Read Online Trickle Down Mindset: The Missing Element in Your Personal Success by Michal Stawicki - Free Book Online

precious energy. Habits are the ideal tool for the brain to save energy. You don’t need to think too much. You get the cue and you do the action. No thinking involved.
    The word “habit” comes from Old French abit , habit , from Latin habitus ‘condition, appearance,’ from habere ‘have, consist of.’ The term originally meant ‘dress, attire’ and the noun habit meant monks’ outfit. The habit was an external sign of a monk’s internal constitution, which defined their whole lives. Later, the meaning of this word drifted to denote physical or mental constitution.
    A modern medical dictionary defines habit as:
    - A settled tendency or usual manner of behavior
    - A behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiological exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance
    - An acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary
    - Addiction
    Habits are automatic or semi-automatic behaviors and that’s why your brain is so attached to them. They allow your brain to bypass the conscious mind and preserve the energy. And strangely enough, habits are in line with the law of errors and disciplines.
    You may have formed a habit of smiling as soon as you see your spouse. Now, each time you see him or her, you smile. That’s a positive habit. But you can also turn some disciplines into a habit. Small and simple things like flossing your teeth or doing a consecutive series of pushups every morning. A single instance of such behavior means almost nothing. Repeated over time it provides some advantages. Repeated consistently, it becomes a habit, which conserves your willpower and energy resources. It is supervised via the minimal investment of attention and it automatically yields profits.
    A vice is the reverse of a habit.
    Habits work for you, vices work against you. You may fall into the trap of consistently repeating small errors, like enjoying a chocolate bar after a meal. This repetition becomes your habit; in this case even an addiction. A small error becomes the automatic behavior bypassing your consciousness. After a while, because sugar is a powerful narcotic, reaching out for a bar of chocolate after a meal is a part of your constitution; it’s in some strange way part of you .
    After a couple of years, you wake up and notice that you are 40 pounds heavier. A small error repeated over time caused it. The law of errors materialized.
    You are what you consistently do. And your consistent action derives from your frame of thoughts, from your personal philosophy. The right philosophy employs the law of errors and disciplines to your advantage. It also prevents you from making the small errors in judgment and the effects of addiction.
    The most effective form of fighting addiction is prevention. If you don’t develop an addiction, you won’t be forced to spend an incredible amount of energy, willpower, time, and resources on eliminating it. Instead, you’ll direct your energy into achieving your goals and tasks at hand.
    For example, I’m guilty of compulsive stats and email checking. I do it involuntarily. Whenever I have a couple of minutes online to spare, my mouse cursor goes to the icon of my email program. It’s a time-wasting addiction. But I didn’t come up with a smart plan to overcome my addiction. I refused to focus my attention on it. I focus on my simple disciplines instead. I have plenty of them. This leaves me very little leeway for things like spending hours on mindless surfing on the Internet. Some of my disciplines are quite big, like writing 1000 words a day. This is my high-priority task. I focus on it every morning and it doesn’t leave much space for addictions.
    The right philosophy simply starves your addictions and vices by transferring your attention to other areas.
    I ramble about The Law of Errors and Disciplines because it’s so crucial. You can’t ignore it. You can’t say you don’t believe it works. You can say the