Can I tell you a secret? Chances are if you’re reading this then you have a desire to be successful in your life. Most people do. So then why do some people never achieve their biggest goals, and some do?

Is it a chance? Nope. Is it circumstance? Nope. We’ve seen some of the biggest successes come out of poverty. So what is it?

That’s the secret I want to share with you. The key to all success and self-improvement is one thing that is rarely talked about. But it means everything. It’s Habits.

Successful people don’t become successful by accident. They become successful because of the automated habits that they do day in and day out. The micro-decisions are made over and over hundreds of times a day. Those small decisions and actions, multiplied over time add up to exponential results.

So how can you hack your habits and automate your success? It seems like a monumental task. We’ll I have been studying habits and the science behind them for the last 6 months, and I’m going to do you a solid. I’m going to share everything I learned on habit hacking in this article.

1) First I’m going to show you why habits are the key to success.

2) Then I’m going to teach you the science behind habits.

3) Then I’m going to show you how to remove bad habits from your life and create habits that automate success and improvement in your life.

4) Then I’m going to share with you the top 5 core habits of high performers.

5) Then I’m going to show you the biggest habits holding you back. Including the #1 habit that holds most men back. And most likely you.

6) Then I’m going to show you how to eliminate it forever. So sit back, take notes. And never look back.

Habits: The Core Principle Behind All Success

Have you ever wondered why some people are successful and some people aren’t? Do you think this happens by accident? Because it doesn’t. There are certain things that these people do every day that you don’t. And that’s why there is such disparity. Your body and mind are like a computer.

And with the right programming and software, you can do anything. With the wrong programming and software, you’re screwed and are destined for mediocrity your entire life. Unfortunately, that poor programming is exactly what we are all instilled with our entire lives, which is why most people live average lives and only 1% of people live that life you desire.

You are constantly being bombarded with the ideas of fast weight loss, getting rich quickly, and just formulas of being average.

If this stuff worked, everyone would be rich, walking around showing off their 6 pack and completely content with their lives.

But it doesn’t. And most people are not. You have been lied to. And this is only 1 lie of dozens from what to eat and how to live that are holding you back. But I want to shatter those myths for you.

The truth? There is no quick way to success, and people who achieve greatness and become their best selves do so in one way.

This principle is the core of all self-improvement and success, that without you – you would never achieve your goals. So what is it? Here it is – brace yourself. It’s one word. Habits.

Our outcome in life is entirely dependent on the habits that we do day in and day out. Now I know what you’re thinking. All the small things you do on a day-to-day basis may seem inconsequential to you, but these small daily actions add up, and these micro-decisions are exactly what determines the quality of your life. I’ve interviewed some of the world’s most successful people, read more books than I can count, and listened to thousands of hours of audio. And every single time, it all comes down to habits.

Again, successful people don’t become successful by accident. It is the result of steady habit creation and continued daily activities that allow them to ultimately achieve their goals over time. This is the core foundation of self-improvement and success and it couldn’t be more simple.

So why do you constantly see shortcuts getting thrown at you? Get rich quick. Lose weight fast. It’s all bullshit. You can lose weight fast, but you’ll gain it right back since your body isn’t acclimated to the weight loss. You can make a quick buck in a scheme, but it will be over in a few months, leaving you back at square 1. You can use tricks and gimmicks you learn online to get girls, but they will NEVER get you that perfect 10.

There’s no way to achieve success without days upon days of the correct daily habits. This is the formula for success. Success and improvement take time.

Take some of the most successful people you know.

1) Leonardo Da Vinci failed over and over for decades before painting his masterpiece the last supper.

2) Nicola Tesla was living on his parents’ couch broke when he was 30.

3) Jim Carrey was homeless for years trying to get a role.

But you don’t hear about the years of hard work. You see the end result which deludes the reality of what it takes to get there.

So forget about the myth of overnight success, of fast weight loss, or getting rich quickly. All these do is slow you down and waste your time. Commit to the long game right now.

