Motivation for your Monday: Daily Habits can be steps to your goals or the elevator to failure!

That's right! Daily habits CAN be steps to your goals or they can be the elevator to failure! Now, don't get me wrong. Failure is a part of success because through it we learn so much. BUT ... there is a fine line from being a lesson or downward spiral.

This morning I arose with some wisdom that was a hard lesson to learn. I have been on a downward spiral lately even though like yesterday I posted at the amazing life I am discovering through the gratitude journey. Call it an awakening if you will, an AHA moment, a whisper, or even warning bells. It's time to make some changes. I will share more personally and deeply later in the month, but for now let's take a look at the reason daily habits are so important and crucial to make (or break) us.

Habits are defined as a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. In other words it is an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it almost becomes involuntary.

Wow right!? We are, in some way, forming habits all the time. I know someone who twirls her hair so often that she doesn't even know she does it. Look at a smoker ~ they often reach for a cigarette without realizing it. A drinker may develop a habit of having an drink everyday after work as a "way to relax" until that is the only way they can relax. Runners become runners by habitually training or hitting the pavement. Brushing your teeth becomes a habit (or not).

Habits for Success
I am not really going to give you a step by step pattern but just something to look at in your day as far as your habits go. Are they leading you towards your dreams and goals or are they pulling you away from them?

1. Does your habit interfere with completing your goal?
Ex: Some writers may resort to a daily drink to "relax" their minds, but .... many have found it puts them in too much of a relaxed state and they do not get any writing done at all. Runners who do not develop a consistent habit of running, they will never progress in distance and endurance.

2. Does your habit keep you focused on your goal?
Ex: Getting online to "research" topics to speak about yet finding yourself stuck in the social media black hole will lead to lots of time lost, and perhaps even confused. These are GREAT tools but if used for anything but a tool it has the capacity to be a dream thief.

3. Does your habit make you a better person in general?

I know that is a short list but really they are big! HUGE! And as I write this, I now see that I was being prepared for this topic early in the day yesterday but I did not know it. I hadn't listened to a teaching from Terri Savelle Foy in a long time and lo and behold it was part one of a four part series on habits! :) We have GOT to listen to that inner whisper that leads us in our daily decisions (even the tiniest of them).

With that said, I am excited to see myself get back on track with writing #mydirtylittlesecret and finding some focus in areas that I have been lacking! Every habit in your day matters~ Every one of them!