SUCCESS HABITS

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle
Our character, basically, is a composite of our habits. "Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny," the maxim goes.
Habits are routine behaviors done on a regular basis. They are recurrent and often unconscious patterns of behavior and are acquired through frequent repetition. Many of these are unconscious as we don’t even realize we are doing them.
Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines habits as:
An acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary
The prevailing disposition or character of a person's thoughts and feelings.
A settled tendency or usual manner of behavior
A behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiologic exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance
So we can see that habits define our character, our thoughts and feelings and our ‘usual’ behaviors. We can also see that habits are behaviors that are nearly or completely involuntary and because they are repeated frequently, we become ‘better’ at them (increased facility of performance).
For our purposes, we will define a habit as the intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire. Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the ‘what’ to do and the ‘why’. Skill is the how to do. And desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.
I may be ineffective in my interactions with my work associates, my spouse, or my children because I constantly tell them what I think, but I never really listen to them. Unless I search out correct principles of human interaction, I may not even know I need to listen.
Even if I do know that in order to interact effectively with others I really need to listen to them, I may not have the skill. I may not know how to really listen deeply to another human being.
But knowing I need to listen and knowing how to listen is not enough. Unless I want to listen, unless I have the desire, it won't be a habit in my life. Creating a habit requires work in all three dimensions.
The being/seeing change is an upward process -- being changing, seeing, which in turn changes being, and so forth, as we move in an upward spiral of growth. By working on knowledge, skill, and desire, we can break through to new levels of personal and interpersonal effectiveness as we break with old paradigms that may have been a source of pseudo-security for years.
It's sometimes a painful process. It's a change that has to be motivated by a higher purpose, by the willingness to subordinate what you think you want now for what you want later. But this process produces happiness, "the object and design of our existence." Happiness can be defined, in part at least, as the fruit of the desire and ability to sacrifice what we want now for what we want eventually.

WHAT ARE HABITS FOR?
The basic purpose of habits is to assists us in our daily lives. Imagine if all of us have to consciously think and direct our intentions when doing and going through every single thing in our daily lives.
If there is something that you routinely do every day, like brush your teeth when you wake up, stop the car when there’s a red light or follow the correct route when driving to your office, how inconvenient would it be if you have to repeatedly direct your full attention when doing these tasks every day?
Habits simplify our lives by putting these routine, regularly repeated actions on auto-pilot. We don’t need to think or put any explicit attention to performing these tasks. It makes going through our daily lives much more manageable.
Apart from that, in addition to not requiring us to constantly use our brains, habits also allows to us to perform multiple tasks at the same time. You can drive and talk at the same time; you can brush your teeth while thinking about ideas for your business proposal, your next line of action in your career, academics and relationships etc.

GOOD AND BAD HABITS
 

Just as we have good habits, we also have bad habits. Despite the original function of habits to simplify our lives, we can also develop habits that are negative and destructive.
Whenever we repeatedly exhibit a behaviour, response or thought, it will become a habit. So if you like to eat a lot when you feel bored, you are wiring yourself to eat whenever you feel bored. Or the more you allow yourself to lose temper over trivial matters, the more likely it will happen again.
A bad habit is an undesirable behavior pattern. Common examples include: procrastination, fidgeting, overspending, and nail-biting.
That is why we must be very careful and be aware of the habits that we are unconsciously developing every single day. Having good, positive habits is the key to living a happy, successful life.
HABITS
1. Service: this is to act in way to satisfy a particular interest. If your interest is to satisfy and add value to other people’s life and the community where you live, it will affect your entire destiny positively. Service is the secret to becoming significant and not just success. 
The scripture tells us to give priority to others rather than ourselves. Let this mind be in you! The golden rule also says what you want others do to you, do also to them.
2. Excellence: Excellence is more than well done. It means, to go beyond the mark, to deliver superior quality, to produce works of distinction and to constantly upgrade and refine. One of the reasons why we don’t establish homes, companies that has been able to stand the test of time for decades or centuries respectively, is because we are not excellent oriented.
3. Responsibility: this is responding to ability. In other words, you are responsible for your actions, emotions, words, and decision and thought and more so, for any form of consequences.
4. Prioritization:  you must be able to understand in your life and destiny, what is important to you in varying degrees as it relates to time. To some of us, every time is the time to act. 2Chro.12:32, John 7:1-10. In the creation experience of God for example, giving priority to what is important was not optional but fundamental. You cannot arrive at your destination without developing this habit. It is so absurd to know that loads of youth do not even know what is important to them. 
5. Innovation: this is a positive and progressive change in whatsoever you do.  Nothing in life, in your profession, relationship etc. is totally finished. There is always a better way of doing what you are doing now. The only constant thing in life is change. Always ask yourself this question; is there a better way of doing what is doing now?
6. Association: this simply means relationship. Don’t be sentimental about relationships. Learn the art of valuing each other, as no one is an island of wisdom, knowledge and understanding. One of the most profound and critical truths in life is that, you cannot succeed alone; you need people. There is no self-made man!
7. Action-oriented: the distance between where you are and excellence is A-C-T-I-O-N. Always see yourself as behind schedule, even before starting. Discipline yourself against procrastination, excuses and transference of responsibility.
8. Strategic planning: it is thinking ahead on paper. Planning is dealing with your mistake upfront.
Integrity: this means to be honest with your God, yourself and with others. People will only submit their ‘will’ to you when they believe your ‘yes’ is ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ is ‘no’. What impression do you want people to have about you? Wise people work to earn respect, while the unwise work and do all things to make money. Do you destroy your name because of money? 9. Gratitude and gratefulness: develop the attitude of gratitude. Learn how to say am sorry. Learn how to say thank you to your colleague irrespective of his/her position or how little the help may be.
10. Prudence: this is the wisdom application of the management of resources    available for production process.
11. Renewal: know when to go for your break. Appreciate and cultivate the habit of recreation. Even God our creator went on break.
12. Self-improvement: our ability to earn income is a depreciating factor. We have spent our lives improving ourselves to earn income. There is need to constantly upgrade yourself as the things we celebrate today may not be the happenings tomorrow.
13. Celebrating little success: this habit is borne out of a bigger picture. Until you could picture your future or have an insight of it, you would see your opportunities as coincidental. 
14. Foresight: this is the ability to look ahead, to anticipate with some accuracy where your life, business, career or ministry is going. This is a component of strategic thinking. It also involves predicting accurately what is likely to happen in the future based on the current happenings.
15. Humility: it doesn’t mean that you are weak or unsure of yourself. It means that you have the self-confidence and self-awareness to recognize the value of others without feeling threatened. It means that you are willing to admit you could be wrong, that you recognize you may not have all answers. And it means that you give credit where credit is due.
16. Focus: great success stories all over the globe have incorporated this habit in their systems as humans. If you must become a success you must learn to focus on results, on what you must achieve by yourself and as a group. You must learn to focus on your strengths that gives you competitive advantage.  

