Build Good Habits The Easy Way

We all have habits, good and bad. Is many ways our habits are what ends up defining who and what we are. With the right habits, we can be a millionaire, we can have a perfect set of abs, and we can have the relationship or job of our dreams. Just think about that for a moment. Effective habits are the key to accomplishing just about anything that we want in our lives.

Motivation to change ourselves for the better is important. We cannot change if we do not want to. However, motivation is largely irrelevant when it comes to habits. You don’t have to be motivated to brush your teeth – you just do it without fighting with yourself. Just wanting something is just a start. Wanting is not enough. We need to do.

Good Or Bad, We Do Need Habits To Survive

Whether or not we are aware of the habits that we use every single day, habits are what helps us get through the day. Without habits we would be constantly reminding ourselves to put one foot in front of the other just to walk from the bedroom to the bathroom. Unfortunately, as we were growing up and developing our habits, no one really taught us how to create a good habit.

For most of our habits, we were more than likely reactive to how they developed within us. If we were yelled at a lot as a child for being too loud, we developed the habit of being quiet and withdrawn for most of the time.

However, as mature and self-aware adults, it is time that we take control of our habits instead of letting them control us. It is now the time that we realize that if we can create or change our habits at will, we can become unstoppable.

Follow This Process To Create The Habits That You Need To Excel At Life:

1. Identify The Habit You Want To Create.

Often, people are too vague in their objectives. They might want to “eat healthier”, for example. But that’s not a well-defined habit. “Eat one cup of vegetables with every meal” is a habit.

Be clear on the habit you want to create, whether it’s 50 pushups each day or reading 10 pages of a book. It should be obvious to you by the end of the day whether you’ve done it or not.

2. List The Benefits of That Habit.

Why do you want to create this habit? What are you getting out of it? Convince yourself that this is worth your time and effort. Create a little motivation and sense of urgency.

Habits can be challenging to create, so know the advantages of your new habit. It will make things easier when you don’t feel like doing it.

3. Determine The Best Time To Perform That Desired Habit Each Day.

Does it make sense to do your habit in the morning? At night? During your lunch break? If you wear a suit or a dress to work, performing 100 squats at the office might be inconvenient. Choose a time of day.

4. Stack Your New Habit On Top Of An Old Habit.

Habits need a trigger. You don’t just randomly eat a bag of chips. You might eat chips while watching TV or when feeling a certain emotion, such as anxiety or boredom. Every habit has a trigger.

The most convenient trigger is something that you already do religiously each day. You have a ton of them. Here are a few examples: brushing your teeth, getting dressed, making your coffee, opening your front door, starting your car, getting your mail, and checking your email.
Choose a trigger for your habit that makes sense. For example, you might do your exercise routine after brushing your teeth or after opening your front door when you get home.

5. Make It Easy To Perform The New Habit.

If you’re going to go running every morning, have your running clothes and other gear right by your bed. Set up your environment to accommodate your new habit.

6. Start Small And Grow From There.

Start by having a goal of doing one push up, jog for two minutes, read one page, write one sentence, or make one sales call. Habits are built by actually doing them. You might have a goal of making 100 sales calls per day, but that might be too overwhelming to even get started.

Make it so easy that you can’t fail. Anyone can find the time and motivation to do one push up.

7. Reward Yourself.

Habits become habits because there is a reward. This encourages the behavior to happen again. Use any reward you like, but the key is to feel good. You can bask in your pride, listen to your favorite song, or come up with another reward.

8. Be Consistent.

Habits are more easily built if done multiple times each day. Once a day is quite effective, too. Once a week is unlikely to work.

Section Conclusion

Think about the goals and challenges in your life. We should all agree that habits are what keep us or allow us to achieve the life that we want to live. What habits could you create in order to make your life exactly what you want it to be? With the effective habits, just about nothing is out of your reach.

How to Use Habits to Reach Your Goals

Other things being equal, the one key element that we need for reaching a new goal is for us to have the habits in place that support that goal. We must rely on productive habits in order to succeed at just about anything. Habits allows us to do something without becoming mentally or physically exhausted thinking about all of the detailed steps to get something done.

Good habits are crucial for success. If our current habits are counter-productive to reaching a certain goal, we will obviously need to change them or run the risk of coming up short. If we have not had much success in our life, it can simply be the result of bad habits.

How Do Habits Help You Reach Your Goals?

Suppose you have the goal of running a marathon: if you don’t already have the habit of running regularly, you’re unlikely to be successful until you can adopt that habit. Running regularly can help you attain your goal in several ways, including getting you in great physical shape and strengthening your endurance.

Developing supportive habits can be easier than you think and is far more powerful than you may imagine!

Identify The Habits You Need

Before you create new, positive habits, you’ll want to figure out which habits will help you attain your goals. For every goal, there are habits that can practically guarantee success. Reflect on your goals and what actions you can take to help bring them about.

Consider these attributes for the habits you want to implement:

1. Look For Daily Habits.

Habits you practice each day are much easier to put into place and keep than those that are less frequent.

2. KISS – Keep It Simple, Sunshine!

The more complex the task, the less likely you are to stick with it. If you really do need to implement a complex habit, start with a simpler version and then add more complexity later as the simple part of the habit starts to take hold.

3. Be Specific.

It’s not enough to just specify what you’re going to do; include the how, when, and where as well. Time is always critical when creating a new habit. Be sure to specify a precise period of time in which you wish to implement the new actions.

So saying that “I’m going to exercise 1 hour per day” is inadequate. “I’m going to swim from 6-7 am, Monday through Friday at the YMCA” is more like it. This has enough detail to be quite clear about what you want to accomplish and includes the how, when and where.

4. Prepare For The Interference

There are usually obstacles to creating new habits and behavioral patterns. Try to figure out these possibilities ahead of time so you can eliminate them as soon as possible.

For example, if you’ve decided that you’re going to eat a healthy breakfast every day, get rid of all the breakfast junk food in your pantry and freezer. That junk food is an obstacle to successfully implementing your habit.

The obstacle might be time interference. Maybe your partner doesn’t usually leave you alone for 30 minutes every night so you can meditate, write, read, or whatever it is you want to do towards your goal. Simply let them know ahead of time that you need be undisturbed during this time.

5. Bundle The More Supporting Habits

When you determine supporting habits that will help you reach your goal, consider going even deeper into the details to find habits that will help you accomplish your other new habits.

For example, if one of your new habits is to make it to the gym every morning by 6:00 am, you can develop several supporting habits to help you establish this habit, such as:

Get out of bed by 5:15 am.
In order to get up at 5:15 am each day, you might need an additional habit of always being in bed by 10:00 pm.
Another supporting habit might be to pack your gym bag the night before.

These supporting habits are monumentally important. Take time to think about what additional habits you can develop to support your efforts.

6. Enjoy Automatic Success

Once an action becomes a habit, you’ll do it automatically, without having to make the decision to do it each time. In other words, you’ll automatically move forward, day after day, toward achieving your goal until you reach it.

Conclusion

Just as counter-productive habits can keep you from success, supportive habits can practically guarantee your victory. So consider the habits that will best support your goals, put them into action on a daily basis, and enjoy your new success!