But don’t let that intimidate you. Many goals like weight loss, better health, and self-improvement won’t take decades.

And to achieve any goal, knowing what to do and automating it is key. Or else you’ll never get there. So with what you’ll learn in this book – you are on your way. And it may only take months. And we haven’t even learned much yet! So let’s do that now.
Let’s take a look at the science of habits, so you can better understand how to leverage them for success and improvement.

The Science of Habits

This may sound crazy to you, but it’s estimated that 45% of what we do every day is habitual.

45%! If 35% of that 45% is not serving you in terms of what you want to achieve in your life. You will fail. It’s that simple. If even 5% of that is not serving you with what you want to achieve in your life, you may fail.

Think about your life right now. How much of it is filled with bad habits? I would bet a lot more than you’re even aware of.

So I want you to truly master habits. And to do so, you need to understand the science behind them, so you can combine your understanding with what you’ll learn in the following sections and become the best you. So remember – as we said before, habits account for 45% of your waking life.

They range from obvious things like biting your nails to things you would never think to be habitual. For example – your phone dings, you check it. This is a habit. This is how habits work. There are three parts:

1) There is a stimulus or an urge. Something that gets your attention.

2) Then there is your reaction to that stimulus.

3) Then there is a reward. Without reward, there is no habit. Even your self-sabotaging habits have small rewards. Like eating that cheesecake. The reward is instantaneous, although very short-lived.

Take your cell phone again. The phone dings (Stimulus). You check it (Reaction). And you see your text (Reward). There’s nothing sabotaging about this, but it’s just an example. Understanding how this works will allow you to break many of the bad habits that we’ll learn about next. And I know this seems simple. Because it is! It should be taught in Pre-K.

But to sum it up, I just want to reiterate that habits are the core principle to success, self-improvement, and optimal performance in life. And by manipulating your habits, eliminating bad habits, adopting good habits, and using certain techniques to automate these habits subconsciously, you will ooze success and see results you never thought possible.

Let’s move on.

Removing Bad Habits And Automating Success

Why do you think most people never stick to their new year’s resolutions? They have good intentions.

But do you think setting a goal of losing 50lbs, or saying okay tomorrow I start fresh and wake up a nonsmoker is a good idea? It’s not. And it clearly hardly ever works.

Instead, what they should be doing is knowing their big goal and writing it down, but then focusing only on creating small daily habits that will fuel their goal and eventually become automatic. Just by focusing on the small things, and controlling what they can today, over and over, they will achieve their goals in 2 months.

But no one tells them that, they lose steam as weeks go by and their goal still seems miles away. Let’s avoid this.
So we learned that 45% of what we do every single day is habitual. This probably came as a shock to many of you. Imagine trying to succeed in your life, constantly pushing yourself, only to fail over and over because of the automated habits you have in your life.

They are sabotaging you without you even knowing it! But imagine a different you. A you in a few months, who is crushing it in every area of his life because he has put in the time to create lasting habits that automatically fuel his success. Habits that you don’t even think about anymore.

If you can accomplish this, your trip to success will be like one of those drives in your car when you don’t even remember how you got there. You did it without thinking. This is possible. And let me tell you, it feels good. But it doesn’t just happen. You have to make it happen.

Luckily for you, I have a strong desire to help as many people achieve this as possible. It is my life mission. So in this section, I am going to show you the most powerful tips and tricks that you can use to eliminate bad habits and then start programming good ones until the entire 45% of your automated habits is fueling your success. Eventually without you even having to think about it. So what do you do? Here we go – these are the 7 steps to positive habit creation. And coupled with the 5 most powerful core habits of successful people that you’ll learn in the next section – your life will never be the same.

1) Become Consciously Aware

Awareness is key. Most likely, you are not aware of the bad habits you currently do, or better off why you do them. The first step towards breaking any habit is to become consciously aware of it, and what triggers you to do it.

