Success on autopilot

January 01, 1999

The science of designing good habits

If you can install a new success forming habit, you will be on your way to success. Making a new, empowing habit takes conscious work, but once running, you will not have to think about it. Your positive results will come automatically. Whatever we do we are either creating new habits or reinforcing old ones. Old patterns are lurking under the new improved pattern, waiting for a chance to surface. They are very powerful due to all of the years of conditioning put into them. Once you have a new habit in place, never let the old one in to visit, because it will kick your new guest out and try to take up permanent residency. Creating new habits takes practice! Just as you practice golf or tennis, you must practice the new habit to make it automatic. * You must find ways of making your new habit fun! The more fun the new habit, the easier it is to stick with it. * You must develop a positive attitude about your new habit. Discover a way to make it fun! * Make a habit list. These are the habits that you want to have. Model successful people and see their habits. Get their habits and get their results! I will make a list of success habits for each area of life. Readers can choose which habit they need to acquire, and then work on getting one at a time. Create one new habit, then move onto another. Focus on one change at a time. Be patient! Goal, plan, action. Know goal, make a plan to reach that goal. This is the habit that you will acquire. Take action to create the habit. Later, habit runs itself, and you will constantly take proper actions. © Burton Richardson. Originally published in Inside Kung Fu Magazine in January 1999