The following contains excepts from the book, The Power of Focus (Jack Canfield)
At our music school in Midland, Texas, we believe that music is more than sound, it is relationships. When studying the value of relationships, the subjects of leadership, self-leadership, and personal accountability come into play.
In this book Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt explain that three of the biggest challenges facing people today are time pressures, financial pressures and the struggle to maintain a healthy balance between work and home. Their advice is geared toward finding solutions to these challenges, and the strategies they offer are practical. The authors also explain that the main reason most people struggle professionally and personally is simply due to a lack of focus caused by procrastination, distractions and interruptions.
Here’s what’s important: Life doesn’t just happen to you. It’s all about choices and how you respond to every situation. If you are in the habit of continually making bad choices, disaster often occurs. Your everyday choices ultimately determine whether you end up living with abundance or living in poverty. Consistent choices lay the foundation for your habits. Your habits play a major role in how your future unfolds. This includes the habits you display to the business world every day, as well as the variety of behaviors that show up in your personal life. These strategies are not gender specific. One of the most exciting developments in the marketplace today is the rapid growth of women entrepreneurs. Successful people have successful habits; unsuccessful people don’t!
Onen of the most powerful life-skills we can help students at our music school in Midland, Texas develop is the ability to focus, through long-range goals, personal practice, and patient consistency.
Your Habits Determine Your Future
How Habits Really Work
Your habits will determine your future. What is a habit? Simply stated, a habit is something you do so often it becomes easy. In other words, it’s a behavior that you keep repeating. If you persist at developing a new behavior, eventually it becomes automatic.
We are all creatures of habit. When I drive home from my office every day, there are nine traffic lights along the route. Often I get home and don’t remember any of the lights. It’s like I’m unconscious as I drive. If my wife asks me to make a detour to pick up something on the way home, it’s not uncommon for me to totally forget because I’ve programmed myself to take the same way home every night. The great news is that you can reprogram yourself any time you choose to do so. If you’re struggling financially, this is important to know! Let’s say you want to be financially independent. Doesn’t it make sense to check your money-making habits? Are you in the habit of paying yourself first every month? Do you consistently save and invest at least 10 percent of your income? The answer is either “yes” or “no.” Immediately you can see if you are moving in the right direction. The key word here is consistent. That means every month. And every month is a good habit. Most people dabble when it comes to growing their money. They are very inconsistent. In other words, you commit to your better financial future every single day. It’s what separates the people who have from the people who don’t have.
How to change bad habits
- Study successful role models
Many people don’t believe it, but successful people are often happy to share their ideas. Track them down and interview them. Take them out to lunch and ask questions about how they became successful. What are their success habits? You’ll be amazed what you can discover if you just ask.
At our music school in Midland, Texas we encourage students to develop successful daily habits through teaching, but also by modeling, as teachers, how to achieve successful results through consistent disciplines.
Another way to study successful people is simply to read their biographies or autobiographies. Libraries are full of them. You can study the habits of some of the most successful people in your industry- even the world- anytime you like.
To make it even easier, many of these successful people produce audiotapes, so you don’t even have to read the book. You can listen to it in the car, while walking, jogging etc.
Remember: the book you don’t read won’t help.
- Develop the habit of changing your habits
One of the things we do, as teachers, to help students in our music school in Midland, Texas move forward successfully is to identify unsuccessful habits and help the student learn new ones.
You never stop learning. Always strive to improve, even if the change is marginal. Life will continue to throw challenges at you no matter how many you overcome, so be patient. Even if you have replaced all your bad habits with good ones, there is still plenty of work to be done.
Understand the consequences of your actions and think about who you want to be before choosing which new habits to develop.
Intentionality is a concept that all successful people embrace. At our music school in Midland, Texas, we encourage our students to take responsibility for their own development. This is a life-skill that will produce positive outcomes in areas more than just music. Learning to be responsible for one’s life-decisions is the first step toward real maturity.
The Successful Habits Formula
This is a step-by-step method to help you create better habits. It works because it’s simple. You don’t need complicated strategies. This template can be applied to any area of your life, business or personal. If applied consistently, it will help you achieve everything you want. There are three fundamental steps:
1. Clearly identify your bad or unproductive habits. When you examine your own bad habits, consider the long-term implications. Be totally honest.
2. Define your new successful habit. Usually this is just the opposite of your bad habit. To motivate yourself, think about all the benefits and rewards for adopting your new successful habit. This helps you create a clear picture of what this new habit will do for you. The more vividly you describe the benefits, the more likely you are to take action.
3. Create a three-part action plan. This is where the rubber meets the road. You must take action. Start with one habit that you really want to change. Focus on your three immediate action steps and put them into practice. Do it now. Remember, nothing will change until you do.
The longer a habit has been in place, the harder it will be to change. Have patience and ignore minor setbacks. Focus on your progress, not your failures. The good news is that once you have changed a habit, this becomes your new behavior- good habits are just as hard to break as bad habits!
At our music school in Midland, Texas we help students have patience with themselves, providing them with an objective and informed view of where they are and where they are going. The value of having teachers and coaches to help in these ways cannot be overstated.