WEEKLY COACHING TIP #149   

HABITS MAKE PEOPLE MAKE FUTURES

If you read last week’s tip and you began the exercise of ‘adopting’ some new small habits then you should be feeling quite good about yourself, especially if you have decided to continue down that track of wiring it in for the next 30 days.

If you really want to change something in your life whether it’s large or small, you just need to begin, that’s all!  Sometimes, something we perceive as large, can stop us proceeding because we feel overwhelmed. You just need to break it down to a small intervention that will start the process of changing your habits.

I remember reading about a lady in America whose 6 year old grandson had been playing in her car and accidentally let the handbrake off, this resulted in the car going backwards running over her other small grandchild. Somehow, she managed to lift the car off the child and save him.

Several journalists wanted to interview her about this but she refused.  However, one journalist persisted and eventually she talked to him.  He asked her why she hadn’t wanted to be interviewed. She said she was 60 years old and she had come from a family of boys who were sent to college, but she couldn’t go as they could not afford it. So she had spent her whole life wondering what it would have been like to have been a geologist (this was her dream) and when she lifted the car that day, she realised all the things she could have done in her life if she just believed she could and took some action towards it. This thought was so depressing to her she didn’t want to talk about it. 

However, the journalist suggested that she could still do it by going to college part time and by the time she was 64 she would have completed it. After all, she might as well do that and look back having achieved something rather than reach 64 and just wondered about it what it might have been like. It’s never too late! 

So she decided to do just that and now she teaches part time in an adult college!

So you can see that just by beginning something, taking some action, you are indeed on your way to achieving what you want.

Now here is your turn…

1. Think of something you would really like to have or to change in your life but you keep procrastinating.  Notice what has to happen for you to achieve that.  Now think about what it is that’s preventing you, thoughts such as ‘it’s too hard,’ I don’t know where to start’, ‘I’m too old’, ‘It’ll probably not work out anyway’.

2. Ask yourself if you really want to begin changing that belief and therefore the old habit. If you do, ask yourself ‘what habit have I not adapted yet?’ For instance, the very first, tiny step may be to get more information on something or begin exercising at home for 10 minutes 3 times per week, so you are tiny-stepping up the habit.

 Here are 7 Tips for habit forming/breaking

1. What Holds Me Back?

Ask yourself what are the 3 habits you feel hold you back from achieving something?  Write them down and explore how you could begin to change them.  Also write down the benefits of adopting new habits.

2. Do the Thing You Fear First

If you do ‘To Do’ lists, put at the top the one you fear or dread doing the most, then DO IT!  It’s so liberating, everything else after that is a doddle!

3. Daily Habits

Write down some of the things that would really serve you in your daily life.  Call these your DAILY HABITS and start to incorporate them into your life.

4. Success Leaves Clues

Jack Canfield co-author of Cracking the Millionaire Code, suggests you take someone out to dinner who has already achieved the thing/success you want and you ask them specific questions on how they did that.

5. Focused and Conscious

Get into the ‘habit’ of being focused and conscious on your new habits and congratulate yourself every time you do something towards that new habit.

6. Attitudinal Habits

Ask yourself what attitudes you consistently have with your colleagues, spouse, family, friends, business people, shop assistants, etc.  Notice if it’s a habit that serves you and them or not.

7. Watch Your Thoughts

Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch you actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. - Frank Outlaw

So if you really do adopt the above you will change your habits and they will become second nature.

Until next week Onwards and Upwards.

© 2005 INSPIRIT, Denise Bosque - All Rights Reserved