Will Holiday Habits Set You Back for 2009? By Jack Canfield

Will Holiday Habits Set You Back for 2009?
By Jack Canfield

You are an accumulation of your habits. From how you get out of bed, how you shower, how you dress, how you shop for food and eat meals, how you exercise, how you walk, sit, and talk, how you respond to the world, how you act in front of others, and how you think; you are living out your habits.

Habits are necessary. Because they typically come naturally and automatically (“through habit”), they free up your mind so you can concentrate on how to survive day to day. You don’t have to think about how to drive your car so you can be on the lookout for danger while you are driving. You don’t have to think about how to walk so you can concentrate on where you’re going.

Unfortunately, habits can also keep you locked in self-destructive patterns, which will limit your success.

This is especially true during stressful periods, like holidays. And compounding the holiday season this year is the current economic downturn we’re all experiencing.

It’s probably going to last longer than a season, infringing upon people’s aspirations and optimism for 2009. People are facing job loss, foreclosures, higher bills, lower incomes…and yet those holiday expectations loom large.This is when it’s far too easy to let bad habits take over and multiply with every holiday symbol that you see.

What’s the secret to surviving this holiday season, bring in the new year feeling fantastic–physically and emotionally–and have more confidence in the future?

You will need to drop those bad habits and develop new ones that are in line with the life you want to live. This will help you to get through the holidays cheerfully and embrace 2009 with high hopes. People don’t suddenly appear in the life they want to live, habits determine their outcome!

So ask yourself, what are the habits you have that are keeping you from achieving your goals? Which ones seem to become magnified during the end of the year, setting you up for feeling behind and lousy come January 1st?

Really be honest with yourself. Are you always running late? Do you make promises you can’t keep? Do you get enough sleep? Do you make excuses for not eating well and scheduling exercise? Do you plan out your day?

Imagine what your life would be like if all those habits were their productive counterparts.

What would your life be like if you ate healthy meals, exercised and got enough sleep? What if you saved money, stopped using credit cards and paid cash for everything? What if you stopped procrastinating, overcame your fears, and began networking with people in your field? Would your life be different? I bet it would!

So, my suggested action step for you is to write down some productive habits you could adopt and visualize in your life. Step two is to “act as if” you were living these new habits right now!

I know, you thought you wouldn’t have to do this until New Year’s, but I’d like to help you get moving toward creating more successful habits today, so you’re already in motion when 2009 lands.

I’d recommend you plan on developing four of your new success habits each year, one for each quarter. That means right this instant you can map out which four you intend to adopt in 2009, and then create a method that will support your new habits.

Here are some ideas: You could write it down on a card that you keep with you and read several times a day. You could make it a part of your daily visualization. You could also enlist the help of an accountability partner who has habits to change.

It’s important to make a 100% commitment to each of your new habits, so be specific about the steps that you’re willing to take in order to drop an old habit and adopt a new one.

Don’t be vague about how you will change your habits. Spell it out for yourself so you can recognize situations that motivate you to act out your new habit.

Just developing four new habits a year will dramatically shift your life to be more in line with your vision. And the more in line it becomes, the easier the other habits are to replace because your perspective is shifting and you can see more clearly how your old habits aren’t serving you anymore.

Don’t let the economic forecast for the next several months impede your movement forward. Get ready for 2009 today. Focus on habits that will launch you forward, not back.

Make the decision. Make the commitment. Then watch your new, positive life unfold!

© 2008 Jack Canfield

Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

Leadership is a choice.. there is a subtle difference between backing off and doing nothing.   Backing off gives power to the Tribe.  To lead you need to create motion.  The idea is to bring you to the point of creating more.  Lean in and let go… but don’t do nothing.  This can cause discomfort, which is the point.  If you are not feeling uncomfortable, then you have not pushed yourself into greatness. 

I found this book to be both profound and inspiring.  I have rarely enjoyed a book as much as I have Tribes.  Below is the excerpt from Amazon.

A tribe is any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. For millions of years, humans have been seeking out tribes, be they religious, ethnic, economic, political, or even musical (think of the Deadheads). It’s our nature.

Now the Internet has eliminated the barriers of geography, cost, and time. All those blogs and social networking sites are helping existing tribes get bigger. But more important, they’re enabling countless new tribes to be born—groups of ten or ten thousand or ten million who care about their iPhones, or a political campaign, or a new way to fight global warming.

And so the key question: Who is going to lead us?

The Web can do amazing things, but it can’t provide leadership. That still has to come from individuals— people just like you who have passion about something. The explosion in tribes means that anyone who wants to make a difference now has the tools at her fingertips.

If you think leadership is for other people, think again—leaders come in surprising packages. Consider Joel Spolsky and his international tribe of scary-smart software engineers. Or Gary Vaynerhuck, a wine expert with a devoted following of enthusiasts. Chris Sharma leads a tribe of rock climbers up impossible cliff faces, while Mich Mathews, a VP at Microsoft, runs her internal tribe of marketers from her cube in Seattle. All they have in common is the desire to change things, the ability to connect a tribe, and the willingness to lead.

If you ignore this opportunity, you risk turning into a “sheepwalker”—someone who fights to protect the status quo at all costs, never asking if obedience is doing you (or your organization) any good. Sheepwalkers don’t do very well these days.

Tribes will make you think (really think) about the opportunities in leading your fellow employees, customers, investors, believers, hobbyists, or readers. . . . It’s not easy, but it’s easier than you think.

You can also download the book from iTunes.

To your success

 

 

PE Radio Talks with Lynn Scheurell

Lynn Scheurell is an authority on helping soul-driven entrepreneurs to create a living from who they are by creating a business that is the expression of their life purpose.  She helps people get dramatic results quickly through intentional innovation, extreme clarity, focused action and she supports entrepreneurs in understanding their own processes for problem solving and how they create what they want in their lives and businesses.  After identifying the potential barriers to success as well as their personal keys to achieving it for her clients, she then translates that into practical, personalized structure and systems to help her clients grow their businesses faster.

Register to receive FREE special report called The 7 Deadly Mistakes that Keep Soul-Driven Business Owners from Making Money at www.mycreativecatalyst.com

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www.DailyCatalyzers.comReceive free ecourse on how to change your life in seven days at  www.GEENIForChange.com

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