Habits Rule The World

“Successful people are simply those with successful habits.” – Brian Tracy

And – conversely – unsuccessful people are those with unsuccessful habits.

It is truly staggering how much of our lives are automatic.

On the one hand, it is this “automation” that makes a great deal of progress and ease possible. If we had to consider and navigate every task anew we would get bogged down and accomplish precious little.

The coin of habit has another side though: those routines we continually run that don’t serve us (and in some cases harm us).

We often repeat non-resourceful patterns because they feel safe and/or when we are forced to take action in a particular moment, in the rush of necessity, we choose the known.

A well-lived life consists of understanding the dual-edged nature of habits: that they can cut in a direction that serves us, making production and achievement possible through cleverness and efficiency and slice in the opposite direction allowing us to make the same mistakes again and again.

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2 Comments

  1. Habits are like a coin – great metaphor. Some serve us and other’s don’t but when we’re stuck in a rut we miss out on ever knowing if there is another way… or a better way. Thanks for starting my day with something to ponder more!

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