5 Simple Steps to Changing a Bad Habit

1. Be aware of the habit
   
   This often comes from looking for patterns. Just say you once again were stressed out on Tuesday as you were running late for a client meeting. Something came up to cause you to run late. Something unexpected happened..or did it? Have a think about how often this happens. Was it a one off or does it happen quite regularly? You may discover that it is in fact a habit you have gotten into over the years as you run late for a lot of things in your life.

1. Decide on the impact of the habit

Let’s say being late actually causes you to be rushed and unprepared. This makes you stressed. In fact you decide that it if you were really honest about it, it may have even lost you business in the past. So in fact the impact of the habit is quite significant, although the original little habit is just that you tend to run late.

1. Be willing and committed to change it

If you decide that the impact is big, and not in a good way, you have to decide how willing and committed you are to changing it. You may decide the impact is reasonably big but don’t really care all that much and are willing to live with it. You’ll lose the occasional client, annoy a few people here and there and get stressed now and then, but that’s OK. If this is the case then that’s fine. No good trying to change because you won’t be committed so it won’t happen.

However, if the impact is big, you may decide that it IS important for you to address it. You may decide that it is important not to let people down and have the business and yourself suffer because of it. If this is the case, then the commitment will support you to make the necessary changes.

1. Do something to produce the change

To decide what to do to produce the change, you need to focus on what the new habit is you’d like to create to replace the old one, and really focus on all the benefits of that. So for this example maybe the new habit is to turn up to every meeting 5 minutes early, relaxed, prepared and ready to go. The benefits would be that you are at your best and able to support your client and represent the business in a professional way. You would be much nicer to deal with as you would no longer be in that stressed state.

The next step is to start to take action; take a small step this week, to get some form of change happening. For this “running late” example it may be to something like:

1. Sit down on Monday morning and estimate what time you will have to leave the office (or current destination) all week, to make sure you arrive at each meeting 10 minutes early and put the adjusted time in your planner.
2. Set a reminder on your calendar to remind you to leave for meetings.
3. Always take some work to do so if you are early and the other person is late then you don’t feel like you are wasting your time.
4. Reward yourself at the end of the week if you manage to turn up to everything on time.

The examples above are just that, examples…it could be anything you can come up with to support a change in behaviour so you can work toward the new habit.

1. Support the growth of a new habit

You do this by analyzing the effectiveness of the new action. If it worked then commit to doing it for the following week. Just take one step at a time. if it didn’t work, think of another option that may work and try that.

Remind yourself of the benefits of the change. Get others on board to support you. The good news it that any habit can be changed, but you have to replace it with a new one.

You need a willingness and commitment and continued action. And don’t buy "research shows it takes 21 days to form a new habit." It can vary. It could take a bit less, or it could take a few months more…just ask the ex-smokers out there! Have fun!

Challenge: Try to be aware of any bad habits this week and start implementing the five steps. Enjoy!