5 Mistakes That Cause New Habits to Fail

In order to be successful - you need to have Goals and a Plan. But sometimes you are your own worst enemy - because of your bad habits. Trying to change your habits takes time and commitment.

It's not easy to develop new healthy and productive habits that you can stick to. But don't give up!

Your habits determine how much money is in your bank account and the size of your waistline. Your habits determine the quality of your life.

It can seem impossible to break bad habits or to create new, positive habits. Most people have an ineffective approach. They try to go cold turkey and rely on willpower to force the necessary changes.

You already know this doesn’t work unless you’re incredibly motivated, and motivation isn’t reliable. It’s here one day and gone the next.

Create new habits more effectively by avoiding the most common mistakes:

1.      Changing too much, too soon. A new habit is best installed 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.

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. Habits are automatic. Self-discipline isn’t required to eat a candy bar or watch TV for most of us. If you have a habit of going to the gym, self-discipline isn’t required for that either.

·         Self-discipline is a short-term solution.

·         Seek behavioral changes that are so easy, you don’t need self-discipline.

3.      Expecting a new habit to be easy to install. Change isn’t easy. You’ll become complacent and lazy 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.

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. The thought of doing anything that’s hard can be sufficient reason to never get started in the first place.

·         New behaviors are easy to implement if you start slowly and have patience. It’s moving ahead slowly and having patience that are difficult.

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. There is great success in doing the most, though.

·         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.

·         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.

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 easy to implement and build upon. But this approach requires patience and the belief that it can work. Remember: small changes add up to big results.

Avoid the most common mistakes when attempting to add a new habit to your life and you’ll find greater success in adding habits that make a positive impact on your life.  

Less Clutter = Less Stress ^SM     in your home, your business and your life

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Tips to Balance Work and Home Responsibilities

If there's one thing you've likely realized by now, it's that life is rarely one-dimensional! You probably have a hard time identifying a period in your past when life proceeded without interruptions.

But have you ever thought about this? Those "interruptions" belong there because life is meant to be multi-dimensional.

Your life is interesting and fulfilling because of variety. Variety in the professional and personal aspects of your life make every day worth living. Now all you really need to do is learn how to balance it all.

Train yourself to balance life's demands by implementing these effective habits:

 

1.      Prioritize. Although you may be a little hesitant to go through this step, it's vital.

·         Do you find yourself putting greater effort into your career? Perhaps that's where your passion lies right now. It's important to come to terms with that.

·         Have you experienced being at work and contemplating where to take your kids this weekend? Maybe that's truly your focus, and that's okay too!

·         The first step is determining what's more important to you. After you've done that, consider whether you can afford to be in that position. If there are factors pointing to unrealistic priorities, be honest with yourself. Put first things first!

2.      Create a distinction. Now that you've outlined your priorities, your next task is to ensure the responsibilities are properly distinguished. Are there certain responsibilities which really shouldn’t be on your radar right now?

·         Earning another degree can certainly add to your qualifications, but is the timing right? If your job is already fulfilling, how about putting off more schooling for now? Use your time wisely so you can balance professional and personal responsibilities.

·         It's great if your kids can participate in tons of extracurricular activities. But do you have the time to attend all the games and recitals? Meet them halfway by limiting the activities, or share the responsibilities with your spouse.

3.      Stick to a dedicated schedule. It's only fair to give each aspect of your life the time it deserves. Once you've identified the priorities, avoid allowing both areas of your life to intertwine.

·         If you've allocated three hours each evening to those special people in your life, ensure you stick to that. This will keep your relationships intact.

·         Sure, unexpected occurrences may pop up at work and throw your plans out of whack. But what's important is that you make the effort to stick to schedules as much as possible.

4.      Make it worth your while. When you've identified set windows of time for specific responsibilities, maintain your focus and follow through.

