Four easy steps to change your habits
February 13, 2008
Thank you for visiting. I look forward to staying in touch. You can subscribe to my RSS feed. You can also contact me directly and please feel free to do so. Thanks for visiting!
I recently wrote about the power habits have in our lives. Now the question is how do you change your habits. Of course, Leo Babauta at Zen Habits has written extensively about this. This article about getting into an exercise habit has influenced me profoundly.
I want to offer a simple four steps solution to habit changing. Much of this you can read at zenhabits, but I think I have simplified the method even further. I have one surprise for you at the end, so keep reading.
First, change one habit at a time. This is important and critical for your success in changing habits. If you try to do too many, you will fail because you will be overwhelmed by the shear number of things to keep track of all the time. You changing habits requires awareness, but to have to walk around all day as if everything is a new habit will exhaust you quickly.
You can take actually take on two habits at a time, provided they are in very different areas of your life. For instance, I think it is totally feasible to start an exercise habit for your home life and a new habit at work. You might want to get into the habit of planning tomorrow at the end of today. I am at my most productive when I start working and the plan has been made. If I start the day and still have to think about what I will do, I start with a backlog.
Second, get ready for practice. For at least 30 days you have to practice your new habit. Like an actor studying her lines, you must have your script ready with you. Oh, you didn’t write down your intention to form a new habit? Journal! Get ready to practice. This is essentially the reason you can only take on one habit at a time. Your life cannot be all practice all the time. You don’t have a script, but you can put post-it notes everywhere. Find whatever means you have to remind you.
Sometimes you can put a totally nonsensical silly thing in an obvious place. Say, you have an old teddy bear. Put the bear in front of your bedroom door. Every time you walk by your door, the bear will remind you of your new habit. It sounds silly but it works. The object has to be completely strange and not be part of your normal household to work.
Three, create triggers and arrange your space to help you form your new habit. If you want to work out in the morning upon waking up, you should hang your workout clothes in our bathroom so that you will put them on after you have relieved yourself. If you got up earlier to work out and there is still someone asleep in the bedroom, you will hesitate to go back and get the clothes and your habit will fail. Have your clothes ready. Similarly, if you are always looking for your cellphone, create a landing space in your house near your front door. Put your cellphone charger there and you will always have it ready to go.
Arrange your space to support your habits. If you think you don’t have a green thumb, perhaps you should look where you put the watering can. Do you have it have stacked away underneath the sink? Do you have to move several items out of the way before you can get to the can and the plant food? No wonder you don’t have a green thumb, it is too hard to get into the habit of watering your plants. You get my drift, this applies to many areas of our lives.
Fourth and finally, be accountable. First of all, be accountable to yourself. Write down your habit, and review how you are doing on a daily basis. Perhaps that means that the first habit you have to form is to write in your journal, formulate your goals and review them routinely, daily for habit changes.
Your partner or spouse, a good friend or other family member can be a terrific source of accountability. The first important step here is that you express your intention to change a habit to someone else. Shame is a powerful motivator, so don’t choose someone who will let you get away with anything in this area. Someone who will understand too much is of no use to you right now.
Of course, a coach might be an excellent partner for you in this area.
I suspect that one of the reasons you don’t commit to habit change is the fact that you can only change one habit at a time. Perhaps you say to yourself that you have many habits that you should change. Let me reassure you that changing one habit will change many parts of your life. It has a ripple effect that is very power.
Cheri Huber wrote a great book, titled: How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything. That is a strong message. What that means for habit changing is this. The awareness you bring to changing one habit in your life will spill over into other areas of your life. You thought at one point you needed a whole series of habit changes, but you find that one change has lead to many changes already. This was not the goal initially, but a powerful unintended consequence of creating greater awareness in your life. Let me give you three examples.
- If you created a space near your front door where you charge your cellphone, you might find that you now also have a place for incoming and outgoing mail. You will never walk out of the house without that important folder that you need for work the next day.
- If you water your plants more regularly and have created an accessible place for your watering can and plant food, you might find that you are relating to your entire house differently, because of the attention you give it. Plants don’t just need water, they need to have light and a space to thrive in. Perhaps you all of a sudden find yourself clearing away the mess that accumulated around your plants, simply after you have just watered the plants.
- I used to start my day by going online and seeing what would come my way through email and rss feeds. Now that I have written down my plan for today yesterday, I start with my work immediately, because the first item on the list is not ”check email and news reader.”
So, be encouraged to change your habits and let me know how you do.
Technorati Tags: goals, habit, change, leadership, health
Comments
Got something to say?
