Studying the habits of historical people can pave the way for you to become a more successful person who is living the life you want. Even though habits can be either positive or negative, you will improve yourself by choosing and implementing only good habits. Keep reading to learn about some good habits that can work to your advantage.

Visualization

Mohandas Gandhi continually visualized the possibilities of living in a unified and peaceful world. With this steadfast thought embedded in his mind, all of his actions dictated his belief. He achieved great success worldwide for his peaceful work which all started by believing it in his mind. There is a saying that you need to believe it, then see it.

Sharing Responsibility

Another historical figure, Abraham Lincoln, had the ability to share responsibility for the good and the bad things that happened. He had a belief that “the path to success is broad enough for two”. He had no problem in praising his team for doing a great job. Lincoln never accepted full responsibility for when things worked out well, which is why he had such a loyal following. He also shared the blame for things going wrong, instead of shifting all the blame to his Cabinet members. Sharing responsibility is something everyone can learn from and apply in everyday life.

Routines

Benjamin Franklin was a creature of habit. Every morning he would rise and start the day by contemplating how he could make the best use out of his day. He would organize his day so that his lunch was routinely scheduled between 12-1p. His positive resolutions helped him live afulfilling, successful life, and his example can help you, too. Choose a routine that works best for you incorporate that as a daily habit. If you are a morning person, maybe you want to take on a tiring task and get it out of the way. If you have more energy in the afternoon, perform that task then. Whatever works for you can work towards forming healthy habits. Routines can make organizing your day easier.

Discipline

Amadeus Mozart would lock himself in a room until he finished a composition. He knew the importance of discipline in achieving goals. By locking himself away from everyone, he avoided distractions that would interrupt his concentration and creative process. He could concentrate fully on his musical works. He would keep track of his daily work by using a habit tracker to keep himself on track for achieving his goal. He would write down each practice session, with the time he started and finished it. You can use this habit tracking system as a monitoring tool to reward yourself. The tool can highlight areas that need improvement. If Mozart saw he fell short one day, he would make up for it the following day. You can use online goal setting software to help you become better organized in this area.

Competition

Famous playwright Henry Ibsen always kept a photo of his competitors on his desk while writing. The photo would continually remind him of the importance of furthering himself while advancing farther than his competition. Everyone can benefit from this. In addition to putting a picture of your competition on your work desk or wall, you can stay aware of your competitor’s actions by staying current with the news. If available, read a biography or autobiography of your competition.

The habits of successful historical people apply to everyone. Developing a habit takes energy, thought and perseverance. Try it, you will like it.

Help Has Arrived

It’s almost New Year’s! For some people that marks the day to set new goals for the coming year. It is a hopeful time of year, and the phrase on everybody’s lips is “This year I’m going to…”. Goals range from establishing a new and personally valuable habit to shedding an old, bad habit. It is determination, confidence and a new strategy for goal accomplishment that rings in with the new year, as we resolve to succeed this time.

Goals come in all shapes and sizes. Some are huge, some are small. Some are finite, some are life-long goals. Some goals may be easier to reach than others. Some goals terminate in a single event. Such as, “This year I will take a cruise,” or perhaps “This year I will retire from work.” Other goals may be longer term goals. For example, “This year I am going to make a significant dent in my debt load,” or perhaps “This year I volunteer more of my time.” Perhaps you are setting goals to last your life time, for instance, “This year I will eat healthier so that I will feel better and live longer” or “This year I will quit drinking.” Our goals and our reasons for setting them are individual, personal and worthwhile.

How successful are you at reaching your annual goals? Have you made this goal before, over and over, and never quite get where you want to be? Sometimes it is a struggle, especially when trying to break bad habits. Many goal seekers need assistance in tracking their goals. Consistency does help establish new behaviors. There are several sites on the internet that offer goal tracking software, some are better than others; three popular ones are Habitmix, Joe’s Goals and Habittracker.

