1) Decide to make a commitment to change. Without this, you might as well stop reading this right now.
What does commitment look like?
It might be easier to show you what commitment doesn’t look like:
Commitment doesn’t look like wasting your time with unimportant tasks and wasteful activities.
We all know what activities aren’t providing us with any value and that are keeping us from changing our habits and reaching our goals.
Commitment doesn’t look like blame, creating alibis, using excuses or playing the role of victim.
Commitment doesn’t look like telling everyone about how you want to change your habits but not taking action to actually change them.
Commitment doesn’t look like changing your behavior temporarily and then reverting back to the same old habits.
Commitment to change doesn’t look like something you’ll get to in the future.
Commitment starts right NOW and it's for the rest of your life.
2) Make the things that seem hard, easy
For example, make it second nature/automatic to grab the apple instead of the doughnut. To grab the flavored water or healthy beverage of your choice instead of the soda or the high calorie drink.
Head straight to the gym or to the park to get your exercise in instead of heading straight home after work.
Do your studying, homework or other important tasks right when you get home.
In short, don’t take the time to think too much about what you have to do, just get to it as soon as possible. This will train yourself to be an action-oriented person and will replace procrastination, boredom and indifference.
Through repetition you will soon be engaging only in activities and habits that promote your health, wealth and well-being.
3) Make the easy things harder
For example, think about the negative effects that taking the easy route will have on you. The effect on your health, wealth, well-being and your ability to accomplish your goals.
You don’t dwell on or emotionalize the negative feelings, you only want to bring them to the surface to dissuade you from taking the easy route.
You then quickly transmute the negative feelings into positive, new, constructive habits.
The goal is to make it uncomfortable on yourself, or “harder”, to do what’s easy.
In time, the easy things will become harder for you to engage in and the so-called harder things will become easy.
4) Get completely disgusted at the habit you want to change
For example, as a teenager I began the habit of smoking cigarettes. By the time I was 16, I was close to smoking a pack a day.
What I did to quit the habit of smoking was to start thinking and focusing on all the negative, unhealthy and disgusting aspects of smoking.
I watched how ridiculous I looked while smoking, I watched how ridiculous others looked while smoking, I focused on the indents in my fingers, the yellowing of my fingers and teeth, the nasty smell on my clothing, the ash stains on my clothing, the smell of my breath, the financial cost, and the effect on my breathing and health.
I literally made myself disgusted whenever I thought about smoking.
So, whatever habit that you’re looking to change, try this technique and get yourself so disgusted at the habit that you’ll get sick just thinking about it.
*Note: Get yourself disgusted at the HABIT, not at yourself.
5) Change one habit at a time
Trying to change too many habits at once is inviting defeat.
Start out with one habit at a time and start with a habit that will make the biggest impact on your well-being.
There are literally thousands of daily habits that we engage in, and picking the most important one that you want to change will take some thought.
A good way to know which habit would have the biggest impact on your life if you changed it is to think about how you’ll feel when you remove or replace it.
Remember, changing a habit requires commitment, discipline, perseverance, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition and repetition.
Be sure to celebrate your wins and never get discouraged. Habit change takes time. Stay the course and I promise you’ll successfully change your habits and achieve your goals.
Enjoy the process AS you're achieving your goal, knowing that it's only a matter of time before you reach it.
Something that has helped me stay consistent is keeping a tracking system for my progress. It can be something as simple as placing an X on your calendar for each day that you successfully engage in the new habit.
Feel free to use whatever system works for you, just make sure that you use a system to track your progress. It's a great way to stay motivated and on track.
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