Category: Habits

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I am Habit…

As I was going through some articles and poems about Habits… came across this interesting poem that shared in one of the training I attended years ago.

I trust we can all benefit from this poem. Enjoy reading…

The Habit Poem

I am your constant companion.
I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden.
I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.
I am completely at your command.

Half the things you do, you might just as well turn over to me,
and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.
I am easily managed; you must merely be firm with me.
Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons I will do it automatically.

I am the servant of all great men.

And, alas, of all failures as well.
Those who are great, I have made great.
Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine.

Plus, the intelligence of a man.
You may run me for profit, or run me for ruin; it makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me and I will put the world at your feet.
Be easy with me, and I will destroy you.

Who am I?

I am a HABIT! 

“Change Your Habits, Change Your World”

“Your Habits, Your Future!”

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Top 7 Habits of High Achievers

Why are some leaders effective and are able to achieve more than others? Have we ever thought of that question before?

What made these high achieving leaders successful? As my mentor and I are working on our new book, I have the opportunity to do some research on this topic.

Here are what I have discovered and of course there are a lot of other habits, let me focus on the critical few – top 7 – for your reading pleasure…

1. POSITIVE THINKING

“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.”  – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

What do you gain by thinking negative? In my humble opinion, please save your mind energy and think positive – do it every day and one day, positive thinking becomes your habit.

A great day starts with positive thinking. Also shared by Zig Ziglar, positive thinking is like taking a bath… you need it every day NOT once in a while.

2. HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

“The greatest wealth is health.”  – Virgil

As humans, we have been given the power to choose what we do with our mind, body and spirit. How do you take care of your health?

To exercise or NOT? Sleep? Diet? Choices… Choices… the choice that we make, we have to learn how to pay the price.

We do not have to start with a lot, just focus on starting… bit by bit, step by step… as long as you keep doing, you will see the results. Results will give you the motivation and change in attitude.

3. FOCUS

“So rather than trying to do too many things at once, switch over to a mindset of focusing on just one thing while you are working.” – Timo Kiander

My mentor once shared with me, “if you chase two monkeys at the same time, you ended up with no monkey!”

I trust that if we really want to excel and get results, we need to focus. Like what Robert Kiyosaki mentioned in one of his books, FOCUS means “Follow One Course Until Succeed…”

What are you focus on today? How are you prioritizing your activities?

All of us have 24 hours a day, what would happen when you start to focus?

4. LEARNING

“Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.” – Leonardo Da Vinci

How do you plan to learn for the rest of your life? It is my belief that from our cradle to the grave, we have a choice to learn and I will make the choice to learn as much as I can. There is a Chinese saying… “We learn as we grow with age…”

Learning is one of the ways to make ourselves smarter. What do want to learn today?

5. START YOUR DAY RIGHT

“Make each day your masterpiece.” – John Wooden

How would you start you day right? Let’s do a 30-day challenge to start your day with the right, “Intention, Gratitude and Appreciation…”

Intention – what are the 3 things you would like to achieve today?

Gratitude – what are you thankful for today?

Appreciation – who are you going to appreciate today and how?

I once read in a magazine article, if you start your day right, the whole day will be fantastic and fruitful.

6. REST and RELAX

“If you do what you love, it is the best way to relax.” – Christian Louboutin

What will happen if we keep working non-stop without rest and relaxation? We will definitely experience burn-out and time will be wasted for us to get back in shape to be productive.

Dale Carnegie said it right, “So, to prevent fatigue and worry, the first rule is: Rest often. Rest before you get tired.”

Find time to do activities that you love and enjoy. Imagine when you find the career and business that you truly love and enjoy doing (to learn and earn)… it would be a bliss.

How are you enjoying your down-time to rest and relax?

7. CONNECT with OTHERS

“If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people.” – Chinese Proverb

I have an author friend who encourages me to talk to strangers. In fact, I can learn a lot of things from strangers. The insight you can get from people is incredible when you listen closely to their stories.

It will also be good to constantly be in touch with our clients / customers / partners / colleagues…  get feedback and for them to feed-forward their expectations and requirements to us. By constant communication, it will help bond all of us.

How do you plan to connect with others? What questions will you ask? What information will you share?

I trust that, there are more habits that high achievers have and I am sharing this Top 7 Habits of High Achievers, so that we can benefit by perfect practicing them.

Have fun and the journey is the reward!

“Change Your Habits, Change Your World!”

“Your Habits, Your Future!”

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What is your daily routine?

How do you normally go through your day?

What do you start with?

What is your daily routine like?

Different people have different ways of running and starting their day. After doing some reading and learning from others on their daily routines, I would like to share some observations…

There is an ex-SEAL high ranking officer shared in his commencement speech with the university students, first thing to do in the morning is to make your bed right. Some of us will be wondering why, making our bed is important and what is the significance of making the bed?

According to the Navy officer, when we make our bed right, we start our day right. We have accomplished the first task of the day and by doing that, we feel productive and there is a sense of accomplishment. And we will be looking forward to completing more tasks for the day.

At times, our day may not be good and when we return home, when we see our made bed, at least one thing is done right. That, in a way is a source of motivation. That is what the Navy officer is sharing and I believe that starting your day right is important for our well-being.

I would like to share some ideas on starting the day… you can make a choice and make it your own personal project or experiment to make your 2018 and beyond better.

Set theme of the day

What is your theme for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and the rest of the days of the week? For example, Monday is to focus on completing administration work (management, operations, etc.), Tuesday for Sales, Marketing and growth of the company… the key is the power of focus. When there is a distraction, at least you know where to focus on that day.

