As the New Year rolls in, thousands of resolutions have been made, goals have been set, and visions of success are dancing in the heads of mortgage professionals everywhere. What most people fail to do, however, is to reflect on their habits of the past year to determine which ones they should continue, those they should stop and new habits they should develop to insure success in 2014. There is an old Chinese proverb which says “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.” You will become what you repeatedly do. You will become your habits.
And your success begins with your habits. A partial definition of habit is “an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.” Many people underestimate the power of both good and bad habits and their influence on the success or failure of the achievement of our goals and success in our business. We become our habits. We form habits and then our habits form us.
Consider the “Keep, Stop, Start” process in reflecting on your habits of the past year to examine if you are working at your maximum potential. One of the most crucial pieces of the puzzle of success will be the habits you KEEPwhich have proven successful for you in the past, the habits you STOP which you realize are detrimental to your life or career, and the habits you START which you know have a proven track record of success in your own life or the lives of others.
Here are three power questions you should ask yourself as you reflect on your habits:
The first question to ask is “What habit or habits should I KEEP?” If you know that you have incorporated a habit into your business or life which has worked beautifully, then by all means, keep doing it. An example might be the habit of five hand written note cards each week which has earned you the reputation of a thoughtful and thankful person. Another habit might be starting each day with a list of the action items necessary to achieve the goals you have seta checklist for the day.
The second question to ask is “What habit or habits should I STOP?” If there is a habit which you know is detrimental to your life, health, marriage or business, then you already know you should stop that habit. You can either conquer your bad habit or it will conquer you. Consider writing out the consequences you know will happen if you continue along the same path, with the same habits leading to failure. Instill a good habit to take the place of the bad habit. If you have the habit of consistently showing up late either to work, events, church and/or appointments, then to stop that bad habit, you need to form the new habit of showing up early to take its place.
Which leads us to the third question: “What habit should I START?” Most of the time, you already know the habits which would work, but we all make excuses for why we do them. Or we simply fail to even think about it. Successful people are simply those with successful habits. What habit could you form today which could lead to success this year?
One example of a good habit is that of Warren Buffett: “I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business.” Could the habit of just reading a few pages every day of a good book and then thinking or reflecting on what you have read be a good habit to start?
For success in the 2014, what habits should you keep? What habits should you stop? What habits should you start? Benjamin Franklin said “
