Focus 3 
At the heart of personal and professional success is this core principle: Your habits are perfectly designed to get the results they’re getting. Thus, we should continually ask ourselves, “Are the habits I have producing the results I want?” The answer, of course, is that we all have a mixture of habits: some good, some average, and some ineffective.
The important thing is to pay attention to what is working in your life and do more of it, and pay attention to what isn’t working and stop doing it. Doing more of what doesn’t work, doesn’t work! If we want different results in our life and work, we need different habits.
Look carefully at the key areas of your life: work, friendships, marriage, parenting, finances, physical fitness, etc.. What path are you on? Where are your habits and behavior patterns taking you? What are the consequences if you don’t make any changes?
You are what you repeatedly do. Repeated behavior always builds habit, but it does not always build skill. Habits are built through repeated action over time, and habits are changed through repeated action over time.
I recently read a quote that very clearly communicates the power of habit.
I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half of 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 to be 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 place the world at your feet. Be easy with me, and I will destroy you.
Who am I? I am habit!
Remember, you don’t determine your future. You determine your habits and your habits determine your future.
