Habits – key to success

People are creatures of habit. Once a person forms a habit, he repeats it automatically with unerring accuracy, because every habit is an unconscious behaviour.

By definition, a manager gets things done by his employees. In order to get his employees to perform in the manner required, a manager must ensure they develop good and productive habits.

The key to forming a habit is nothing but rote and repetition. In many aspects of life, repetition is passive such that some habits are formed – good and bad – without people even being aware of the phenomenon.

Practice, practice…

The more lasting a habit is desired to be, the more assiduous must be its repetition and practice. Practice is the doorway to generating a good habit, because the more the employees practise an action, the more it becomes part of their subconscious behaviour. The army training and discipline is a good example. Every fighting technique is formed and formulated in a safe and peacetime environment; and habits so cultivated come to the rescue of the combatant, when he is confronting the real enemy.

Constant practice being a prelude to generating a habit, usually it is seen that people acquire bad habits quickly, while good habits are rather difficult to establish. Hence, the manager must be careful and vigilant that his employees do not start practising an action, until they get the rhyme and rhythm right; and then, and only then, they start practising that action and keep practising, until they will never get it wrong.

In any forward-looking company, the manager generally endeavours to reach a level of confidence concerning his employees, such that their actions and judgments are right most of the time and, therefore, reliable. This will happen only when the employees are trained to be in the right always and their mindset programmed to revolt against anything wrong.

Dangerous theory

There are people who believe that luck and fortune is essential for success in life. This school of thought is rather dangerous in the sense that it may dissuade people from taking any initiative; it may discourage them from taking control of their own lives.

If employees begin to believe that their success in life depends only on their stars, it is unlikely that they will exert themselves beyond the minimum.

The fact of the matter is that luck devolves on a person, only when he is well prepared in the areas of knowledge, skill, and attitude: and then, he awaits the right opportunity in life. It is when preparation encounters opportunity that divine luck descends on a person. Successful people make the most of the opportunities that they come across in their lives. They are able to do so because they train themselves to identify an opportunity, when it comes along. The world offers enough opportunities all the time. Good preparation must become the habit of every aspirant to success.

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