Habitually Create Your Life

Alex Charefen: These days everyone's looking for a hack, a shortcut, something to make things easier. But if you want to create the life you want long term there's really only one way.

Over the course of my career I've made hundreds of millions of dollars, gross dollars for myself and for my family and we've made tens of millions of dollars in profit and I've helped other people create billions of dollars in value in total. And often when I'm on stage or in a mastermind or coaching with someone or talking to someone they'll ask me a question that sounds something like "Alex if you had one piece of advice to give everyone here what would you tell them they should do in order to be successful? What is that one thing that you would tell everyone?" And I answer the same way every time. And sometimes I can almost see the disappointment on the audience's face because they want something that sounds easy or something that sounds simple or something that they can apply right now. And what I always say is "Your habits will create your life. You habitually create the life you want and that you are the sum total of all of the habits you have in your life."

If you have the habit of sleeping in late and not getting a lot of things done that is going to affect your entire life. If you have the habit of getting up early, following a morning routine, getting ready for the day and making things happen that is going to affect your life. If you have the habit of making excuses for why you don't do something that is going to slow your life down and send you in the wrong direction. If you have the habit of living above the line, taking responsibility, avoiding blaming anyone and just figuring out how to move forward that's going to change everything for you. And the bottom line is the habits we have are where our life comes from. But we don't like to talk about this. We want to talk about what's easy or what's fun or a new strategy or a new tactic or some new hack that somebody has. And the reality is that every single day you are creating the life you will have tomorrow. You are the sum total of your actions in any given day added together day after day. That is how you arrive at your destination. And if you are not habitually doing things that will move you forward that's why you don't have the life that you want today.

And by habits here's what I mean. It's not just in business. As entrepreneurs there are three critical alignments that dictate our success, our happiness, our momentum, our ability to live with ourselves and to make things happen. The first alignment is our alignment with ourself, our relationship with our self and habits affect our relationship with ourselves like crazy. And I mean habits like getting a good night's sleep, being fully hydrated, treating yourself like a professional athlete. Whenever I see an entrepreneur who doesn't I ask why. You have the earning potential of a professional athlete. You have the influence potential of a professional athlete. Why aren't you treating yourself like one? The habits that you have around taking care of yourself will dramatically affect your ability to be successful and your ability to enjoy the success that you create. That is the first alignment.

The second alignment is your relationship with others, your relationship. So it's self relationships and then your alignment with your business. So let me go to the second one. Your alignment with your relationship. So you and others. And really what this means is you and your significant other because the way you treat your spouse, the relationship you have with your spouse is going to affect every relationship in your life. And in your relationship with your spouse habits are crucial. My wife Cadey often says "Process in a marriage isn't sexy but you end up having a lot more sex." And I totally agree with that sentiment. If you have the habit of aligning weekly with your spouse, if you have the habit of communicating with your spouse, if you have the habit of sharing with your spouse why they're important to you and telling them why you care about them and being genuinely sincere, setting up date nights, spending time together, spending time one on one and putting Relationship capital in your relationship bank you are habitually creating a better relationship with your spouse. And that same thing goes for your relationship with others. If you have the habit of showing up for your team, showing up for the people around you, showing up for your friends, letting them know what's going on you are going to create deeper, more important relationships.

And then the last alignment that matters to people like us is and the third alignment of the entrepreneurial personality type is us with our business. And that is one place where habits will absolutely make or break you. Are you strategically setting up your forward looking plan and having a strategic plan that you set up and share with your team? Are you habitually meeting with them at the same time in the same way over and over again so that they get used to the structure and they have a place to thrive? Are you measuring the right things habitually so that you know what's going on in your business and you are creating massive success? Because if you're not doing those things you're going to have a hard time growing the business you want. You're going to have a hard time creating the business you're actually going to be excited about.

See I think these days far too many entrepreneurs are changing things constantly. It's just constantly doing one thing after another after another after another. We have this bias for improvement where we want to constantly make things better. But the problem is if we have high pressure and noise in our lives and we're not watching our three alignments with self, with relationships, with business and we're not habitually doing the right things that bias for improvement causes us to just change things over and over and over again without even having perspective as to whether we're actually creating success. When we don't have foundational keystone habits in our lives we won't create success. Because when we start changing things and we get that high pressure and noise with bias for improvement you can actually hear it in the language of entrepreneurs. People will say, you know you say "Hey how are you doing?" "I'm doing OK but I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels" or "I've been running uphill" or "I feel like I'm running through molasses." "I've been changing things I just can't get traction. I can't get purchase. I haven't been able to move forward."

All of those statements are an indication that the right habits aren't in place because that bias for improvement, that constant need to make things better if we aren't habitually putting the right things in our lives and setting ourselves up for success it will get us nowhere. In fact it'll wear us down, exhaust us, put us into constraint and have us feel like we are standing in place. If you haven't been making the progress you want my argument is you don't have the right habits in your life to create that progress. And if you don't have the business you want you haven't become the person who can run it yet. And the fact is you become that person through engaging in the right habits, the right disciplines, the right activities on a daily basis. You know we all want to talk about vision and the future and where we'll go and how many people we'll affect and the outcomes that we'll create in the world. But you make or break your life in the day. Every single day.

So that day that you're not hydrated and you're irritable and reactive that is a day that's going to move you backwards. The day that you're not eating healthy and supporting your body and your physiology that's a day that might just move you sideways. The day that you're not aligning with your spouse and talking to them and checking in that's a day where you create distance in your most important relationship. The day that you don't show up for meetings with your team, that you blow your team off or you blow somebody else off in your business that is the day that you lose trust even if it's a fraction of a percent with your team, with that person, with the people around you. And if you want to stop doing that and create endless momentum the key is putting the right keystone habits in your life on a day to day basis where you move forward consistently and continue to create momentum.

See as entrepreneurs we all want to talk about the future but we make our lives, we create our lives, we create our success, we create our failures, we create momentum or we create constraint every single day habitually. It is the habits in our lives that create our success. We habitually create our lives every single day. If you don't have the right habits in your life that's why you don't have the progress that you want today.

And if you're ready to put those habits into your life let me help you. Momentum Masterclasses is a course that will change your life as its changed the lives of countless entrepreneurs. Just a couple of days ago I did an interview with Dave Linenbaum who owns a physical products company. We were sitting up at the Inner Circle in the lobby and we did an interview on his use of the Momentum Planner which is part of Momentum Masterclass. But it doesn't stop there. Dave hyper hydrates and he's doing morning walks and he's getting out there and he has the right habits in his life. And if you listen to that interview you'll hear how he's made massive progress, not just in his business but in his business, in his relationships and even in his alignment with himself. Create the right habits and your life will rocket forward.

Go to momentummasterclass.com to learn more. That course is all of the keystone habits that top entrepreneurs use every single day to create momentum and move forward and there is no white knuckling. I'm not going to ask you to do anything that doesn't become easier. I'm not going to ask you to do anything that doesn't create momentum in the process because when things get easier and when we feel momentum that's when we will rocket forward every single day and move fast. We habitually create our success and we habitually create our lives. Go to momentummasterclass.com and upgrade all of the habits in your life and you might be shocked at just how much momentum you can can create. You can create. I don't know why I said can twice. momentummasterclass.com. I look forward to seeing you in the class.