We have all set out to create new behaviors, with our full honest determination to change, only to find ourselves slipping into old behaviors that don’t serve us or help us reach our goals. So, how do you create new habits that stick and become part of who you are in the long term?
Creating Habits That Stick
The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the habits you live by. Your habits either work for you and sustain your best self, or they hold you back from achieving your true potential. Putting it another way, you are either growing or you’re dying. Good habits empower you to become the person you need to become to create the Level 10 Life of your dreams filled with happiness, options and abundance. Bad habits cause you to live a life of mediocrity, the life of the average person, the 95%’rs, always struggling, always lacking, and perpetually falling short of your true potential.
Either you control your habits or your habits will control you.
Creating Habits That Stick And Transform
How do you form good habits? Here are some good habit forming tips that will make your habits more than just a New Year’s resolution because they will transform your life.
1. Take 100% Responsibility
Take 100% responsibility for your life and your habits. The moment that you take full responsibility for your life is that moment when you empower yourself to change your life to create the life and lifestyle you desire and dream of. You will never be successful in changing or creating habits when you do so for someone else. Tony Robbins says that everything we do is motivated by our need for love. Start by loving yourself. Until you love yourself you will never be able to love another person.
2. Identify Core Habits
Many people fail at making habits stick because they try to change too many things in their life at one time. To have greater success and impact on transforming your life identify those key core habits that will have the greatest overall positive change in your life. This may be replacing a bad habit that doesn’t align with your higher vision of yourself or creating habits that empower you to become more and accomplish more of your higher goals.
Here are some examples of good habits for life, as well as, breaking a bad habit like addiction:
Morning Ritual
One of the core attributes highly successful people have is a consistent daily morning routine. Having a daily morning routine is a single set of activities that will set the tone for your entire day. Hal Elrod’s book, Miracle Morning, is a book that should be in every high achiever’s library. Hal Elrod shows how to create a simple morning routine that’s almost effortless and will drastically change your life toward your desired success faster than any other strategy.
Exercise
Exercise is the single activity that will have the greatest impact in nearly every aspect of your life. Richard Branson says that exercise is so vitally important to his success and his desired lifestyle that it is the first activity he engages into each and every day. Exercise raises your daily energy level, increases your metabolism, allows you to think more clearly and focused, helps clear you body of toxins, helps you sleep more soundly, reduces the number of hours sleep you need and much more.
Addictions
Addictions negatively impact almost every aspect of your life. Your addictions negatively impact you personally, your life and those you care for in the following ways:
- Your relationship with yourself, the love and forgiveness you extend to yourself and how you see yourself in relation to other people, your environment and your place in the world.
- The quality of your relationships, the quality of people in your life and the type of person you attract.
- Your health, fitness and lifestyle quality.
- Your mindset, clarity and what you accept into your live.
- Most importantly, addictions keep you from becoming the person you need to become to create the Level 10 life and lifestyle you desire.
Overcoming Addictions –
The best way to overcome an unhealthy addiction is to focus on healthy behaviors and routines that will work together for your success instead of against you. Most people are able to find success in overcoming their addictions by attending regular (daily) 12 Step Meetings like AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). If you’re not sure if you have an addiction just start attending the meetings, one meeting at a time. The 12 Steps will help every person overcome any problem in their life whether it’s a substance, a non-substance and a behavioral trait that’s holding you back from becoming your highest best self.
Organization
For most people, decluttering and organizing your home and work space allows you to create space in your life to then receive more abundance. This also helps you better focus on the things that matter in your life. I share some great ideas on this topic in my blog post, Spring Cleaning Your Life.
3. Commit To 30 Days
It takes 30 days to create a new habit or to stop a bad habi. We’ve all heard the it takes 21 days to form a habit quote. I used to have the same belief and wondered why I found myself reverting back to old behavior after 21 days. Then I learned why in Hal Elrod’s book, Miracle Morning.
Just knowing the existence of these 3 phases and then understanding what to expect during these phases will help equip you to become successful in creating your desired good habits.
[Days 1-10] Phase One: Unbearable
Phase One is “the first 10 days of implementing any new habit, or ridding yourself of any old habit, and can feel almost unbearable.”
