How many times have we made the same New Year’s resolutions or worked toward the same goals time and time again, only to give up on them within a few days — or weeks, if we’re lucky! Why do we stop taking action so soon and then feel like a failure?! It’s because we haven’t given them time to become habits. Your habit checklist is the ONE checklist you need to live a rich, fulfilling life!
*Disclosure: Affiliate links are used in this post, earning me a small commission at no additional cost to you if you click through and make a purchase. I only recommend products or services I love and believe you will love too! Thank you for supporting my blogging life.
Before we dig in, let me clarify that this is fourth and final post of the Live RICH series of posts. We’re not just talking about being rich with our money, but about living a wonderfully full, rich life! The RICH acronym stands for “Resolve, Intentionality, Community, and Habits.” In case you want to go back, here are the first 3 steps to living richly!
Step 1 – RESOLVE
And, now, moving on to the checklist of habits you need to live a RICH, fulfilling life…
Think about your current life habits.
What are the things you do consistently every day or at least every week that are already part of your normal routine. You have made them into habits, they have become a part of your life, and now you wouldn’t even think about quitting one of them because they make a difference for you and they are a part of your routine. No matter what, they will get done.
My favorite habit/routine…
For example, every single night, I set my coffee pot
to brew first thing in the morning. It allows me to wake up to a fresh cup of hot coffee and gets me out of bed so I can have some time in a quiet house before the chaotic day begins! I can’t even imagine living without this simple habit at this point in my life with three little early rising boys 😉 !
What about you? What things are you already doing that are on autopilot to make your day go more smoothly and allow you to accomplish things?
Then, the next question is, what OTHER habits should you be building so that your day can go more smoothly and you can accomplish MORE of what is important to you?
What new habits do you need to build into your life?
Begin by thinking of your current areas of life that you want to improve. Start a list of any habits you would like to build that would help you in those current areas of focus.
I was recently introduced to something that has revolutionized the way I build habits. It comes from one of my favorite author/speakers, the late Zig Ziglar. In the Performance Planner he used daily, at the bottom of each day, he kept a habit tracker of sorts. He focused on 8 different areas: Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Recreational, Family, Career, Social, Financial. Each area had a check box next to it.
Zig was very clear that these were priorities in his life. If he noticed he went a few days without checking the box in a certain area of life, he would return his focus to it!
Well, of course I decided to try it out in my own planner! So I created a habit tracker at the bottom of each day in my Living Well Planner beginning a few weeks ago. It has made such a difference in my daily priorities!
I can tell when something is slipping, and then can bump it up on my to-do list, to make sure it actually gets done! Here’s a pic of my makeshift habit trackers I added at the bottom of each planner day— if you can read my handwriting. 😉
Be very clear about what habits you are wanting to create!
I came up with 11 categories, though obviously, there’s no way I can work on each of those every single day. But here are my categories of importance (in no particular order) in case you want some ideas:
- Spiritual
- Physical
- Mental
- Parenting
- Marriage
- Financial
- Hobby (blogging)
- Passion (financial coaching)
- Work (day job)
- Social
- Homemaking
I have my habits listed in my planner with specific activities that would determine if I accomplished that habit for the day.
Examples: For my habit to keep my marriage a priority, I added things that would make my husband know he is loved. These are things that add to my marriage, rather than take away from it. For my boys (parenting), I make sure to spend quality time with them and not just take care of tasks that are on my own personal agenda. For my money, I keep up with certain habits daily and weekly. It’s very important to me to hone in on good financial habits! Given some time, they really will make you rich financially too!
Creating a checklist for habits will guide you in that rich, fulfilling life you desire!
The biggest thing regarding habits is making sure we make DAILY decisions to put those habits into place in our lives. Some habits may not need to be daily, but every few days, or even weekly.
Therefore, the challenge is for you to list the habits you need to implement and come up with a system to remember to do them and make them stick! Decide on the best place to write them down where you can view them daily. 
No matter how you keep up with it, implementing new, successful habits into our lives and making them stick will be what moves us forward in our biggest life priorities! Building these habits into your life will be the final step to make you RICH in 2019! And also in years to come!
If you haven’t yet read, or would like a review of the first three steps in this series Live a Rich, Fulfilling Life, start back here to jumpstart your rich, meaningful life.
As always, steward your money — and your life — intentionally.
Heather
/>
