The Most Important Thing -feedback

[Reverend Keith]

I've been doing a little thinking on this issue and I thought it would be a good question to pose here. If you could recommend ONE new habit, technique or idea for a person to incorporate into their lives that would make the most difference overall, what would it be? I have a few ideas myself on what it would be, but I'd be interested in everyone else's suggestions.

I did a blog post to collect ideas here: but I'd be happy to collect feedback on the forum instead.

[Life Hacking Pianist]

Daily meditation. It's amazing how much it helps. Focuses your mind and lets you get stuff done.

[Daffy Duck]

Setting goals.

And I mean real goals where you spend time evaluating your life, not the "oh I'd like to do that but won't even take 10 minutes out of my non-busy life to think of how or why" type of goals.

[Ezzyta]

Isn't it enough to enjoy life as it is?
Theirs no need to change anything when you can be happy with anyhing?

[SatvikBeri]

Journal regularly. Writing makes your thinking much more focused and clear, and allows you to really see where you're going and where you want to go.

I heard that businesses where the owners write business plans tend to be 50% more likely not to go bankrupt-even though the owners almost never look at their plans afterwards.

[Reverend Keith]

Meditation, goals and journaling were all on my short list. One thing that I'm beginning to think is a primary "habit" is a time of daily reflection on how I'm doing. Journaling can serve the same purpose I imagine. Just taking five minutes a day to ask "how is my life going? What have I learned from today? What might I have done differently? What do I want to do tomorrow?" I find if I don't take some time for daily reflection, I lose ground. I may have goals, but if I don't have a habit of looking a them, they just sit in a book. On the other hand, if I take five minutes, even if it's to say "I really didn't make any progress on my goals and that's fine." - as long as I keep doing it every day - eventually I get back on track.

As to Ezzyta's suggestion, I think there is a definite danger in self-development becoming an ego trap - a long, difficult road we insist on completing before we allow ourselves to be happy. But if we can start with utter self-acceptance, then I think we can allow ourselves the fun of creatively experimenting with our potential - more as play than as a burning need to be different than we are.

[ssandra]

I would say self-discipline.

Any other habit can be easily learned or unlearned once you have this one under control.

Without it... you won't do your daily meditation, your daily reviews etc...

[Reverend Keith]

Originally Posted by ssandra

I would say self-discipline.

Any other habit can be easily learned or unlearned once you have this one under control.

Without it... you won't do your daily meditation, your daily reviews etc...

This is similar to what my original idea was for the "one" most important thing. For me, it's a daily review. I needed to develop the habit of doing a quick check on my progress every day. Even if it's only to say "Well, I didn't accomplish anything on any long-term goals yesterday. Things came up and I just didn't feel like it and that's FINE". At least with a daily quick review, I know that I won't completely forget about my goals or plans. That small amount of discipline is needed for me to keep track of all the OTHER things, from meditation to journaling - that can make a difference.

[Reverend Keith]

Originally Posted by Reverend Keith

This is similar to what my original idea was for the "one" most important thing. For me, it's a daily review. I needed to develop the habit of doing a quick check on my progress every day. Even if it's only to say "Well, I didn't accomplish anything on any long-term goals yesterday. Things came up and I just didn't feel like it and that's FINE". At least with a daily quick review, I know that I won't completely forget about my goals or plans. That small amount of discipline is needed for me to keep track of all the OTHER things, from meditation to journaling - that can make a difference.

Just as a final note, I did a post on my "one thing" here since it seemed to go well with New Years Resolutions and such.

[TheMoneyManLeo]

Originally Posted by Reverend Keith

If you could recommend ONE new...idea for a person to incorporate into their lives that would make the most difference overall, what would it be?

Rethink failure!

Most of us are probably are familiar with the tale of Thomas Edison failing 10,000 times to invent the lightbulb or how many ever times it was.

Col. Sanders was past retirement age when he first sold his chicken recipe after hundreds of rejections.

As they say, the major difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that the successful people have failed more often.

Your failures don't have to be expensive or take a long time. Fail fast and fail cheap.

Tom Watson, the founder of IBM said it best: "if you want to double your success rate, double your failure rate."