Use habits to set yourself up for success with your health, life and business goals
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Use habits to set yourself up for success with your health, life and business goals
- by Tracey Hancock
Everyone has habits. Think of all the things you do each day on automatic pilot. Start from when you get up in the morning and go through your day. There's a lot of habits, some will serve you well and others won't.
Habits for life
Habits make life easier for us. Imagine if we had to think about everything we did and decide how we'll do it each time. Like if every morning we had to think about how to make a cup of tea, cook the toast, clean our teeth etc.
There are so many decisions and choices that you make every day that are being directly influenced by your habits. Whether those habits are helpful or not, they're there and they're powerful.
Developing a habit
Do you remember learning to tie your shoe laces, or remember teaching a child to do it - how did it feel to start with?
You had to really concentrate didn't you. You might have started out by watching someone doing it and then tried to do it yourself, over and over again. It could be downright frustrating when the laces wouldn't do what you wanted them to do!
But slowly and surely you learnt to tie your shoes. Now, you probably don't think about what you're doing, you just tie them.(Have you ever put on shoes and even though you know they don't have laces, you still bent down to tie them? Funny aye.)
How you tie your shoes has become lodged in your mind as a habit. It's a way of doing something that you don't even think about or question.
The first time you tied your shoes a neural connection in your brain was made. It was a weak connection to start with, easily disrupted by other thoughts. Then each time you tied your shoes the connection strengthened. It's now strong and wired together firmly.
It was the same with you learnt to drive a car or ride a bike, and many other things you've learnt over your lifetime so far.
It's what you do each day
It's what you do each day that makes the most difference and much of what we do is automatic.
Are your current habits supporting you to achieve success with your health, life and business goals?
When we rely solely on motivation and willpower, we're likely to find it hard to achieve our goals (notice I said hard not impossible). When we develop habits that support our goals we will significantly increase the likelihood of achieving success.
How to start
Think about a goal you want to achieve. Now choose a habit to focus on. Once that habit is embedded, introduce another and so on.
Just as with learning to tie your shoes laces, drive a vehicle or ride a bike, it'll feel awkward to start with but doing it will mean you become masterful at it and you'll have created a strong neural connection.
Create habits that support you to achieve your health, life and business goals to experience the success you desire.
Live well!
- Tracey