Each day new research into the brain is unearthing revelations about how our brains function. One such area involves learning. The brain is most effective in absorbing new information, or adopting new skills, in those areas we are most passionate about. The more we focus on things that interest us, the easier it is to learn. Pursuing things you are most passionate about accelerates your learning. It’s like putting your brain on steroids, literally. Passion releases a flood of neurotransmitters into the brain that make learning easier and faster. So find something you are passionate about and you will accelerate your learning.

Financial goals are not goals. They are wishes or dreams. Imbedded in your financial wish or dream, however, are your real goals. If your financial wish is to make an additional $50,000 a year ask yourself what actions, knowledge and skills you will need in order to realize your wish. What do you need to do in order for your wish to come true?

Example: I wish to make an additional $50,000 a year in my coaching business. What are the goals? What action do you need to take in order for that wish to come true? Let’s say you need an additional 25 clients. What do you need to do to get those clients? Speaking engagements? Seminars? Direct mail? Networking? Contribute to the media? Write a book? Write articles? Increase referrals?

It may be making 5 calls a day to pursue speaking engagements. It may be joining a network group that meets once a week. It may be sending out 5 mailers a day to businesses. It may be devoting time every day to writing a book. It may be pitching the media 5 times a day for media interviews.

You need to define the action steps first that will allow you to increase your income $50,000 a year. Then break those action steps down into weekly or daily activities. Those activities are your goals, not the $50,000. Activities are goals, not money.

4 Step Approach to Habit Change

1. Track Your Habits For 1 Day: Track your daily behavior for one day during the work week. Don’t pick a weekend day. Work creates stress and stress triggers bad habits. Carry around a notepad and bullet point everything you do from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to bed.
2. Create a Habit List: From your notepad, identify every existing old habit as either Good or Bad.
3. Create a Habit Wish List: On a separate piece of paper, make a list of every new good habit you want to add.
4. Habit Merging: Select one old habit from your Habit List and one new good habit from your Wish List and merge them. It doesn’t matter if you are combining an old bad habit with a new good habit.

Example: I want to read more – Let’s say you have an existing habit of exercising on a stair master. Layer onto this habit a new good habit of reading while you exercise. All you need is some reminder, something that cues you to engage in the new reading activity. You might put a book, your kindle or an ipod on your stair master in order to cue you to read or listen to books while you exercise. Your brain will not fight you on this new habit because you are using an existing habit’s neural pathway. You’re not competing with the brain for brain fuel. Your brain will immediately combine the two good habits into one new merged habit.

The book, The How of Happiness (http://www.amazon.com/The-How-Happiness-Approach-Getting/dp/0143114956), sites various studies on happiness. One such study determined the following:

• 50% of Happiness is Gene-Based
• 40% of Happiness is Activity-Based
• 10% of Happiness is Circumstance-Based

This means that 40% of our happiness is within our control. Happiness is event-driven. What makes one person happier than another person is the quantity of happiness events they experience in life. The frequency of happiness events you experience is really the surest way to realizing overall happiness. Starting tomorrow keep a log of all of the happiness events in your life. Family get togethers, dinners and parties with friends, achievements, successes, realizing goals, anything that goes right in your life is a happiness event. Write it down. Periodically review your list in the morning upon waking up and right before you go to bed. It shifts your thinking from negative to positive. Tomorrow’s the day. Start your Happiness Log and it will keep all of the negativity, doubts, fears and insecurities behind a closed door, where they belong. Make happiness a habit and drip happiness wherever you go.