on your goals, this may not be easy. One of the most common excuses I hear is, “I don’t have the time”. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, so I believe it’s not a matter of time, but a matter of dedication. If something is that important to you, you will find the time. Consider this – If you decided to build a habit of continued education for one hour a day, seven days a week, for ten years, that would equal 3,640 hours. That equates to about 150 full 24 hour days. Think you could learn a few things and apply that knowledge to a successful career?….I would think so!
The final take away is this – As long as you get into the habit of building discipline around what’s most important in your life, you will find success and happiness.
Where are you placing discipline in your life? Leave a comment below!
