It's never too late to install good habits.

Did you know that all successful people have one thing in common? This is that they’ve nailed down their habits and routines. Success isn’t about genetics, background, social status, where you’re from, who your parents are, how much money you do or don’t have, or the breaks you were or weren’t given while growing up. Seriously, that all has nothing to do with being a truly successful person.
 
Installing good habits begins with you, and there is in fact a science behind the process. It’s called the 66-day protocol, as it takes 66 days of learning a new skill, doing it, breathing it in, and repeating it until it becomes a habit. This is why a lot of people never get off the ground or gain traction with a new idea or skill, instead continuing to slip back to the ordinary and just getting by, because they give up, throw their hands up, and say it’s too hard. Remember, every change you make for the better is hard in the beginning and truly messy in the middle, but once you get through it and come out the other side, change is absolutely beautiful.
 
The problem with starting something new, learning a new skill, and creating a routine or habit is that most people give up and don’t stick with it long enough. They quit as soon as it’s too difficult or chaotic, confusing and messy. Your mind will say to you over and over to just give up, go watch TV, take a nap, go back to that dead-end job, but all change is hard at first. Write that down, and post it everywhere (hard, messy, beautiful), but at the same time, tell yourself to keep right on going, because that’s how you get to your A game.
 
The first step is like destruction because you’re wiring in a new pattern. Learning this was eye opening for me, because it’s something that’s actually implemented for autistic children in early intervention. I never stopped to think of how the team of specialists I hired for my son were actually doing this for him, this pattern of teaching him a new skill and thus rewiring his brain. It’s seems so simple now, as I think about it, and I’ve since asked myself, “So why didn’t I understand that this same approach is what we all need?” Step one is like ground zero of the 66 days of installing a new pattern in yourself. Yup, let’s be clear: The beginning is truly difficult, and any change is hard, messy, and confusing, but push through it, because once you get to that 66-day point, the change has now become instinct, second nature, imprinted in you.
 
Change has been explained to me as recoding our neural pathways and emotional architecture and in fact reinventing ourselves. The whole process can feel like death, some have said, but it is a series of little deaths of the old parts of you that were filled with limitations, judgements, negativity, and procrastination. You are destroying your past self, and in this change, you may be filled with confusion and chaos and messiness. While we’re often taught that there’s something wrong with this kind of chaos, that’s not true, because out of the confusion you are growing and change is happening. After 66 days, you suddenly have a better awareness, and you can then make better choices, which of course results in you suddenly seeing better results. This is instead of the old way of giving up at, say, day 20 because your negative self-talk has kicked in and overridden your grit and resolve.
 
Think of it this way: You’re renovating a house, tearing down that old, rotted, unstable foundation. The place is a mess, chaotic and you become cranky. You have debris everywhere, stuff shoved in corners, and you’re having to climb over furniture, boxes. The noise seems to go on forever. But after your house is done, that last coat of paint is on, and the last cupboard is installed, it’s gorgeous, and you’ve forgotten about the inconvenience and hardship and how you often wanted to yank your hair out, because now you have that beautiful kitchen, that spa-like bathroom, that open home you’ve dreamed of, and every inconvenience was worth it. Installing a new habit is exactly the same. After 66 days, you’ve rewired your emotions, your neural pathways, and installed a brand new habit that’s now automatic and second nature.
 
The true secret of being iconic, legendary, an A-game player, is not willpower. It’s the installation of the right habits. Only during the first 66 days do you have to use willpower. After that, you’re done, and you can take that willpower and use it to install your next routine, and so on. Truly successful people have installed so many habits over and over to take them to that level of greatness, and they continue to install new habits.
 
So decide which habits and skills you want to wire in, and start working on them right away.

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