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This Is The Way To Change Your Bad Habits
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Don’t Fight Your Biology
Habitual behavior is created by thought patterns, which create neural pathways and memories, which eventually become the default basis for your behavior when you’re faced with choices. Our brains seek pleasure and the effort to abstain from bad habits compels you to do them more because abstention feels bad.
Changing requires new ways of thinking, to trigger new neural pathways, which will in time reward you the same way you were neurologically rewarded by the bad habit.
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Fighting Your Resistance To Change
Developing new ways of thinking initially creates significant psychological discomfort. But to persevere you have to recognize that you will naturally want to hold onto your own personal status quo.
To avoid the natural resistance, re-frame the challenge into something you gain and learn.
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Think In Steps
To better your odds of changing:
- Create an action plan
- Break your new habits into small, attainable goals. Tap into your physiological and psychological tendencies to make the change stick.
- Set cues to help you meet your goal. Cues are often centered around location, time, emotional states, other people, or something that precedes an action; cues help solidify habits.
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Be The Hero Of Your Own Story
Our habits form based on the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. But this stories are not immutable facts, recognizing that is key to change.
Cultivate the belief that you and your life can change and that you are a work in progress. This will lay the foundation for creating the change you want to see in your life.
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See The Finish Line
Research indicates that keeping your eye on the prize makes the prize in question appear closer than if you let yourself get distracted.
Visualize the finish line as closer than it is to make the process feel easier and keep distractions away.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
Why Set Personal Goals
- You are in charge. Personal goals force you to take responsibility for the actual efforts and progress.
- You see the small steps leading to a big picture: big goals c...
“Which? Why? What? How?” Technique
... for choosing personal goals. Ask yourself these questions:
- Ask yourself which aspect of your life you would like to change most.
- Think about why you want to change this.
- How will that change make you feel? Determine what exactly will make you feel this way.
- Ask yourself how you can make this happen and then make it your personal goal.
The Life Balance Chart Technique
- Draw a chart. Write down each of the various areas of your life (family, health, self-development, career, relationships) in a new column or line.
- Assess your current happiness level in each of these categories by giving it a score from 1 to 10.
- Think what will make you be fully satisfied with these areas. Write down your ideas – you will be able to transform them into personal plans.
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Habit tracking
Is a simple and effective thing to do if you want to stick with a habit for good. No matter the format (calendar, journal, app), it provides immediate evidence whether you are making progress or...
The power of habit tracking:
- It creates a visual cue that can remind you to act.
- It is motivating to see the progress you are making. You don't want to break your streak.
- It feels satisfying to record your success in the moment.
To make habit tracking easier:
- Manual tracking should be limited to your most important habits.
- Record each measurement immediately after the habit occurs.
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Why Change Is So Hard
Changing is necessary and takes energy but our brains tend to try to conserve energy as much as possible. So we have mental biases that influence our behaviors and make us shy away from opportun...
Make Change a Team Effort
“Role Modelling” is one of the main factors behind successful change in organizations and consists of inspiring change by example.
While leadership will ultimately give you sign-off, the rest of the team will determine its success. So in an organizational setting, you must convince everyone of the necessity of change.
Know Who You’re Dealing With
In a collection of individuals, one bad seed can kill all the hard work you’re putting in. You must understand who you are working with so you can tailor your message and actions so no one becomes a bad seed. To do this, sort your team in the following categories:
- Fast Yes: those on your team and ready to work to implement the change.
- Slow Yes: slightly skeptical but still open and can see the value in what you’re doing.
- Fast No: quick to dismiss change but clarity and decisiveness can change that and turn them into strong supporters.
- Slow No: look like they can be persuaded but have already decided against you and will stall and undermine. Here, convincing by example is the best route.