April 26, 2017

Dear Grandchildren:

So far we’ve talked about how to have a successful “you” by discussing four simple words that will help you to succeed: Attitude, Time, Motivation, and Communication. 

Let me explain how to get the most out of these newsletters. If you are looking for a magic “quick-fix” formula, you won’t find it here. In my experience, there’s no such thing. It takes real commitment and focus to create positive results in your life.

Over the years, I’ve attended dozens of seminars on how to improve this and that about myself. If I can learn one principle to add to my life, I feel it’s well worth the time and effort. One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that many people never even take notes at these seminars, so I’m sure they wasted much of their time. The second group of seminar seekers who did take notes, probably didn’t take the time to implement what they learned from their notes.

The key word is taking Action! If it sounds like it’s a direction you would like to take, then you must take corresponding action. Let’s face the facts. It takes hard work to make positive changes in your life. In fact, you have to make it a habit to succeed. Here’s something to remember.

Successful people have successful habits! Unsuccessful people don’t! 

Yes, you can see our fifth word is habits. Your habits will determine your future. Consistent choices lay the foundation for your habits. Your habits play a major role in how your future unfolds. Whether it’s habits in your school or work as well as the variety of behaviors that show up in your personal life.

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 until it becomes automatic. A good example is driving your car. Remember how focused you were at first? After a few months, it became easier and now it’s automatic–right? It became a habit. If you drive five or six miles an hour over the speed limit, then that can become another habit.

Let’s say your goal is to be financially independent. Doesn’t it make sense to check your financial habits? Are you a saver or a spender? If you are a saver, you’d take, for example, 10% of your check and put it in your savings account. If you did that every week and every month, you’d develop a good habit. The key word here is consistent. In other words, you commit to your financial future every single day. It’s what separates the people who have from the people who don’t.

I’ll continue to remind you that it takes hard work, making hard choices, and being really focused on where you want to go and be in life. It’s much, much easier to spend your whole check each week and live week to week. Both ways are habits.

Let’s look at another example. Maintaining excellent health is high on everyone’s list–right? It takes work and focus to enjoy good health habits: exercising at least three times a week, getting six to eight hours of sleep per night, and eating right. If you look around, you’ll notice the masses in America are overweight and under exercised. And it’s partly because of the habits they gave into. I’m starting to feel the heat myself of what I just wrote. Ugh!

Here’s something to remember.

The results of your bad habits usually don’t show up until much later in life. 

Let me use an example that I learned about myself this week concerning a bad habit that affected Grandma. Every time we had gone to Disney and stayed overnight, I’d complain and make comments that we should be sleeping in our home in The Villages– about an hour west of Orlando. Grandma finally said it was no fun going to Disney with me! WOW! That really hurt, but it was the truth. Well, guess what? We just spent four days at Disney and Grandma said it was a joy to be with me. I broke that bad habit and learned something new about myself.

Well, Grandchildren, I hope you spend some time thinking about how to improve your good habits and how to eliminate those that are not good for you.

Until next month,

I love you,

Grandpa