ELIMINATING BAD HABITS
There are many techniques for removing bad habits once they have become established. One example is withdrawal of reinforcers—identifying and removing the factors which trigger the habit and encourage its persistence. The basal ganglia appear to remember the context that triggers a habit, meaning they can be revived if triggers reappear.
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO FORM AN HABIT?
say you want to create a new habit, whether it's taking more exercise, eating more healthily, reading or writing an article  every day, how often does it need to be performed before it no longer requires Herculean self-control?
Clearly it's going to depend on the type of habit you're trying to form and how single-minded you are in pursuing your goal. But are there any general guidelines for how long it takes before behaviors become automatic?
Do a research and you'll get a figure of somewhere between 21 and 28 days. In fact there's no solid evidence for this number at all. The 21 day myth may well come from a book published in 1960 by a plastic surgeon. Dr Maxwell Maltz noticed that amputees took, on average, 21 days to adjust to the loss of a limb and he argued that people take 21 days to adjust to any major life changes. Unless you're in the habit of sawing off your own arm, this is not particularly relevant.

DOING WITHOUT THINKING
Now, however, there is some psychological research on this question in a paper recently published in the European Journal of Social Psychology. Phillippa Lally and colleagues from University College London recruited 96 people who were interested in forming a new habit such as eating a piece of fruit with lunch or doing a 15 minute run each day Lally et al. (2009). Participants were then asked daily how automatic their chosen behaviors felt. These questions included things like whether the behavior was 'hard not to do' and could be done 'without thinking'.
When the researchers examined the different habits, many of the participants showed a curved relationship between practice and automaticity of the form depicted below (solid line). On average a plateau in automaticity was reached after 66 days. In other words it had become as much of a habit as it was ever going to become.

This graph shows that early practice was rewarded with greater increases in automaticity and gains tailed off as participants reached their maximum automaticity for that behavior.
Although the average was 66 days, there was marked variation in how long habits took to form, anywhere from 18 days up to 254 days in the habits examined in this study. As you'd imagine, drinking a daily glass of water became automatic very quickly but doing 50 sit-ups before breakfast required more dedication (above, dotted lines). The researchers also noted that:
Missing a single day did not reduce the chance of forming a habit.
A sub-group took much longer than the others to form their habits, perhaps suggesting some people are 'habit-resistant'.
Other types of habits may well take much longer.

NO SMALL CHANGE
What this study reveals is that when we want to develop a relatively simple habit like eating a piece of fruit each day or taking a 10 minute walk, it could take us over two months of daily repetitions before the behavior becomes a habit. And, while this research suggests that skipping single days isn't detrimental in the long-term, it's those early repetitions that give us the greatest boost in automaticity.
Unfortunately it seems there's no such thing as small change: the much-repeated 21 days to form a habit is a considerable underestimation unless your only goal in life is drinking glasses of water.

In conclusion, habits are products of discipline. Thank you.