Will Durant (not Aristotle) once said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” But if you are what you repeatedly do, then becoming a success isn’t the result of specific actions you take, but is the result of habits you build into your life.
This means that success isn’t something you seek out. Instead, success is the accumulation of habits you build into your daily routine. In turn, those habits are what build you a successful life.
This is why people with good habits always do better than others. It’s because they’re doing the most important things on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, this is what most people fail to do. Often times, you get people who say they want to build an audience online, start and grow a business, or get good grades in school, but what they do on a daily basis doesn’t reflect that.
This is why the most important thing that any individual can do is create a daily routine that aligns with what they want in life.
If you can get your daily routine right, then you’ll be able to accomplish in one year what takes most people 10 years to accomplish.
So tell me, what does a typical day for you look like?
After examining what a typical day of yours looks like, can you say that what you’re doing on a daily basis will bring you closer toward achieving your goals?
In other words, if you completely ignored your long-term goals and focused only on your daily habits, would you still achieve them?
This is a great question to ask yourself because when it comes to achieving success, you do not rise to the level of your goals. Instead, you always fall to the level of your habits.
So ask yourself, what would your ideal day need to look like in order to achieve your goals?
Based on my long-term goals, for example, my ideal day would need to include the following habits:
- 8 hours of healthy, uninterrupted sleep the night before.
- Running at least 3 miles.
- 1 hour of reading.
- 3 hours of undistracted writing, whether it’s writing posts for my blog, articles for sites I write for, or personal projects.
As of now, these are some of the habits that would need to be included in my daily routine in order to achieve my goals. Your goals are different from mine so your day should also look different.
So ask yourself, what would your ideal day need to look like in order to achieve your goals?
For instance:
- If you want to run a marathon long term, then your day should include running at least 3 miles.
- If you want to master chess long term, then your day should include playing chess for at least 30 minutes.
- If you want to read 500 books long term, then your day should include an hour of reading.
Remember that your daily habits, what you do on a daily basis, are extremely important to your success. So if you’re not serious about developing successful habits, then you’re not serious about building a successful life.
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