What habits have the biggest impact?

Choices, choices, choices.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Your life—your one and only life on planet earth—is profoundly affected by the choices you make.

That’s why, for the past several weeks, I have been highlighting some insights from my newly articulated Life Positioning System.  I hope you have been keeping up.  If not, here’s a list of the previous posts:

How are you investing in your future?

What’s the story of your life?

When life happens, ask better questions.

Just do it … or don’t.

So far, I’ve written about four of the six powerful choices that make up the LPS. This week, I’d like to interrupt with a few practical applications of last week’s post regarding how we choose our habits.

Here’s a summary quote from last week:

“Here’s the secret sauce: If we want to change the routine, we must change the reward.  We will not consistently behave better until we identify and choose a better payoff.  AND the most effective way of identifying a better reward is to choose one that is consistent with the kind of life we want to live.”

So what are some practical applications of that?

Here are a few of the habits I am choosing and the life rewards that are driving them. (No, I don’t have them mastered. Yes, I am making progress.)

1. Touch it once. The reward is to live a life not bogged down with clutter or procrastination.
2. Have a daily finish line. The reward is that I can say something was accomplished.
3. Always ask, “What’s next?” The reward is to live a life focused forward.
4. Always challenge the status quo. The reward is to live as a lifelong learner.
5. Add value to every encounter. The reward is to live as one who elevates the circumstances.
6. Treat every person with respect. The reward is that I live reminded of each person’s inherent value.
7. Learn something from every encounter. The reward is that no experience is wasted if I learned something.
8. Seek to bless, not impress. The reward is that I get to live in freedom rather than fear of what others think about me.
9. Seek to assist, not enlist. The reward is that I get to use things to help people instead of using people to acquire things.
10. Always ask, “Where is God in this?” The reward is that all my other habits are grounded in eternal significance.

How are these things practical habits?  You may think most of them still seem like principles rather than specific practical daily habits.

So, here’s how I answer that question.  Circumstances arise every day where I am confronted with opportunities to either create on ramps or create barriers to the life I want to live.

What do I do with the dozens of requests for my attention that come every day?  Those ten habits (and some others that I did not mention), help me to respond in a way that allows me to treat people appropriately without getting sucked into their drama.

How do those things help me develop healthy lifestyle choices (like eating and exercise)? Will a poor diet and sedentary lifestyle help me live the life I want to live?  No.  Can I immediately become healthy? No. Can I make one healthy choice at a time?  Absolutely. Can I repeat those healthy choices until a pattern (habit) develops? Certainly.

But if I don’t have a clear picture of the reward of the healthy choices over time, I won’t make the first one today.

Our lives matter to God. How do you really want to live yours?  Start your lifestyle habit list. I’d love to hear from you.

Be amazing, my friend.