Good Habits And Bad Habits – 5 Things That Make Them Fail
Let’s talk about good habits and bad habits. Here’s how to make good habits stick and 5 things that will cause habits to fail.
Let’s chat about good habits and bad habits.
Habits are usually the key to all the successes you experience in life. Your habits determine how much money is in your bank account and the size of your waistline. Your habits determine how much work you get done and how you keep your house in order.
All in all, your habits determine the quality of your life.
And yes, it can seem impossible to break bad habits or to create new, positive habits.
But that’s only because most people have an ineffective approach.
They try to go cold turkey and rely on willpower to force the necessary changes and then act all surprised when these strategies don’t work.
You probably already know these strategies don’t work unless you’re incredibly motivated, but unfortunately motivation isn’t incredibly reliable.
It can be here one day and gone the next.
It is as slippery as trying to hold sand in your fingertips.
First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Octavia Butler
In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions.It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently. Tony Robbins
A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time. -Mark Twain
Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Buddha
Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones. Benjamin Franklin
If you want to create new habits more effectively you can start by avoiding the most common mistakes:
GOOD HABITS AND BAD HABITS
MISTAKE # 1 – Changing too much, too soon.
A new habit is best implemented in baby steps.
If you want to spend two hours each day writing your novel, start with a single sentence each day.
One sentence accomplishes something exciting: it gets you in the habit of sitting down and writing when it’s time to write.
That’s the most important first step.
- Start with small changes. Then increase the amount of time and effort when the habit of beginning is in place.
- Seek behavioral changes that are so easy, you can’t possibly fail.
- Smart small – take super small baby steps – and slowly work your way to even bigger baby steps.
GOOD HABITS AND BAD HABITS
MISTAKE # 2 – Relying on self-discipline.
If your habit requires self-discipline, it won’t last.
At most, self-discipline should only be required to make a habit of getting started.
True habits are automatic.
- Self-discipline is a short-term solution.
- Seek behavioral changes that are so easy, you don’t need self-discipline. Over time, they will become a habit.
GOOD HABITS AND BAD HABITS
MISTAKE # 3 – Expecting a new habit to be easy to install.
News alert: Change isn’t easy.
You’ll very easily become complacent and lazy over time if you expect a new habit to be easy to implement.
We’d all be rich, in shape, and speak five languages if creating new habits were a simple matter.
But no surprise, they take time to implement.
GOOD HABITS AND BAD HABITS
MISTAKE # 4 – Expecting a new habit to be difficult to install.
The opposite is also true.
If you expect the process to be exceptionally difficult, you’ll also struggle with the idea of creating new effective habits.
The thought of doing anything that’s hard can be sufficient reason to never get started in the first place.
- You need to know that new behaviors are easy to implement if you start slowly and have patience. It’s moving ahead slowly and having patience that are difficult.
GOOD HABITS AND BAD HABITS
MISTAKE # 5 – Relying too much on information.
Our society is blessed, or cursed, with access to an excessive amount of information. This can create two challenges:
- It’s very easy to believe that you don’t know enough to take the first step. There’s always something out there that you don’t know.
- The need to know everything before getting started can leave you stuck. There’s no prize for knowing the most without taking any action. Knowledge is power but only if you take action too.
- The belief that knowledge alone is sufficient is just as harmful. You might know how to do pushups, but that doesn’t provide the same results as doing 100 of them each day. It’s one thing to know something in theory and another to put it into practice.
- The special forces have a motto that 60% is enough to take action. If you know 60% of the relevant information, you know enough to move forward.
- You can figure out the other 40% along the way. Spend 90% of your time doing and 10% learning. I absolutely love this advice!
All in all, I think it’s important to know that dropping your negative habits and adding new, supportive habits is the key to changing your circumstances.
Unfortunately, our instincts about change are incorrect.
Tiny changes are in fact easy to implement and build upon.
Yes this approach requires patience and the belief that it can work.
Remember: small changes will eventually add up to big results so do your best to take those first initial baby steps and get moving!
If you avoid the most common mistakes when attempting to add a new habit to your life, you’ll find greater success in adding habits that make a positive impact on your life.
Please don’t be put off by implementing new habits because the secret really is starting small and taking those baby steps every day.
Successful people are simply those with successful habits. Brian Tracy
You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine. John C. Maxwell
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. Jim Rohn
Let today be the day you give up who you’ve been for who you can become. Hal Elrod
-
Before You Go…
– See my EVERYTHING PAGE and grab a free gift > HERE
– Get instant access to EVERY COURSE I’ve ever created > HERE
– Listen to my INSPIRING LIFE PODCAST on Spotify or via Apple Podcasts.
– Or for biz owners, listen to LIFE COACH FOR BIZ MOMS Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
I’m Frances Vidakovic – a mindset & action coach for quietly ambitious women who want to stop overthinking and finally take aligned action. I help women achieve their goals and follow through on what matters, without sacrificing their sanity or soul.