·         If it's time for work, make it all about work. Try to produce your best quality and get the best results. That way, you'll feel at ease when you're ready to move on to your personal time. You'll rest better knowing you've given your best at work.

The same thing goes for personal time. Turn off the television. Silence your cell phone. Shut down your computer. Allow yourself to take care of personal responsibilities without interruption.

When you practice these tips regularly, you'll find is that it gets a little easier each day to balance these two different areas of your life.

Soon, you’ll be able to handle any unexpected circumstance without getting flustered because you have a good handle on balancing your work and home lives.

Less Clutter = Less Stress ^SM     in your home, your business and your life

Organizational Consulting Services

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Visit our Life & Business Coaching website:  North By Northwest

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How to Use Habits to Reach Your Goals

One of the keys to reaching a new goal is to have habits in place that support that goal. If your current habits are counter-productive, you'll need to change them or run the risk of coming up short.

How do habits help you reach your goals?

Suppose you have the goal of running a marathon: if you don’t already have the habit of running regularly, you're unlikely to be successful until you can adopt that habit. Running regularly can help you attain your goal in several ways, including getting you in great physical shape and strengthening your endurance.

Developing supportive habits can be easier than you think and far more powerful than you can imagine!

Identify the Habits You Need

Before you create new, positive habits, you’ll want to figure out which habits will help you attain your goals. For every goal, there are habits that can practically guarantee success. Reflect on your goals and what actions you can take to help bring them about.

Consider these attributes for the habits you want to implement:

1.      Look for daily habits. Habits you practice each day are much easier to put into place and keep than those that are less frequent.

2.      Keep it simple. The more complex the task, the less likely you are to stick with it. If you really do need to implement a complex habit, start with a simpler version and then add more complexity later.

3.      Be specific. It's not enough to just specify what you're going to do; include the how, when, and where as well. Time is always critical when creating a new habit. Be sure to specify a precise period of time in which you wish to implement the new actions.

·         So "I'm going to exercise 1 hour per day" is inadequate. "I'm going to swim from 6-7 am, Monday through Friday at the YMCA" is more like it. This has enough detail to be quite clear about what you want to accomplish and includes the how, when and where.

Prepare for Interference. 

There are usually obstacles to creating new habits and behavioral patterns. Try to figure out these possibilities ahead of time so you can eliminate them as soon as possible.

For example, if you've decided that you're going to eat a healthy breakfast every day, get rid of all the breakfast junk food in your pantry and freezer. That junk food is an obstacle to successfully implementing your habit.

The obstacle might be time interference. Maybe your partner doesn’t usually leave you alone for 30 minutes every night so you can meditate, write, read, or whatever it is you want to do towards your goal. Simply let them know ahead of time that you need be undisturbed during this time.

Look for More Supporting Habits.

When you determine supporting habits that will help you reach your goal, consider going even deeper into the details to find habits that will help you accomplish your other new habits.

For example, if one of your new habits is to make it to the gym every morning by 6:00 am, you can develop several supporting habits to help you establish this habit, such as:

·         Get out of bed by 5:15 am.

·         In order to get up at 5:15 am each day, you might need an additional habit of always being in bed by 10:00 pm.

·         Another supporting habit might be to pack your gym bag the night before.

These supporting habits are monumentally important. Take time to think about what additional habits you can develop to support your efforts.

Enjoy Automatic Success.

Once an action becomes a habit, you’ll do it automatically, without having to make the decision to do it each time. In other words, you’ll automatically move forward, day after day, toward achieving your goal until you reach it.

Just as counter-productive habits can keep you from success, supportive habits can practically guarantee your victory. So consider the habits that will best support your goals, put them into action on a daily basis, and enjoy your new success!  

Less Clutter = Less Stress ^SM     in your home, your business and your life

Organizational Consulting Services

http://www.organizationalconsultingservices.com
.

Visit our Life & Business Coaching website:  North By Northwest

*** check out the Products tab for self-paced workshops, planners and more....