"There is no real excellence in all this world which can be separated from right living." ~ David Starr Jordan
My everyday habits have proved to me that excellence can arise out of a few simple habits. A person of excellence must unceasingly acquire new good habits, build and exercise established habits, and eradicate bad habits. I spend all day focusing on building and maintaining good habits and attitudes while checking myself constantly to avoid bad habits and attitudes. This process itself is a great habit! It can feel heavy at times, especially when I recently have discovered several new habits I want to form or a particularly bothersome one that I need to dispose of. This practice reaps many rewards in all areas of my life!
The rewards reaped from good habits require patience to achieve. When I speak of these attitudes and habits, the most important ones I focus on are quite fundamental.
Here is a small sample of my current working habits:
- One habit I am currently trying to get rid of involves productive procrastination. Everything I ever do is always worth doing (at least I think so at the time I am doing it). My problem is that the task I am currently working on is not always of the highest priority. Many times I tackle things that I do need to do but are not important and are easy to accomplish. This is a creative form of seemingly well justified procrastination. I should always work on the most important task that I am able to work on at any given moment.
- One habit that I maintain regularly is to make sure that I openly appreciate all of the people I encounter. With my girlfriend, I make sure I tell her that she is beautiful in some form everyday. With my little brother, I always make sure I tell him one thing I really like that he is doing with his life every time I see him. With a new acquaintance, I always make sure that if an idea or criticism they present to me is good, they know about it immediately. These are only a few examples! Appreciation of my peers is super important.
- One habit I am currently establishing within myself involves my own focused self-education. I tend to be interested in, what at times seems to be, everything. It is good to be well-rounded but our current economic model tends to reward individuals for having a small group of interrelated specialties. My current pool of skill and knowledge that is under development relates to human productivity and technology that augments human productivity.
These are only a few habits I am developing. I am also working on my attitude fervently; it always seems to need adjustment! What are you working on?