Have you ever noticed how your email Inbox will carry certain themes from time to time? When that happens, I take notice. So what’s the current theme in mine? The magic of Good Habits, the thought that habits bring the self discipline that leads to success.

Stop to think about it. Have you ever considered whether you were suffering from Sloppy Thinking? Just look around your physical world. You’ll see it manifesting all around you. In fact, the Internet sensation Flylady addresses this phenomena when she starts her Flybabies on an organizational journey by having them shine their sinks every day for a month. Then she moves on to another habit that helps restore order in the home.

What she is drawing attention to is that one way to establish order in your thinking is to develop better habits in your actions. She’s not the first to see it. A friend of mine who is a psychotherapist showed me a way to cure depression by doing a few simple tasks every day; 12 Step Programs ask people to take 90 Meetings in 90 Days. Maxwell Maltz laid out the idea that habits could be changed over 21 days in the classic Psychocybernetics. In his new home study program, Millionaire Mindset, Gerry Robert talks about the simple habits that always lead to success and sets out a simple system to master our habits one a time. I’m making my list and prioritizing where to begin now.

Even Bob Proctor talks about developing habits over time. It’s particularly useful for the actions you know you should do, but tend to forget to do. Bob often repeats that our problems in getting better results are not in the knowing of what to do. They’re in the doing what we know we should do. So what do we do? We regularly repeat a new replacement idea and take action for at least 21 days until the Subconscious Mind lets us make that action habitual.

So, where will I begin? I think I’ll go put the dishes away.