Managing Your Habits for Success
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Managing Your Habits for Success

How to Improve at Work and in Life by Paying Attention to Your Habits

Danny Zelaya
Danny Zelaya, 2022
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What makes the difference between a successful career and one that stalls? Bank executive and Army chaplain Danny Zelaya believes the difference lies in your habits, even the unconscious ones so ingrained you barely notice them. In this quick read, Zelaya shows how to improve your professional performance by taking control of your habitual behaviors. He argues that developing awareness and control is worth the effort because some habits – such as interrupting other people or thinking negatively about yourself – can be professionally damaging. He demonstrates how to assess your habits, analyze their consequences and replace counterproductive habits with productive ones.

Summary

Leaders must manage themselves. 

Habits are behaviors people develop in response to situations they encounter repeatedly. Managing yourself requires observing and evaluating your everyday habits, analyzing whether they help or impede your progress toward your goals, and determining how to improve them. 

When your habits become ingrained, stimuli can trigger habitual responses without your conscious awareness. Instead of reacting without thinking, try to become aware of your habits so you can judge whether they help you or if you want to revisit them. Recognizing your habits enables you to change them.

Your habits reflect your beliefs about the world.

Your convictions – the ideas and concepts you accept as true – shape your attitudes and behavior. For example, if you think that working hard is essential to attaining something you want, such as a promotion, you are more likely to work hard.

Your assumptions derive from ideas and information you have gathered from your environment and other significant people in your life. The people who raised you probably influenced you the...

About the Author

Danny Zelaya, a Senior Vice President at a Fortune 500 bank, also serves as a chaplain in the California Army National Guard.

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