We all have habits, but not all habits are created equal. Some of them are “good, ” and some are “bad.” Some support us, and other hinder us as we move toward our dreams.
The bad habits (or behaviors) don’t help you achieve your goals or live up to your potential. The good ones do; in fact, they help you step into your best self and become the person you know you can be and want to become.
And beneficial habits provide you with freedom. Why? They help you effectively live your life. That leaves time to do other things you want to do.
What Type of Habits Do You Have?
I could name many supportive habits practiced by the worlds highest performers. Here are just a few:
- Meditating daily
- Visualizing goals and dream daily
- Sleeping at least seven to eight hours per night
- Journaling daily
- Eating a healthy diet
- Drinking seven to eight glasses of water daily
- Exercising three to six times per week
- Setting goals and creating plans to achieve them
- Scheduling priorities
- Walking outside regularly
- Maintaining a morning routine
If you don’t have some of these good habits, it’s time to develop at least a few, especially if you want to have a more successful year personally and professionally.
And bad habits? Well, that list is long as well and might include:
- Smoking
- Drinking alcohol excessively
- Maintaining a sedentary lifestyle (no exercise)
- Sleeping less than seven hours per night
- Relying on your memory rather than a calendar
- Eating junk food and candy
- Watching two to four hours of television every night
- Spending excessive time on social media
- Eating instead of drinking when you are thirsty
You won’t see high performers doing these things; they know bad habits won’t help them level up and perform at their best in any area of life. If you can claim some of these unbeneficial habits, it’s time to break them! Replace them with helpful and supportive ones instead.
Why You Need New and Improved Habits
Here’s the thing: Your current habits have only helped you achieve your current level of success—personally and professionally. If you want to level up in any area—health, fitness, career, relationships, finances, or hobbies—you need new habits. You need ones that serve you and the achievement of your goals and dreams.
Review your current habits. Will they get you to the next level personally or professionally? If you can’t answer “yes” with conviction, you need new habits…habits that will help you level up.
How to Change Your Habits
With all this in mind, you may be wondering: How can I change my habits? What follows are my simple (not easy) five steps to habits that help you.
Step #1: Make a list of your good habits.
Step #2: Make a list of your bad habits.
Step #3: Decide which bad habits to drop.
Step #4: Decide which new habits you need to adopt or which good habits you already have that you will increase in some way. (Don’t pick more than three new habits at a time.)
Step #5: Practice the new behavior for 30 to 40 days (at a minimum) until it becomes a habit.
2 Tips to Help You Develop Habits Faster
Here’s are two final tips:
Tip #1: Get these new behaviors on your calendar!
That’s right…plan time to practice them. Scheduling time to work at creating a new habit turns new behaviors into habits. If, however, your new behavior is an action you will perform all day or a new attitude with which you will approach life, create a tracking system to see how well you do with this on a daily and weekly basis. For example, daily rank your positive attitude on a scale of one to ten. See if you rate yourself a bit higher each day.
Tips #2: Choose Habits that Define You
Your habits also become part of who you are. They become part of your persona and how you are known. So ask yourself, for instance, do I want to be a productive or unproductive person? Do I want to be known as a disciplined or undisciplined person? Do I want to be known as someone who motivates and inspires those I meet or a Debbie Downer?
Choose the habits that will define you. When you look at habits as part of who you are and how you are known, you attach more meaning to them. That increases your desire to possess those habits.
What habits are you going to drop or add in the New Year? Let me know in a comment below.
Never miss one of my videos! Click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Photo copyright: Copyright : Jrg Schiemann/123RF.com