The first 10 days are the most difficult. You may feel unbearable because you are replacing old undesirable habits with new habits that work in your favor. Remember that these unbearable feelings are only temporary. Focus on the positive gains you will get once you establish your new habit.
[Days 11-20] Phase Two: Uncomfortable
“After you get through the first 10 days — the most difficult 10 days — you begin the 2nd 10-day phase, which is considerably easier. You will be getting used to your new habit.”
Days 11-20 are not unbearable but they may feel uncomfortable. Have confidence that you have overcome the most difficult phase (phase 1). It’s important to stay disciplined and committed with your new desired behavior. It will continue to get easier from here.
[Days 21-30] Phase Three: Unstoppable
“Phase Three is where the actual transformation occurs, as your new habit becomes part of your identity. It transcends the space between something you’re trying and who you’re becoming. You start to see yourself as someone who lives the habit.”
The few who make it to Phase 3, days 21-30, make the detrimental mistake of thinking that their new behavior (habit) requires only 21 days to stick. However, during days 1-20, the most difficult, the point of reference has been to overcome what’s unbearable and uncomfortable in hopes of making your desired behavior a habit. Being over confident during the last 10 days may cause you to slip.
Phase 3, the last 10 days, is crucial to sustaining your habit long term. Phase 3 is where you begin to focus on the positive impacts your life now has from living this new habit. This is where you become unstoppable and your habit is part of who you are.
4. Accountability
Accountability is an important part of habit forming. When you are accountable to someone outside yourself you are more likely to follow through. This is because people are typically prideful and care what others think of them. The fear of not checking in with those you are accountable to is greater than the discomfort of doing our habit. Of course you could always lie but then this behavior will only go against your goal of establishing the new desired behavior.
5. Habit Tracking System
Tracking your daily progress provides you a huge benefit by holding yourself personally accountable. A tracking system also provides you a positive, tangible reinforcement every time you follow through with your Level 10 Habits. (Hal Elrod, 30 Day Transformation) For each day that you complete your desired habit, place and “x” and and “o” for the days you miss. It’s okay if you miss a day. Don’t beat yourself up and keep going!
Click here to download your copy.
Digital Habit Tracking Apps
There are some great IPhone and Android Apps to help remind you to fulfill your new habits while tracking your consistency. Here is one that has great reviews:
Productive Habits & Daily Goals Tracker
Build good habits. Organize your life. Download to get all the tools you need to build a routine of positive, life changing habits. You get:
● A way to plan your day – Schedule habits for morning, afternoon, evening, or any time of the day. You can also schedule habits for more than once a day, or only for weekdays, or just for the start of the month, or just on Mondays, or many other convenient choices.
● Motivating streaks – Build motivating chains of done habits and perfect days. The longer your chain of done habits, the more likely you will stick at the habit.
● A way to focus – You’re only shown what’s due for the current time of day. This helps you better manage your time, and prevents stress about what is still left to do.
● Powerful reminders – Know what’s due for each time period, plus you can set reminders for each habit, or get a big push from Boost Mode.
● Lots more awesome stuff – Like calendars of your progress, detailed stats, notes, a passcode lock, and the beautiful Floodlight theme.
6. Other Tips For Habit Success
- Failure Is Okay – You may briefly fall back into old, undesired behavior. That’s okay. Just pick yourself up and start doing your desired behavior again. Start each day as a chance to be your best advocate! Never quit! Fail your way to success!
- Visualize – Visualize yourself each day successful in having established your habit. Make sure you feel the feelings from all of your senses living your life with that successful habit.
- Create An Environment Of Success – Remove those things in your environment that will be a temptation and cause you to fail at achieving your habit of success. For example, if you are establishing a miracle morning routine but tend to hit the snooze button on your alarm clock, place your clock on the other side of the room. If you are creating healthy eating habits, remove unhealthy food from your house. Your environment includes those people in your life. You are the average of the top 5 people in your life. Make sure you get the support of people closest to you in your life. Create friendships with those who share your newfound goals and desired habits. If you’re establishing business success habits, find successful people to hang out with and learn from.
I hope your enjoyed this post! If so, please comment and share if you want more content like this.
Alycia Skousen
Email: alyciaskousen@gmail.com
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