We all want to succeed. And one path to success is identifying the habits that can help us on our journey. From Jim Rohn, success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. Understanding how to build up new habits is essential for making progress in your health, your happiness, and your life in general. If you don’t have good habits, create one now. The following are several steps to form a new habit:
1. Start with something small
Give yourself reasons to do, so you can break the ice. Most people struggle to build new habits, they say something like, “I just need motivation." To solve this problem is just by picking a new habit that is easy enough that you don't need the motivation to do it. Rather than trying to do something amazing from the beginning, start small, and gradually improve. Along the way, your willpower and motivation will increase, which will make it easier to stick to your habit for good. Make it easy enough that you can get it done without motivation.
2. break habits into chunks then increase your habit bit by bit
Building up to 20 minutes of Writing is not easy for some people. Split it into two segments of 10 minutes at first. Trying to read a chapter per day and seven chapters per week for a book is much easier as you make your way there.
If you continue adding one percent each day, then you'll find yourself increasing very quickly within two or three months. It is important to keep each habit reasonable so that you can maintain momentum and make the behavior as easy as possible to accomplish.
3. When you slip, get back on track quickly.
A lot of research has shown that missing your habit once, no matter when it occurs will impact your long-term progress. Rather than trying to be perfect, abandon your all-or-nothing mentality. You shouldn't expect to fail, but you should plan for failure. Take some time to consider what will prevent your habit from happening. What are some things that are likely to get in your way? What are some daily emergencies that are likely to pull you off course? How can you plan to work around these issues? Or, at least, how you can bounce back quickly from them and get back on track?
4. Create Accountability for your habit
According to the lessons learned from the practice, you’re more likely to follow through with a commitment when you’re being observed by others. To stick with this new routine, you should let others know about your efforts and goals. One way to do so you can post updates on social media accounts, use apps like Facebook to track your progress, work with an accountability partner, or post regular updates to an online community related to the habit.
5. Be patient and stick to a pace you can sustain
New habits should feel easy, especially in the beginning. If you stay consistent and continue increasing your habit it will get hard enough, fast enough. It always does. Anchor it to your established one and reward yourselves for practicing the new habit. A habit shouldn’t be based upon motivation, fads, or temporary desire. Rather, it should be instilled in your life to the point it becomes habitual.
How Long Does It Take To Form A Habit? According to the experts, it takes about 21 days to break or form a habit pattern of medium complexity. However, habits that are more complex or difficult to incorporate with your lifestyle may take longer. Some say it might take up to 30 days which is a month really get a new habit as a new pattern in your lifestyle.
I hope you find this episode useful, See you soon!
