Changing Habits!

Changing habits is easy when you put your mind to it. Once you decide to change you are almost there. Through persistence and determination it will be done. When a person finds enough reasons why they need to change, then the change will happen. You can do this to change any habit in your life. Take my grandfather for example, he smoked for over 50 years. One day he read a story in the newspaper smoking, that went something along the lines of if you have an enlarged heart and smoke you won't be around a long time. His reason was he wanted to live. After he read that story he quit immediately and didn't smoke after that. To change habits find enough reasons to change.

Habits can be considered as patterns, obsessions, routines or addictions. Do you have some addictions you would like to give up or change? I believe most of us has something we want to change. Why is it so tough for some people to create new patterns or start a new routines but fall back into the old habits? How can you give up a obsession that you have had for decades? I will help you understand how you can give up old tired habits. Remember through this process you have it within you to change or create new empowering habits.

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.

Mark Twain

Changing habits takes an average of 21 days. Once we create a routine it becomes difficult for us to change because of the way we are wired. We become very comfortable in our new routine. Then we decide we want to change, and the mind resists this change, because we don't like change. That's our nature. Here is a list of ideas you can use to help you in changing habits...

Set a goal

It is important for you to set goals when making changes in your life. Setting goals will give you a target to shoot for. Some keys when setting goals...be as specific as possible, how will you measure it, put a deadline on your goal and put it where you you see it several times a day.

Use affirmations

Affirmations are positive statements that gives you motivation to change. Click here to use affirmations in changing habits.



Be your biggest supporter

Love yourself like no other and you will be your biggest supporter. Believe in yourself! When making changes in your life trust and believe in yourself, you can do it. Cheer yourself on and the journey will become a lot easier.

Keep a daily journal

This will help you gain perspective on who you are. It will give you insight about your fears, joys, challenges, opportunities and much more. Changing habits can be fun when you do this.

Find additional support

Hopefully you can find support through your friends or family. You can tell when you can rely on somebody when you listen to their response when you tell them your goal. If you receive criticism or disbelief, they won't be a supporter for you. If you can't find a supporter within your circle of friends of family, search the internet. Do a search for the support group in the area you want to change.

Use visualization

Visualization is when you are in a relaxed state of mind and you create mind pictures or scenes of what you would like to create in your life. With time and practice this can be a great tool for you.

Replace a bad habit with a good one

Want to change a bad routine with yourself? You will have a better success rate when you replace it with another routine.

Be patient with yourself

This is probably the biggest key, be patient, changes don't happen overnight, it will take time. Don't rush it, changes will happen, just take it one day at a time.

Reward yourself

Set up some type of reward system for yourself, you deserve it. You are doing one of the hardest things in your life, that is making changes. You will earn your rewards!

Changing habits is easy when you are relaxed and take one day at a time.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.

Aristotle

When you start to learn a new skill, first you become disorientated because you are doing something that is completely unnatural to you. Do you remember when you learned how to drive? It was very confusing, there was so much to remember, gas pedal, the brake, rear view mirrors, all the other traffic and all the instruments on the dash board. After a while everything became very natural to you. Now when you hop in the car it's like second nature. I heard the stages of learning go like this...

Unconscious Incompetence

This is when you are getting ready to learn something new. You are unaware of how much you don't know about this new skill.

Conscious Incompetence

Now you become aware of how much you don't know about this new skill. This is where you go through the stage of complete confusion and overwhelm. There is way to much information for you to take it all in. This is just like your first day at a new job. Remember that?

Conscious Competence

Now you have learned everything that you needed to succeed in this new skill.

Unconscious Competence

This is when your new skill becomes a automatic reaction. It's like driving a car for a while. You don't even think about what you are doing when you get in, you just automatically do everything that needs to be done.

Now you have an understanding of what it takes in changing habits. So what habit do you want to change?