Habits are things we do on a regular basis. Often without thinking.
Some habits are classed as bad habits – nowadays, smoking falls into that category but a few decades ago it didn’t, so the definition of good or bad can change over time.
But we tend to focus on the bad habits more than we do on our good ones. It seems to be part of our human nature to look on the negative side of things. That’s one of the reasons that I don’t watch the news on television – it’s far too negative for me and I don’t want that negativity rubbing off on me. I’d suggest that you cut out watching the news as one of the first habits you kick. You’ll find that you almost immediately get a more positive outlook on life and also get extra time in your day to do more positive things.
It’s generally thought that it takes around 3 weeks to make or break a habit.
Which is one of the reasons the personal development plan has 28 days on it – more than enough to get you into the good habit of pursuing your goals, even if you miss the occasional day.
When you stop to think about it for a moment, near enough everything we do in life is a habit. Whether it’s the cup of coffee first thing to give us a caffeine jolt, eating meals at roughly the same time every day, even being late can actually be a habit.
It’s worth taking a few minutes out of your day to list out your bigger habits. Not every single habit as that would take forever but definitely the bigger ones.
Maybe – and this is only a thought – put them in two columns, good and bad.
Most people find when they do this that they have a much longer list of bad habits than good ones.
And a good goal is to rid yourself of one of these bad habits.
Resist the temptation to go for the biggest, nastiest habit first.
Instead, take on the role of bully and pick on one of the almost insignificant habits.
Why?
Because it will almost certainly be easy to get rid of!
Chances are that just by focusing on it for a few days, it will give up and go away.
This does a number of things:
It rids you of a habit – great news!
It tells your subconscious that you can actually do this stuff – even better news!
We like quick results in today’s instant “I want it now” world.
So breaking a niggling habit fast satisfies that need.
Next, pick on another small habit and break that.
You’re building up your self-belief as well as ridding yourself of those small, irritating, habits one by one.
You’re also building up to breaking one of the larger habits that you’ve been ignoring for ages.
But leave that big, ugly, habit for a while. Spend the next few days or weeks squeezing out those smaller habits as though they were zits on an acne-ridden teenager!
Then, almost when it’s not looking, pounce on one of your larger habits and either banish it whilst it’s caught off guard or twist it round so that it turns into a positive habit. That second option is really fun (which all personal development stuff should be in my view!) and kills two birds with one stone.
So, when you’ve built up your confidence, give that a go and break a few of your habits. And feel free to leave a comment to me know how well it works for you!