If you bite your nails often, you would need to become consciously aware of every time you were biting your nails and seek to understand why you were doing it. You would probably find that every time you were nervous or stressed it would happen. You found your trigger. Being consciously aware becomes a habit in itself, leading you to notice, think and stop every time you are biting your nails, instead of doing it aimlessly.

The trick is, throughout your day, you need to ask yourself over and over, what am I doing and why am I doing it. “Does this serve my bigger purpose? My goals in life?” And when you catch yourself doing something that doesn’t serve you, you need to recognize the trigger that caused it so you can eliminate it. Again, this awareness is a habit in itself and it will already put you head and shoulders above everyone else.

Exercise 1: Write down all the obvious bad habits you know you commit on a daily basis. Look at the list on page 29 to see what qualifies as a bad habit. Then throughout your week, keep track of bad habits you notice. You’re on your way to monk-like awareness.

2) Weed Out The Bad Habits

Once you become consciously aware of the bad habits that don’t serve you (we’ll learn good habits and bad habits in the next section), you can start to weed them out.
How?

a) Eliminate the triggers

The first step to eliminating a bad habit is to eliminate the triggers that cause it. If you’re a stress eater, then you have to work on eliminating the stress to stop eating. Find the relation to your specific bad habits and cut the trigger. It will be different for everyone, but stress and boredom are universal triggers. And soon you’ll learn how to take this trigger and switch it to a trigger for positivity.

b) Don’t remove, replace

Simply trying to remove bad habits doesn’t work. You need to replace them with good habits instead. (Instead of drinking to reduce stress find a new alternative rather than just not drinking) So, how do you create these good habits to replace bad ones? Read on.

3) Replace The Bad With The Good

Once you recognize and weed out your bad habits, start replacing them with positive habits that fuel and serve your purpose.
There are a few tricks to this.

a) The first is called habit stacking

It’s when you take an already automated habit, and stack another one on top of it. It can be a bad habit or a good habit.

For instance, going into your bed when you want to sleep is a habit. It’s a very basic and simple habit, but it’s a habit. (It’s part of that 45%) If you wanted to stack another habit on top of that you could create the habit of thinking of 5 things you are grateful for in your life every time you got into bed at night.

Gratitude is 1 of the 5 habits of the most successful people alive. You’ll learn the other 4 later.

Another more extreme example would be something like doing 10 reps of an exercise every time you got a text. Because simply checking your phone after a ding is a habit. You can literally think of any combination to do, but that’s up to your specific goals.

Exercise 2: So remember your bad habits wrote down from before? Now write down all the triggers of those habits and write down a list of good habits (from the list starting on page 24) that you would like to replace them with. Then start stacking your good habits on your triggers, along with stacking good habits on your already good habits, like doing heel raises every time you brush your teeth (just an example). But how do you solidify these? This is key and will be explained next.

b) Start small

A key of habit creation is starting small. It allows you to solidify them without fail. For example: If you want to make exercising a habit, simply do 1 pushup every time you get a craving or just every morning in general. 1. That’s it. Sounds crazy? This works. After a month, you will be doing that automatically, and since it’s so easy you won’t fall off track. All you have to do now is add to your already created habit. Start doing 1 more pushup every day after a month. Then start running. Who knows you may be doing marathons in a year. This is how growth happens. Not from the big goals. But from the small daily goals that you complete over and over.

c) Shape Your Environment

If your goal is to lose 100 pounds this year, then you may want to create habits that support your goal of fitness and weight loss. Sounds like a good idea right? These are great habits to have, but if you are like most people then your kitchen is filled with processed crap that is literally killing you, along with making you fat. If you want to lose weight, don’t have a bowl of M&M’s sitting on your countertop. Chances are, you’ll eat them if they’re there. But instead, shape your environment.

Sean Russell, Life Coach

Hey guys, I’m Sean a self improvement enthusiast with over 10 years experience in the health and wellness industry. My mission is to help you become the best version of yourself.

Certifications: Certified Life Coach, Dating Coach, Nutritionist