Tag: routine

6 Tips To Establish New Power Habits.

A great life is built on great habits. Do the right things repeatedly and you will build momentum. Do the wrong thing repeatedly and you build a rap sheet.

Your great habits have a compounding effect. Each great step helps amplify the step before. All of which will earn career, social, health, and even financial capital that will open doors for you.

I was on The Morning Blend this week talking about habits. You can see the segment here.

But How?

Habit development is a process. Here are a few of the most important things to know to get the process right, like Bob Barker.

6 Tips To Establishing New Power Habits.

  1. Start with your identity.  Identify as an exerciser, reader, money saver or a neat and orderly person. Once you identify as the person who does these kinds of activities you will do the kinds of activities your identity identifies with. It’s always a case of the chicken and the egg. So just decide that you are a chicken and start laying eggs.

Remember: Identities are all made up anyway. (Just ask Madonna.) None of us came out of the womb as runners, readers or pop singers. We were all just naked and unemployed. One day you simply decide you want to take on an identity and you go with it. The great news is that you can add to or change your identity any day.

2. Make it easy at the start. If you have chosen to identify as a runner, don’t go out the first time and run until you barf. You won’t want to come back. Instead, run until you feel good. Don’t go past that point. Stop before it hurts or feels negative. Run for a couple of minutes. Not a couple of miles. Make it enjoyable, make it easy. Make yourself want to do more next time. In the beginning (#NameThatBook) the most important thing to do is simply create the system or process. The length doesn’t matter.

3. Optimize and intensify over time. Once the routine is established you can adjust it to be more productive. Lengthen the duration of activity. Increase the intensity and focus. But raise the bar slowly and you will build even more momentum.

4. Market the habit to yourself by putting cues in your path.  If you want to journal, leave your journal and pen out where you will be reminded to write. Put your exercise clothes on your dresser or bathroom counter so they are easy to pick up and put on. Place your laundry to be put away on your bed. This provides additional obvious cues and reduces friction to action.

5. You can change your life in one day. Quitting smoking may be hard, but it’s not hard to not smoke for a day. The same holds true for exercising, eating well or playing an instrument. Commit to one day, each day. It will make you feel like a winner every day. You will be inspired to do more when you feel like you are winning.

6. When you have a problem starting or maintaining a habit there is a problem with your system. If your habit is failing it isn’t you. It’s the system. Tweak it to make the habit stick. Make it easier. Change the timing. Change the setting. Use technology for prompts, reminders or encouragement. Pair it with a different reward. Find what you need to nail it.

Key Takeaway

Use good habits to create good habits. Set your identity and your actions will follow. Underdo it at the start. Allow yourself to be an amateur. Create obvious prompts. Optimize and intensify over time. Keep stringing together good days. And just don’t stop.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my new book What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

How to create your powerful habit train.

It was either Aristotle or The 7 Dwarfs who said ‘We are what we repeatedly do.’ Which means that just as your DNA creates your body, your habits create your identity. So while you may feel as if your identity was written in the stars, in reality, it is written on your calendar.

When you do something every day it transforms you.

  • Exercise every day and you become fit.
  • Read every day and you become intelligent.
  • Write every day and you become an author.
  • Save money every day and you become rich.
  • Meet new people every day and you become popular.
  • Refuse to wear clothes every day and you become a nudist. And tan.

Personal Revelation

Most of the great things that have happened to me are because I first established strong habits.

  • I have exercised regularly since I was a freshman in high school. Several decades later I am still as strong as I was when I was 18. And although I am slower, my complexion is better.
  • I have a strong reading habit. I read physical books at home. And I listen to audiobooks while I drive. As a result I arrive at work smarter than I was when I left home. And I arrive home smarter than I was when I left work. If you do that every day for decades you will end up a lot smarter than you look.
  • I make a point of developing and maintaining relationships. I make a habit of reaching out to people regularly by phone, text, email or through social media. I invite people to get together and add another chapter to our friendship or familyship. One of the common regrets in life is not creating or maintaining your relationships. I will not have that regret.

The Habit Train

If you want to establish a strong new habit it is easier than you think. Because your day is already packed with habits. And the best way to establish a strong new habit is to attach it to an existing one, like cars on a freight train.

Example:

1. When your alarm clock sounds you turn it off (Habit)

2. You get up. (Habit)

3. Unless you have a bionic bladder you go to the bathroom. (Habit)

Now you have a 3-Habit Train headed down the track every morning. The key is to add more cars to your habit train.

Here’s how:

After you get up, and before you go to the bathroom, make your bed. This new habit is pretty easy to establish because you simply declare that before you go to the bathroom you will make you bed. You already know you are going to perform the habits directly before and after making the bed. Linking your new habits to your established and automatic habits quickly makes the new habit automatic too.

But Don’t Stop There.

After you go to the bathroom (and wash your hands, please), attach another habit.

My next habit is to drink a large glass of water to jumpstart a healthy day. This is where you might have coffee or tea. (Habit)

Then add another positive habit it your train.

Make this one a power habit. Think of it like adding another engine to your train. Power habits could be exercise, reading, or meditation. Something that adds real power to you as a human.

After my initial power habit (getting up at 6 am), my next power habit it is writing.  By 6:10 am I am either writing a blog post or a chapter for a new book.

I write for at least an hour at least 5 days every week. By the time I close my laptop to move on to the next habit in my morning routine my habit train is flying down the track, and I am making progress towards larger life goals.

You can create several habit trains that run at different times of day. Or you can make your entire day a nonstop habit train for maximum impact. They say that if you want something done give it to a busy person. It’s because their habit train is already rolling. And any task that gets added to the train will naturally head down the track with them. It’s a powerful way to progress through life. Choo Choo.

Key Takeaway

Habits have a transformational power. Like interest on a financial investment, repeated postive actions create compounding rewards that create massive personal and professional advantages. Link your habits into habit trains. Feel them build momentum every day. They will take you farther than you can even imagine.

*If you know somone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+If you like this lesson you’ll enjoy my new book What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

To see me on TV talking about habits check out this fun clip from the Morning Blend morning show.