Paying Off Your Mortgage Sooner: Have a Vision

Some of us are better at discipline than others, just as some of us are more prudent consumers than others and are more aware of how we can be swayed by external factors.

There's no doubt though that it's not easy to be disciplined with the amount of advertising we are exposed to, and it would be naive to assume that advertising has no effect.

Today's marketers are doing their job well. They've had decades of practice and it is effective. This means your vision needs to be strong and clear, because if you don't have a clear vision, and the resolve which stems from it, you are at the mercy of the barrage of products available.

?The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do. They don't like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.?
E. M. Gray

Are your habits helping you create the vision you are after? Remember, whether you like it or not, your actions are going to specify an outcome, so make sure it's the one you intended. We may be only human, but we do have free will, and the ability to change our behaviour.

Popular personal development blogger Steve Pavlina has a 30-day challenge he uses to change habits he doesn't find helpful. Here are the questions he uses:

• What new habit(s) can I commit to maintaining for the next 30 days?
• What will this do for me if I succeed?
• When will I begin this 30-day challenge?
• How will I reward myself after 30 days of success?

It can be much too hard to rely on our discipline skills on a day-to-day basis if we don't have the right structures in place. Today's consumer-centric world relies on our inability to be disciplined, so we need to make a concerted effort to follow the right path towards our goals.