Start and End with questions

Like Benjamin Franklin, he starts his day by asking the question, “What good shall I do this day?” and ended his day with the question, “What good have I done today?”

As for Marshall Goldsmith, he has his daily active questions;

Did I do my best to…

  • Set clear goals?

  • Make progress to achieve my goals?

  • Find meaning?

  • Build positive relationships?

  • Be fully engaged?

  • And many more…

The power of questions that can trigger deeper thinking and unleash the potential in you. And you will need to put them into action to get the results and get motivated.

Start with exercise

Some leaders start their day with exercise, moving the body to gain positive energy and get fresh morning air. It may not be for everyone, as some may only exercise middle of the day or in the evening. In my humble opinion, as long as you keep moving and be active, it should be all right.

There are a lot of goodness that comes out from an active lifestyle, just do it in moderation. Too much of a good thing may not be that good.

SAVERS Morning Routine

This interesting routine comes from Hal Elrod, author of “The Miracle Morning,” and they are as below;

S = Silence, A = Affirmations, V = Visualization, E = Exercise, R = Reading and S = Scribing.

The way we start our morning can make or break the rest of our day. The SAVERS acronym reminds us of six habits or rituals that can improve our morning routines.

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail

For those who prefer planning, it can be done in the morning or evening (for the next day). Planning can help us to focus on the things / tasks / activities to do for the day.

Some leaders focus on the top 3 most important things for the day, and they plan their day using calendar (or to-do list and there are a lot of apps that can be used for planning / scheduling).

Just sharing one of the best practices, some leaders will plan for own time and family time.

Blessed are those who are flexible…

Every day is a new day and for some, they do not have any fixed schedule nor routine. They are different every day, how interesting is that?

Different people have different styles, flexibility may stress out some people… and some really love the flexibility and spontaneity. “One man’s meat is another man’s poison…”

My recommendation is for you to do the different routines and experiment, then decide which one is the one suitable for you. You know yourself best.

All the very best in 2018 and beyond.

 

“Change your habits, change your world!”

#habitchange2dot0

#dionocl

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10 Habits of Lifelong Learners

 

Today I attended a preview for an Executive MBA and from the presentation, there was a slide which caught my attention.

“Habits of a lifelong learner…”

When I returned home, while spending the balance of my weekend… reflected and remembered that I have not written for quite some time now.

I would like to share the top 10 habits of lifelong learners as below:

1. Never stop learning as learning is a journey.

Albert Einstein shared this interesting quote,  “Once you stop learning, you start dying.”

2. Spread out the learning – chunk it down.

There is no point cramming everything in one learning. So let us take one day at a time. Like what I have shared during workshops, imaging if you improve 1% a month, you will improve 12% a year! How about 1% per week? It adds up to 52% a year… what is stopping us from learning?

3. Action will get results.

“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.” – Carl Gustav Jung

I do believe that when we put in the action, we get the results and when we get the results, we will be more motivated as well.

4. Visualise the goal (as if you have already achieve it).

“What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill

When we know where we are headed (and see it clearly in our head), chances are better we reach the destination in no time. Example when we want to finish fixing the jigsaw puzzles, we will refer to the picture on the box (begin with the end in mind). Then comes the strategies and execution…

5. Seek out to learn.

One of my mentors used to share with me… “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear…”

Once we have decided to learn (ready with the right learning attitude), somehow we are more receptive and will be able to absorb the learning better.

What are the areas that you can further learn? Take it as a “mini-project” to work on enhancing yourself.

6. Coach and Mentor others.

“You will get all you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar

It is also true when we make others happy, in return, we are happy too.

I have decided to coach and mentor as many people as I can because when I do that, I can learn from others that I am coaching or mentoring. The questions we prepared before the coaching sessions, planning and organising, research and development and not forgetting the questions that others asked (especially when we are mentoring).

There is no limit in learning as long as we have an open mind.

7. Challenges are opportunities in disguise.

If it does not kill us, it will only make us stronger… take a rest if you must, just do not throw in the towel! As long as you keep moving, one day you will arrive.

As I looked back (reflected), I have learnt that problems / challenges that I went through have taught me A LOT! We may not be able to have control over the events, with enough practice and awareness, we can learn how to respond (or react) to the situation and get better outcomes. Even if we fail, we can learn from the failure (via reflection, feedback, coaching, mentoring… and many other ways to learn).

8. Be part of learning via participation and collaboration.

There will be a lot of opportunities presented when we attend seminars, workshops, conferences, networking or any social events… let’s do our part to participate and collaborate.

It could be running projects in the organisation, corporate social responsibility, or tasks… look out for ways to be part of the team to contribute (at the same time, learn!).

9. Use technology.

What is stopping you from utilising the technology to learn?

Articles, e-learning, YouTube, TED Talk, GoogleTalk, Feedly, Twitter, Podcasts… and many others… there is an endless streams of media that we can have access to…

Turn your commute to work as “university on the move” or you can listen to audiobooks while exercising… be creative… what is needed is to prioritise when and how we want to learn.

10. Have fun and enjoy the journey.

Oh… might as well enjoy it while we are at it… YES?

Ultimately, it boils down to the choice that we make… to learn or not to learn?

Whatever choice we make, we got to pay the price.

Have fun and enjoy your learning journey.

“Let go, let life, and enjoy the journey…!”  ― James A. Murphy

One last thing, when was the last time you visited the public library? 🙂

“Change your habits, change your world!”