These three sites offer similar frameworks, such as listing your goals and tallying your success each day, but Habitmix offers details that are lacking in Joe’s Goals and Habittracker. Habitmix lets you put your commitment into statement form, which you can review each day. This is a valuable habit for busy lifestyles, and a necessary one to fully establish or extinguish specific behaviors. The simplicity and limitations of the other sites, Joe’s Goals and Habittracker, truly limit the depth of application. On Habitmix, you can prioritize goals and related behaviors and also add a time commitment to them separately. Doing so allows you to balance daily goals, weekly goals or longer ones simultaneously.

In Habitmix you get to put your core values into writing. Joe’s interface is simplistic, and it allows you to put check marks for accomplishing certain goals on a daily basis, while Habitmix allows you to break down the goal into the necessary steps, and mark the steps as they are accomplished each day. For a social connection and motivation you can connect your core values to your Facebook, MySpace, a blog or a website. Adding the touch of social pressure might be just the extra push you need.

Habitmix gives you the tools to break down your goals into manageable steps and monitor your own progress. By reading over your commitment statement daily, you are reminding yourself, even when life is chaotic, what you want to achieve and why. If your previous record of goal accomplishment has fallen a little short of where you want it to be, then check out Habitmix. The only time you truly fail is when you stop trying.

Steven Pinker is an American scientist who was gained renown by explaining how to the mind works to lay people in an accessible and insight full way. He has done this through his books and presentations

In his recent review of the book “Willpower” he summarizes some of the state-of-the-art thinking about willpower.

  • Since the 1960s the recorded use of the phrase “Willpower” has fallen dramatically. Willpower as a concept is out of favor. Willpower is a concept that would be presented to someone living in the 1930s far more than it’s presented to someone living today.
  • Willpower has been shown to be very important. The classic and often cited work done by Walter Mischel demonstrated that on average people who could delay gratification at age 4 went on to have much more satisfied and successful lives than those who could not delay gratification. (In on particular experiment a 4 year olds were given the choice of one marshmallow now or a wait of 15 minutes for two marshmallows.)
  • The idea of “fighting” to stay on the right path, the idea that willpower is a “force”, seems to have some validity.
  • Studies have shown that willpower can be fatigued just like a physical muscle. After your willpower has been under heavy strain it weakens.

Sugar was seen to provide a short term boost to willpower, just as it provides a short term energy boost to the physical body.

Willpower can be stregnthened by exercise. Studies were performed in which people on a regimen on recording their habits or regular exercise were found to have increased their willpower endurance, their willpower fatigued less easily that before their regimen.

The book suggest building up willpower with small regular exercises.

You can check out the review here.

Thoughts. You will become what you consistently think about.

If memories of past failure or imaginings of future failure dominate your mind you will not be able to succeed.

How can I control what I think about ?

  • Notice what you think about. Stop yourself and literally say “Wow I am really thinking negatively at the moment!”. Acknowledge that your mind how moods just like the earth has weather. Mind moods come and go, they can change the way the world looks but they don’t change what the world is.
  • Practice not taking your thoughts seriously. If you notice yourself worrying about the future or the past smile and say to yourself “that’s just a random thought, it doesn’t mean anything”. Get into the habit or not taking negative thoughts seriously. As soon as you notice a negative train of thought dismiss it as just a random thought.

When you first start noticing and analyzing your own thoughts it may feel a little strange. You might even get caught up in the confusion of conflicting thoughts and feelings.

Just as your exercise and eating habits may need to be reformed so to your mind habits, your patterns of thinking might been to be set straight. You can do it, and start today.

It’s amazing that we live in a time when information can be shared so easily. On the internet we have experts competing to provide us with the best information, it’s a crime not to take advantage of this opportunity.

Here is a mini round up of some of the best information out there on how to adopt new habits and change your life.

18 Tricks to Make New Habits Stick

A fantastic article with lots of great suggestions on how to make your new habits habits for life.

Two Simple Ways to Form New Habits Without Really Trying

The Zen approach to adopting new habits!

Top 10 ways to establish new habits – without discipline

Great general advice

Why Creating A New Habit Is So Hard

A little background on how brain chemistry affects your ability to adopt a new habit