Developing successful habits for work, school, your business or your life is necessary if you want your career or happiness to grow. Your habits directly affect how you are perceived as an employee or an expert in your field and how your relationships progress. Some habits are good, some habits are bad. Some habits are completely neutral. Removing bad habits and replacing them with good habits takes time and persistence. Bad habits can affect your career and happiness.
Do you remember the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland? He was always hurrying because he was late. Think about the mistakes you make when you are hurrying and then think about how you feel when you let down your coworkers, clients or family because you can not seem to be on time on a consistent basis. This does not mean the occasional tardiness due to unforeseen circumstances is a problem. It means chronic lateness is a sign you do not value the person you are meeting and will in turn cause them not to value you.
Have you ever had a boss that micromanaged every task you did? I am going to raise my hand here. I AM that boss. It is so hard for me to let go. It is not that I do not trust others to do it right. I KNOW it will not be right because they do it differently than I do. The problem with micromanaging is that it takes time from the tasks you need to be doing. This does not mean you give assignments without any training or oversight. It means you need to trust your employees to do it right.
Are you a procrastination pro? Have you ever said, “Why do today what I can put off until tomorrow?” Some people love the adrenaline rush of cramming everything in at the last minute. Do you feel like you do your best work when you rush? What happens when you do not leave enough time to finish your project? How do you feel when the adrenaline (or caffeine) subsides?
How do you identify your bad habits from your good habits? In your personal life, you most likely already know what your bad habits are. In your work life, it might be more difficult to tell. One way to determine if you have a bad habit that needs to be changed is to ask others. Then you can work on changing them to good habits. Good habits are often recognized when you are getting the results you want from a certain aspect of your life, for example, your business is growing.
It is very hard to break old habits and form new habits because our behavior is ingrained into our neural pathways. Habits can be initially triggered by a goal such as a relaxing retirement. Over time that goal fades so the habit needs to become an automatic behavior. Repetition is the key to changing a habit.
Start small and focus on one habit at a time. Forming a new habit is a lot of work and takes conditioning for it to become automatic. Trying to take on too many changes at once can overwhelm you. Start with one, even a small one, before moving on to another.
Give yourself time to develop your self-discipline. One way to do this is to create a visual map of what you want to achieve. For example, you want to be debt free. Create a visual map of what you need to do to be debt free. Include images and words that describe your desired outcome. This map reminds you of why you want to form that new positive habit.
Can you imagine how great it would feel if you could change all those old, bad habits into positive good habits quickly? There is no magic wand or easy button. Changing bad habits and creating new ones takes motivation on your part. You will have to self-motivate to do what it takes to make the changes you want. But in the end, it will be worth it.
Until next time…
Have a great day,
Susanne
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