Why are habits so central to the success equation? Why are habits so hard to develop and maintain? Answers to these questions, and more, are discussed in this three part series on The Common Denominator of Success by Albert Gray. If one truly internalized and lived the following principles success would surely be the result.
Below is a compilation I put together on the middle portion of this essay.
“Now let’s see why habit belongs so importantly in this common denominator of success. People are creatures of habit just as machines are creatures of momentum, for habit is nothing more or less than momentum translated from the concrete into the abstract. Can you picture the problem that would face our mechanical engineers if there were no such thing as momentum? Speed would be impossible because the highest speed at which any vehicle could be moved would be the first speed at which it could be broken away from a standstill. Elevators could not be made to rise, airplanes could not be made to fly, and the entire world of mechanics would find itself in a total state of helplessness. Then who are you and I to think that we can do with our own human nature, what the finest engineers in the world could not do with the finest machinery that was ever built?
Every single qualification for success is acquired through habit. People form habits and habits form futures. If you do not deliberately form good habits, then unconsciously you will form bad ones. You are the kind of person you are because you have formed the habit of being that kind of person, and the only way you can change is through changing habits.
Any resolution or decision you make is simply a promise to yourself that isn’t worth a tinker’s dam until you have formed the HABIT of making it and keeping it. And you won’t form the HABIT of making it and keeping it unless right at the start you link it with a definite purpose that can be accomplished by keeping it. In other words, any resolution or decision you make today has to be made again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and the next, and so on. And it not only has to be made each day, but it has to be KEPT each day for if you miss one day in the making or keeping of it, you’ve got to go back and begin all over again. But if you continue the process of making it each morning and keeping it each day, you will finally wake up some morning a different person in a different world, and you will wonder what has happened to you and the world you used to live in.”
As he stated “People form habits and habits form success”. If you are truly wanting to become more than you are today, identify the habits that will enable change and live them! It’s that simple.
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