Successful people are simply those with successful habits. – Brian Tracy
How many times did you start a new habit, only to realize a few weeks later that you were no longer following through with your good intentions?
Maybe you planned to work out five times a week, to eat healthier food, or be more productive?
The truth is that the difference between successful people, and everyone else, comes down to the few things they do on a regular basis.
This is why introducing success habits are so crucial. Think about this for a moment:
Compare two business people with the same income and lifestyle:
Say one of them suddenly chooses to make a few lifestyle changes: He now wakes up an hour earlier, so he can work out, meditate and visualize his day. He also chooses to focus his first hour at work on his most important and productive task, while trading an hour of TV time in the evening for an hour of educational and inspirational reading. Finally, he opts to save 10% of his income to make sound investments to work on his financial independence. He commits himself to reinvesting any proceeds to make additional ones, in order to build up passive income streams.
Can you picture the different destinations these two individuals are heading towards, and how a few small habits combined together have the compounding power of reshaping a person’s destiny?
The problem is though that if you have not made it a habit of creating new success habits, starting this process can be difficult. This is because any new behaviour requires effort and willpower, at least initially. And willpower works like any ordinary muscle, the more you train it the stronger it gets.
To help you get started, we need to make the process of change as easy as possible. This is how you set yourself up for little wins and build success momentum.
Let me show you three simple steps that will help you in no time become a master at introducing new habits:
1. Break down your desired behaviour into tiny little actions:
Most people set themselves up for failure, by going for super big changes like working out an hour every day, taking on a very strict diet, or doubling their income. However, after just a few days into their new resolutions, they usually give up. This is because as soon as they lose such a little bit of motivated, they feel overwhelmed and cannot follow through with their commitments. The bad news is by giving up they also hamper their self-belief in succeeding with behavioural changes in the future.
To introduce a new habit successfully, you want to start with super tiny steps that move you towards the direction of your desired outcomes. Little wins eventually lead to bigger ones, and this is how you suddenly trigger massive results provided you persist.
So for example, if you want to become more flexible, commit to stretching one minute a day. Although a one-minute session may sound ridiculous, you won’t need to depend on feeling extremely motivated to ensure that you follow through. This is how you build success moment, so that over time, it becomes much easier to increase your time.
2. Pair the new behaviour to your existing routines:
You want to make any new behaviour more than just an abstract intention, defining as many details as possible. For example, planning to work out three times a week will not nearly be as effective as scheduling to exercise every morning, right after you wake up for say thirty minutes. In other words, the more details you have, the better.
You also want to create some kind of reminder so that you don’t forget to complete your tiny new habits. The best way to do this is by pairing your desired behaviour with an existing routine. For instance, if you want to work out in the mornings, you could leave your gym clothes ready next to your bed so that when you wake up you instantly see them. In this way, you would hopefully link getting up with putting on your gear and heading to the gym. Or you could pair brushing your teeth with your one-minute stretching session so that you associate doing the one with the other.
3. Celebrate successes:
The final step is to reward yourself every time you follow through with your new behaviour. For example, if you have promised yourself to work out, then take some time after exercising to take a hot shower, go to the sauna or have a delicious shake. Or if you really don’t have time, just tell yourself how awesome you are. By instilling a small thrill inside your brain every time you experience a success, you reinforce the behaviour you are working on.
So these are three simple steps that will allow you to introduce new behaviours into your life. They are so powerful because with every small win that you experience, you will be telling yourself that you are the kind of person who can grow and change. Each tiny new habit ripples out and affects some of your other routines in a positive manner. Eventually, you will be able to take on bigger and bigger goals, so that you trigger the kind of upward spiral that will make you unstoppable.
With this in mind, I want to challenge you to commit to introducing a tiny new behaviour into your life. It could be eating one fresh fruit a day, flossing one tooth, doing two daily push-ups, or anything else that is ridiculously easy.
Share with me here what this new habit will be and how you will link it to an existing routine and get started immediately. Let me also know how you are progressing. Good luck!
Featured Images Credits to:
Skip Prichard of 7 Steps to Improve Your Character Habit
Griffiths Parry Lawyers & Notary
Plumbing Materials of Entrepreneur Idea
Larry Swanson of The Office Fitness Venn Diagram