4 Keys To Creating Successful Habits
Everyone has habits, whether good or bad. And it is those good habits that can lead people to success in life. If you want to be successful in any area of your life, it starts with the cultivation of new habits.
The 4 keys to creating successful habits are:
- Define how much time you want a habit to take up and what that habit will do for you.
- Consider the benefits of breaking your habit into smaller increments and tackling it every day rather than waiting for a long period of time to finish the job once and for all.
- Be ready for setbacks, but don't let them discourage you from continuing on your journey toward something better.
- Experiment.
My back up habits are:
-Daily Writing (via the Rainy Day Journal) | Short term: Daily #tweeting | Long term: Social Media Self-Improvement Plan (Creating an online presence, Tweeting daily to spread my message, etc.) -Daily Reading (via the Inspirational Monday Journal) | Short term: Daily #read | Long term: Author Notebook
The first habit is mostly temporary. For example, writing a blog post once a day is quick and easy and can fit into anyone's schedule. The problem occurs when you get ahead of yourself and start trying to do too much at once. When people start trying to do too much at once, they tend to feel overwhelmed and bail out. It's better to break it down into bite size chunks and make it less intimidating. For example, set a goal of posting once a day for this week. Once you've reached your first milestone, set a new one. Once you've reached your second milestone, set a new goal that is slightly more challenging than the one before it.
When breaking habits down into smaller increments, each time you accomplish something you will up your confidence and feel proud of yourself for doing something that is good for you. You will walk away with a sense of accomplishment and enthusiasm, which will make you want to keep doing this habit. But in order for that to happen, you have to have the discipline to do it.
Make sure you are able to do something for a long period of time before you start trying it out. For example, if your goal is to write every day for 15 minutes, start off by writing for 10 minutes every day for 3 weeks. You can gradually increase the amount of time you write by one minute each week or else you may start feeling discouraged and give up halfway through. You can also break down how each minute should be spent. For example, you can decide to:
-Write one paragraph. -Write one sentence. -Write five words.
-Write a topic sentence and then finish writing the paragraph after 15 minutes have gone by.
When the inevitable distractions pop up so that something comes up, instead of feeling discouraged or quitting your habit in its entirety, just remind yourself that this is part of the process and that it happens to everyone, even the most disciplined people out there. Once you've waited for a little while and once you've gotten rid of whatever was distracting you at the moment, go back to doing what you were doing before and it will feel like nothing ever happened at all.
Be sure to experiment with your habit. What works for one person may not work for the next person. If you're not sure that a certain method of practicing a habit will work out for you, try it out and see what happens. If it isn't working, don't feel bad about giving up on something and trying a new way of doing things instead. Your methods may not always work, but eventually one thing is bound to stick!
PS! This blog post was recorded using the audiobook recording feature in Evernote on my iPhone using their iPhone app. This method worked very well and I'll be using this method again in the future. http://www.evernote.com/post/4-keys-creating-successful-habits/1442632140
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Here's the transcript:
Hi I'm Chris, and I welcome you to Inspire You. My name is Chris, and this is my show on where I'm going to inspire you to live the life that you want and the life that we all deserve.
My name is Chris and I'm the founder of InspireYou, where we create inspiring content in a very unique style. InspireYou, meaning to inspire you and drive you to live a better life. We're going to talk about all types of things from personal development and motivation, education, various industry sectors, we're going to go over industry news, and even some social business discussions. And where I love doing this is through audio books because I really want to create this mindset in all of our lives that we can take charge of our lives because as humans we are capable of doing so many great things if only we had the right tools.
In this audio book there's going to be 4 keys that you need to follow in order for you have your own success stories on what you've accomplished in particular areas in your life.
Conclusion: The process of breaking down a habit into smaller bits and pieces that are doable is called chunking. You can break down a habit into less intimidating parts that may be easier for you to manage, which will in turn help you keep up with your habit for longer periods of time. Make sure you are able to accomplish a task over a long period of time before setting up an ultimate goal, because once you set the ultimate goal, that's when all the negative emotions come in. If you have practiced and prepared yourself for the challenge ahead and have shown discipline by not giving up, then it is much easier to maintain your habits for years on end.
My name is Chris (chris@inspireyou.co).