Warren Buffett is a brilliant man and he’s been incredibly successful. Part of his success are his devotion to simple principles and his discipline in sticking with them.
Buffett is a great resource if you’re looking for advice on your career and achieving success. You can see it in the video above, and there are many more on YouTube.
In this article, Buffett offers nine things you should do to be happy and successful. All are worth reviewing, but this one really stood out:
2. Change bad habits as soon as you can.
Habits can make or break you, Buffett says. “I see people with these self-destructive behavior patterns,” he says. “They really are entrapped by them.”
The trick, he says, is to get out of the trap before it closes on you, which is why he advised graduating students at the University of Florida to form good habits as soon as possible. “You can get rid of it a lot easier at your age than at my age, because most behaviors are habitual,” he told them. “The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
True enough, but if you’re older than a college senior, don’t despair. Though it may be tougher, habits can be changed at any time in life. Here’s the secret of how to do it.
We are creatures of our habits and we have to be honest with ourselves about our own behavior. Look in the mirror and assess your own habits – good and bad.
When people want to improve their behavior, they need to think about these habits as opposed to more general ideas of improving themselves. If you want to develop a new habit or get rid of one, you have to be diligent early on and be very focused on your behavior. Over time if you keep repeating the behavior it will start to become a habit.
Think about it, and you’ll probably be glad that you did.
