In Breaking Free, I talk at length about the importance of developing good habits. I do so with good reason, because habits can simultaneously be your greatest strength (if they are good) and your greatest weakness (if they are bad). What’s remarkable is just how dependent we are on habits as human beings.

Generally speaking, PEOPLE DON’T CHANGE.

You can beg them, plead with them, argue logically with them, appeal emotionally to them, and threaten them, but at the end of the day those people will fall back on their old habits. In fact, you could say that human beings are little more than habit forming machines! The only way we can change is from within. By deciding we will change for ourselves, not because someone else wants us to.

I remember reading a story about a martial arts master who had studied and taught for more than 30 years. After getting his black belt in judo at a young age, he went on to study many other disciplines including Tae Kwon Doe, Thai Kickboxing, Brazilian Jujitsu, and Kung Fu. One day he was leaving his house when a carjacker ran up to him and waved a knife in his face, demanding his wallet and keys. Instinctively, the master disarmed the man and threw him to the ground in one perfectly executed judo throw. The police were called, the carjacker was arrested, and the master took a moment to let his adrenaline subside. It was then that he realized what had happened. Despite studying martial arts for 30 years, it was his oldest habit of judo that his brain reverted back to in his moment of need.

It had been imprinted upon him through REPETITION at a young age, and never left despite years of additional training. How can we use the power of habits to our advantage? The secret lies in repetition.

Building positive habits into your daily routine is an essential skill that all successful people use. When they face an insurmountable problem, they break it into small chunks and build a new habit to chip away at it.

For example, let’s say you had a sales target of $1 Million this year for your business. Why not develop the HABIT of spending half an hour on marketing every single day for a year.

Let’s say you wanted to lose 50 lbs? Why not develop the HABIT of jogging for 20 minutes five days a week.

Let’s say you wanted to write a book. Why not develop the HABIT of writing non-stop for an hour, three days a week.

Unsuccessful people will get super motivated one day and try to do it all at once! They might work for 12 hours straight on marketing and spend their entire budget, starve themselves and run 5 miles in a day, or write furiously for an entire weekend. After expending all their energy, they’ll be exhausted and quickly slip back to their old habits. Moreover, they will be disappointed at the mediocre results, and the painfulness of the experience will condition them not to try it again.

Successful people, on the other hand, take a different approach because they understand the power of HABITS. They don’t over exert themselves! Instead, they break it into small steps. Spending half an hour a day on marketing is easy enough and can even be an enjoyable activity, jogging for twenty minutes fits nicely into their schedule, and writing for only an hour leaves their mind fresh and full of ideas.

A year later the successful persons’ superior HABIT will have paid off ten fold and the unsuccessful person will be in the same spot they were a year ago.

Aristotle once said that: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

What major problem have you been facing in your life or business? Looking at the whole thing can be scary and lead to avoiding it all together. Instead, break it into small chunks, and develop the HABIT of doing a little bit on a regular basis.

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