Having just returned home from the re-open house of our community workout facility, with it being just the third week of January, the main observation – many of us are still committed to our New Year Resolution.
According to most recent research about resolution effectiveness just 64% of us who make resolutions make it beyond the first month.
Kind of demotivating isn’t it?
There doesn’t have to be giving up like this.
Not for resolutions, or even for new habits you might want to put in place.
Here are six ideas for greater success. It’s a …
short guide to easy ways to succeed with new habits.
Examine the new habit you want
Do you often rush to instill a new habit? Sometimes I do. But most times I think things through. I give thought to what is my over all goal, or intention. Until I do that, there is little point in deciding on a habit.
Last year my intention was to grow spiritually. Be careful what you ask for because it was one of the most challenging years of my life. There was no where BUT spirit to turn to.
Outside of my actions to overcome the stress and worry, it was important for me to praise God for any size blessing along the way. Unbelievably, or maybe due to the undue stress, sometimes a day or two would go by and I would – forget to act on this desire.
Then I found “Tiny Habits” https://tinyhabits.com/ by BJ Fogg. I followed his plan and now over 8 months later, every night when my head hits the pillow, I take a minute or so for praise time.
Laziness and indifference can lead to derailing our intentions to put new habits in place. If that is the case, the first thing I might do is question this habit – is it something I want to do or someone else wants me to do?
Hold yourself accountable
The last 2 years at the httpss://www.coach.me/patriciaweber has been an asset to holding myself accountable to things like – drinking more water, setting priorities for the day, and a 30 day plank challenge.
Checking-in to this community everyday is now a daily routine or you might say, a habit. It’s the easiest way to personal accountability whether it’s a daily habit or a weekly habit or some other frequency.
Of course some of us can benefit with someone else holding us accountable. On Coach.me you can have it your way: be accountable to yourself of find a coach for just about every habit you can think of!
Take Action
Getting going at the beginning of a New Year with new habits isn’t usually a problem. Like the people I saw at the gym today. It’s continuing after all the confetti is cleaned up that more people cave.
Not wanting to be embarrassed for quitting a new habit?
Find a way to take action for the frequency of what you are taking on and hold yourself accountable for it. For me visuals do wonders.
Make it rewarding
It’s important to recognize our progress and our successes. In my experience as a business coach, people tend to work their butts off going to the brass ring. When they cross the finish line to achieve the set goal, they rush right one by the line without even cheering for themselves.
Even F1 Formula race car drivers take a victory lap around the course while waving to their fans.
But as people in pursuit of every day goals, we keep on running. That’s just plain wrong.
Stop and do a little happy dance or reward yourself in some small way when you own a new habit, each time you act on it.
Triggers
Remember BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habit method? This can propel quantum success with continuing habits after reaching a personally set goal.
Two takeaways from the Tiny Habit method for setting new habits: Start small. And set a trigger.
When I first started meditating I started with just 5 minutes. Now it’s usually 10 to 30 minutes.
Then, set a trigger. The key is to find something I already do, like brush my teeth. And a trigger becomes, “After I brush my teeth, I will find a quiet space and meditate for 10 minutes.” Already being in motion it’s easy just to get to the next step.
Help someone else
This is my favorite thing about the Coach.me community. If you are a giver like me you’ll be able to relate.
Many people have questions about a new habit they are undertaking. If we have this habit instilled we can take it for granted. But why not share your wisdom?
[Tweet “”If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.” Buddha #quote”]
Here’s a question someone in the community had where I contributed an answer:
“First, thanks to all those who answered my previous question, I have a second one: can I meditate more than once per day?”
Here’s how I answered:
For me it works. I start the day off in meditation then usually midday I’ll take a shorter time. I know if others who like to meditate in the evening. This is an individual practice. Play with different times to find what is to your liking.
By the number of thumbs up, it seemed to be helpful for the questioner and others. Let’s not take what we know for granted.
Excellent advice Patricia – I especially like the “trigger” tips! My focus at the moment is on breaking the multitasking habit. I ended 2014 struggling to finish 2 books, and launch an online shift shop and a new series of online courses … crawling along at a snail pace because I’d been trying to move everything forward at the same time. Now I’ve set a priority for each project and am making myself work to finish one at a time which is far more challenging than I anticipated because my mind is constantly churning up ideas – but so far so good. 🙂
Whoa what a habit to take on Marquita. But I get it. People talking on their phone while walking (okay maybe that isn’t all that bad) and texting or emailing during a meeting (that’s rude isn’t it?)
Let us know how you do with this one. Thanks.
My new habits for the year are to eat healthier (I prefer that to the word diet), get a more structured schedule put in place for my writing/blogging etc to avoid interruptions, to finish some bigger projects I’ve started. Well…I haven’t given up yet! 🙂
I like eat healthier too Susan. If it is a “habit” that will last it cannot be a diet it because right within that word is – die. The desire for the habit itself will just fade. You’re moving forward now!
My new habits for the year is to save more, exercise more and shop less. And also be more organised with writing blog posts.
Safariontheblog, at least 3 of those are fairly big in terms of commitment. Best wishes on your success.
Pat — I find it difficult to make New Year’s resolutions that are very specific and keep them. Maybe it’s a lack of discipline. But I borrowed three resolutions several years ago from my brother that I do stick to that are more general but still very helpful: no more coulda, shoulda, wouldas, stay fit, have fun. The first one, in particular, works really well. We all wish we could have done some things differently in life, but we can’t hit rewind. We have deal with the moment, where we are now. So whenever, I start thinking “if only….” I invoke that first resolution and it really works for me.
If only sounds like a useful trigger in some instances Jeannette. And great it works for you with keeping away the coulda woulda, shoulda trap! Valuable habit to develop.
New habits for the year include making time for writing versus I will write when I have time. Eating better and making exercise a priority. I am still working on these, but making a little progress.
Cheryl that is great – a little progress. Kind of made me think of what was said when the USA first landed on the moon. You know it right? Keep progressing forward!
Good suggestions, Pat. Personally always manage to change a habit if I really want to. If not, it can be more difficult. But as long as there is a good reason changing a habit I succeed.
Agree about “be careful what you wish for”. Have seen many people end up with complicating their lives because of what they aimed for:-)
Catarina from what I know about you in the few short years we’ve met online, I have no doubt, when you set out to change a habit, you have already made a DECISION to do it and succeed.
One of my new habits is that I plan to have blog articles ready a week or two in advance. So far so good.
Well Jason keep on keeping on and you will avoid being one of the statistics of people who make those new habit promises to themselves in the form of resolutions. You’ve made progress into the first month. Now that is something to celebrate.
I love that Mark Twain quote! My daughter was just asking me the other day about how to break a habit, and I told her something I learned in church a long time ago: you have to replace it with a new habit. You can’t just toss a habit out the window, but you have to fill that space with something else more productive.