Success and Freedom

To Be Successful, You’ve Got to Create Successful Habits

I want to talk to you today about success habits. Your habits determine what direction you’re going. Your success in life, your results in life, are in direct proportion to your habits. Not what you say you’re going to do, but what are you going to do? You’ve got to develop successful habits, and I believe that starts with being a daily goal-setter and a daily goal-hitter.

Too many people spend their whole life dreaming, but they’re really just pipe dreams. They’re thinking about what they want to be doing in 20 years and what their plans are way out in the future. The future you need to be worried about is not the next 20 years, but the next 20 minutes.

What are you going to be doing? What are you going to be doing to be effective? When you get up every day, know your priorities. Life will overwhelm; stuff will overwhelm. It is so easy to get consumed by a bunch of stuff that is not going to get you where you want to get to. Say every day, “I will do today what others don’t so I will have tomorrow what others won’t.” You’ve got to choose to be effective—know what your priorities are. Know what you must-do’s are. Don’t let your phone, don’t let your tablet, don’t let the TV, don’t let your friends knock you off. What are the most important things to get done today?

Sir Winston Churchill didn’t have an inbox, he had an “action this day box.” Things didn’t get into that box that he wasn’t going to deal with that day. As John Wooden said, “Make [each day] your masterpiece.” Get up today and get it done. Finish the day. Attack the day and go change your life.

See you at the top, because the bottom sure is crowded!