Habits of Mind/ Success skills/ Effective characteristics

We want our children to be good at academics, be good at sports, music etc. We also want them to be confident, perseverant, team player, creative, independent thinkers too. We spend lot of time, effort and money on the first part  if we consider the second part as important or more important or even equally important what are we actually doing to facilitate the development of these characteristics which we call as habits of mind or (HOM) or do we even have to do something to about it. Some thoughts on HOM:

• When I talk of HOM, I am talking about habits which I use time and again to help me move forward, which help me to reach my goals etc.
• When I talk of habits, I am also talking about becoming aware of habits which I am using time and again and are not helping me achieve what I want in life
• I want to develop certain habits which facilitate my progress
• To do this I identify a habit and go through a process to develop it
• So, why am I calling it success characteristics?
• These are characteristics which help me but unable to understand the 'success' part of it.
• I understand 'success' as being a relative term.
• Developing all these characteristics is an ongoing process and it will take me a life time to do it
• Am I using 'success' to emphasize the importance of these habits, so that we sit up and take notice and do something about it.
• I am still stuck with the word "success'' .. not sure if it is really necessary when I am talking about these characteristics.
• Am I still stuck with the thought that this would be the only way parents would work on the characteristics.
• What if we say that these characteristics make us more effective in whatever we do.. will this not be seen as important then.
• How about calling it 'Effective Skills'
• How do I know that the child is developing these characteristics.. through observation, awareness, reflection... a continuous process
• the confusion, churning anyways happening in the process

OR

Is it that I am the one who is attaching too much importance to 'success' and should not take it seriously as Aditi says,' Do not take HOM so seriously' :-))