“If you are going to achieve
excellence in big things, you must develop the habit in little matters.
Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.”_ Colin Powell
Whether we
yearn to learn a new skill, build a great business or raise a pious family, the
one thing that will determine our success or failure, more than our intentions
and talks, is our actions—our habits.
We do not
become what we wish, we become what we do. That is why the historian, Will
Durant once said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” The wellspring of our identity
and results is our regular action.
Therefore,
you can make yourself better by acting better. You can make yourself highly productive
by doing better, and you can make yourself more generous by giving more, as the
ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle mentioned long ago that: “To be is to do.”
And he expanded his aphorism further when he added: “Moral excellence comes
about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by
doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”
On the
concept of habit, Charles Duhigg, the author of, ‘ The Power of Habit’ argues
that the key to being more effective, and achieving greater level of success lies
in harnessing the power of habit to transform our lives. He reveals to us an
interesting point through his book. He writes:
“Champions
don’t do extraordinary things. They do ordinary things, but they do them
without thinking. They follow the habits they’ve learned.” In other words, champions
do ordinary things in an extraordinary way due to the strength of their habits.
However, habits
can be a curse or a blessing. Our habits will do us the most good if they are
predominantly wholesome but they will do us sufficient harm if they are predominantly
poor.
So, to
succeed at anything, according to the habit expert, Charles Duhigg, all you
need to do is learn and adopt the right habits. And he contends that there is no
such thing as an incorrigible. He argues that with patient effort, anyone can
change any unwholesome habit. Duhigg explains:
“Change
might not be fast and it isn't always easy. But with time and effort, almost
any habit can be reshaped.”
Now, let’s
decide to discard our bad habits and create good ones that will add great value
to our lives. Ali (RA), the Fourth Rightly Guided Caliph of the Islamic Empire
defined this as character development. He said: “Virtue is overcoming one’s
(bad) habit.”
In
conclusion, if we learn and practice the right habits, it is only a matter of
time before we become a symbol of excellence in any area that we choose.
