Recently, as I was pulling out of my driveway I looked at my home, my beautiful garden and the beautiful bay that surrounds my home and I was filled with an overwhelming sense of awe, and gratitude, at what I’ve created. None of this would be if I had not adopted positive habits that enriched my life. Before I got into personal development I expected ‘other people’ to make me happy, but all the work that I put into myself, and the positive habits I established paid off.
It took me way longer than I anticipated to get to where I am today, both financially and in terms of how I feel about myself. And a lot of things didn’t turn out the way I expected, but none of that has detracted from the quality of my life. At times I allowed other people’s words to make me doubt myself. I allowed the unhappiness of others to take away my joy. But I’ve always read inspirational books, listened to audios and attended personal development courses and seminars and it’s these simple habits that enabled me to get my life back on track time and time again.
A lot of people, as they get older, give up on dreams but it’s important to have dreams no matter what age you are, and it’s equally important to act as if your dreams will come true, while remaining open that what you want may come in a different way and form to what you imagined.
Tony Robbins once told the story of a man who attended one of his seminars. By just about anyone’s standards, this man was a success. When Tony asked him what had to happen in order for him to feel successful, he replied that he had to earn $3 million a year in annual salary. He was already earning $3.5 million a year but that was made up of salary of $1.5 million plus bonuses. He also had to have eight per cent body fat, he had nine per cent. He had to never get frustrated with his kids. With rules like this I doubt this man could ever be happy.
It would be nice to go through life without rules. Rules make life hard but change your rules and you really can change your life. If I decided everyone had to like me, or my work, I’d be setting myself up for failure.
Life can be so much easier when you change the way you look at life.
Every day I hear people complaining about their situation, yet at the same time all of these people have a roof over their heads and most of them have regular incomes. We live in one of the best countries in the world. We have freedom. We have choices, yet we live in a negative world where the majority of people focus on what they don’t have, or what is wrong.
We always have a choice. No-one can tell us how to react to any situation. We can choose to be happy; no matter what happens to us and that is a choice I make every day. You can choose be prosperous; even though right now your circumstances may not look so positive. I chose to be prosperous when I couldn’t even afford to feed my family. You can program your mind to look for the good in every situation, and that’s the wonderful thing about habits, after a while you don’t consciously think about them, they become an automatic response.
We are all a work in progress and the path to the life we wish to create is not a straight line, we go backwards and forwards and that’s okay as long as we pick ourselves up and start over.
Positive Habits that Enrich Our Lives
The simpler habits are the easier they are to commit to, so I urge you to:
- Take time to create a daily routine that supports you:
- Regularly listen to yourself talk and choose to talk positively
- Ensure that your positive words and actions outweigh your negative ones by 5:1, this is the ratio researchers believe is the key to success.
These simple habits really can enrich your life.