As you went through the steps outlined in the previous posts, here are 5 habit-changing “principles” that’ll be helpful to keep in mind as you are working on changing your habits. These are truths that you should remind yourself of every day until you replace your unwanted – or ineffective – habits with the the power habits you are committed to:
- Everyone has ineffective habits they are trying to change. Some people resign to live a life led by the habits they picked up haphazardly from their environment; while some of us – including you – recognize that habits are formed and “re-formed,” and we can adopt new habits that serve us and our goals better.
- Whenever you identify an ineffective habit you want to change, think of a way to put a positive spin on it. Focus on implementing a new “power habit” that will squeeze out the bad habits without making you think that you are losing anything valuable from your life.
- The most important thing that you can do when it comes to training a new habit is try your best every day. Don’t get discouraged because you had a bad day and didn’t do apply your new habits much as you thought you should have. As long as you made an effort it is going to count towards making steps to transforming your habits.
- Remember, starting with implementing your new empowering habits for 30 days is just a guideline. Everyone is different and there is nothing wrong with you if you need a little longer to make a habit stick. In fact, some studies show that if you want to form a truly effective habit, then committing to 60 days is a better guideline. However, to keep it simple, a 30 days commitment is a really good start.
- Be flexible when it comes to instilling new habits. If you have made a goal that you are going to study a new language for one hour every day but you cannot find a full hour to study, there is nothing wrong with cutting it down to a half hour, or even ten minutes if necessary. Try not to be too rigid and don’t be too hard on yourself, as long as you keep dedicating time to the new habit every day. And if you do skip a day now and then – it’s just like falling off the horse (except way less painful) – get back on it, and keep going!
Keep these 5 points in mind as you keep working on adopting new empowering – or Power Habits – and you’ll start seeing exponential results in living your new habits.
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In the next post we’ll talk some more in-depth about Identifying Your Triggers that launch your unwanted habits, and how you can eliminate them, OR implement a different, positive, response to those triggers.