Successful people master and maintain good habits they realize what they do on a daily basis, and where they direct most of their attention, matters when it comes to reaching goals. 

The habits you have developed and continue to practice reflects where you are now.  Let’s face it most people do not practice good habits.  The good news is, if you are unhappy where you are in your life, you can change the outcome by altering what you do from day to day, developing better more productive habits.

Four habits that will help maximize the results you have been producing and live the life of your dreams.  FACE is an acronym:

1.       Focus your energy,

2.      Ability to Prioritize,

3.      Completion of Tasks, and

4.      Excellent Positive Mental Attitude.

1. Focus of your energy.  Learning how to direct your energy towards the most rewarding tasks is crucial for achieving high levels of success.  One of the biggest mistakes that many people make is focusing on low priority tasks. Take a look at everything you have going on right now in your life, pay close attention and ask yourself what the high-value tasks are - the ones that will bring you the most reward.

2.  Ability to prioritize.  Think of what is your most important goal right now (primary goal). If you had to pick one goal that would make your life become what you consider success - that is the primary goal.  A primary goal is one that when you think about it makes you feel good and in most cases your heart beats faster.  Focus on that primary goal and soon all the tasks required to reach the primary goal will fall into place.  Then you will need to prioritize your tasks.  High achievers never lose sight of the primary goal.  Every day, do something that will move you closer to the achievement of your primary goal.

3. Completion of tasks. Being able to start something and follow through until it's completed is the key to long-term success.  Imagine yourself completely finishing your projects and tasks to reach your primary goal.  How do you feel when you visualize reaching your primary goal? The more you visualize yourself following through and completing important tasks, the more determined you will be to actually accomplishing tasks.

4. Excellent Positive Mental Attitude (PMA). To be successful, you need to have a positive mental attitude, or PMA. If you do nothing about negative thoughts, chances are you will fall short of your primary goal.  You need to continually feed your mind with positive thoughts and not let yourself or others weigh you down with negative thoughts / feelings.

Most successful people have experienced some sort of setback or failure. They could have just stopped short of the primary goal and called it quits. Instead, they had a positive mental attitude about themselves and their abilities, which gave them the power needed to continue along and reach their primary goal.  Creating this sort of attitude is one of your most important habits that you end up incorporating on a daily basis.

Once you have set your Goal(s) the next commitment or promise you must make to yourself and keep is reaching the Goal, let nothing stand in your way.  Setting your goal is not necessarily a process of setting down with goals at the top of the page – then listing.  Think of goals this way – when you decided to get your first car – your thoughts were probably about: 1) how you would feel driving the car, 2) what your friends may think of you, 3) the smell of new car leather, 4) pride of ownership, etc.  When you were fully bitten by the new car bug several things started happening: 1) planning how you would buy the car 2) constant thought about the car etc.  The primary goal was then set – getting the car.  I think you know where I am going.  Once you established the primary goal, there were a number of tasks that had to be completed to reach the goal: 1) Perhaps acquiring the funds for the car, possibly financing and down payment, 2) garage space, 3) license requirements, etc. – all of these tasks had to be completed to successfully reach your primary goal.

The forgoing about the new car is exactly how to set your life / business goal.  You may be in any type of job.  However, it is important for the primary goal to be your goal.  You may reach goals set for you, but long-lasting more fulfilling is accomplishment of your personal goals.  If you work for a company that requires you to produce at a certain level you should tie your personal goals to the company goals.  Most organizations that have highly productive / highly engaged employees encourage employees to have their own personal goal and connect to the company goal.  Goals – envision the new home, corner office, promotion, buying a new home or second home, etc.  Once you have the primary goal in mind – that all important goal - that stirs you until you hardly can contain yourself – that is a valid primary goal.  Once you have set your primary goal work backwards to develop subsets of tasks.  Once the primary goal is set put everything you have into reaching it.  Make a commitment to yourself, don’t give up - FACE your success. 

Make sure you remain on course. It is only through clear periodic measurements that we have any idea if we are getting better or worse.  Our lives are shaped by how we choose to spend our time and energy each day.  Measuring can help us spend that time in better ways, more consistently.  The trick is to realize that counting, measuring, and tracking is not about the result. It’s about the system, not the goal.  Measure from a place of curiosity.  Measure to discover, to find out, and to understand.  Measure from a place of self-awareness. Measure to get to know yourself better.  Measure to see if you’re actually spending time on those things that are important to you.

Measurement is not a cure-all. However, it is a way to track something critical: are you actually working in the areas that you say are important to you?  But even for things that can’t be measured, awareness and tracking can be helpful. And it doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming.