Today we will be discussing just how certain actions can become habitual, which will both help you break negative or destructive habits and develop positive ones in their place. But before you can take a single step towards that goal, you first have to understand how you got to where you currently are.
Everyone has habits in their life that they have developed over the years. Some of them are really good for you and others not so much. For example, you might have learned to brush your teeth every morning and every night before bed. This will keep your teeth healthy and it is a habit that will give you a better smile, save you big money at the dentist and prevent a whole lot of pain and suffering (anyone who has ever had a dental extraction will agree wholeheartedly).
On the other hand, you might have developed the habit for procrastination. You definitely aren’t alone. Everyone procrastinates to some degree, and some people make it a way of life. Procrastination happens for many reasons. Sometimes it is the fear of success, the lack of confidence in achieving it and sometimes, it is just a lack of motivation.
These are just two examples of effective and ineffective habits. You have thousands of habits – both effective and ineffective – that you have ingrained in yourself over the years. Understanding how these habits developed will allow you to see your own successes and failures more clearly and being familiar with the psychology behind habits will give you an objective perspective and allow you to fix problems without as much emotional baggage.
The Psychology Behind Your Habits
It all starts with understanding the psychology behind your habits: how they form, what motivates you to perform them and how they become a permanent part of your life.
The first thing that you need to understand is that all habits – from brushing your teeth to recognizing and taking advantage of multi-million dollar business opportunities – are formed exactly the same way. The neurological process in forming habits is identical, and it doesn’t matter if it is a tiny habit, a major habit, an ineffective habit or an effective one.
Understanding this is actually one of the most important things that you can do because it immediately tells you something about yourself – namely, that if you can teach yourself to brush your teeth twice or three times a day, without even thinking about it, then you can teach yourself anything. You can have confidence in your ability to teach yourself any supporting habit that you want because you have already done it many times in your life.
While brushing your teeth may seem to have very little to do with starting an online business and making it successful, the process is exactly the same. If you can do one, you can do the other.