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Get Control of Your Habits
You Can Do It: Get Control of Your Habits
by Elizabeth Skenes Millen
“Habits are more about who you’re being than what you’re doing,” says NY Times bestselling author of the Badass Series, Jen Sincero in her just released Badass Habits. If that doesn’t feel like cold water thrown in your face, I don’t know what does. It’s the New Year and no resolution or goal can be met without identifying the habits that are keeping you from achieving your wants, needs and desires. In the last year, we all have developed a backbone strong enough to get real with ourselves. You can’t change your behavior to aspire to new goals if you don’t change your habits—the pesky routines on autopilot that may be holding you back from reaching your full potential. You don’t mean to be working against yourself, but your bad habits sure do.
Creating a New Habit: Jen Sincero says, “Habits. The easier you make it for them to show up, the more regularly they will.” She advises that if you put thought into structuring your new habit to make it as effortless and as easy as possible while you’re at the beginning of your journey, you’ll be more likely to to find success. For example, if your new habit is to get yourself to the gym at six o’clock every morning, lay out your workout clothes the night before; put your coffee maker on a timer so it’s already made when you get up; prepare snacks that you can pop in your mouth when you return home; get everything ready for work so all you have to do afterward is shower, grab your stuff, and go.”
Quitting a Bad Habit: “Conversely, when you are quitting a bad habit, you’re gonna want to create as much friction and lack of ease as possible. Eliminating bad habits from your life is all about difficulty, inconvenience, discomfort, fear, loathing, expense…constant reminders of how much better off you are without it—the more repulsive and impossible you make this unwanted habit, the better. For example, let’s say you want to quit drinking. Get rid of the all the alcohol in your house, pack up and hide any champagne flutes, shakers, flasks, shot glasses, and pictures of yourself doing beer bongs in college. But also plan to meet friends at coffee shops instead of bars, tell a pal if you slip up and take a sip you will give her three hundred dollars each time; experiment with other fun, nonalcoholic things to drink; go to AA meetings…” The key is making it extremely difficult to continue any bad habit.
What are the best 3 Habits you have, and how do they make your life easier?
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What are the worst 3 habits you have, and how do they make your life more difficult?
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Why do you keep these 3 bad habits in your life?
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Of the 3, what one bad habit will you commit to breaking this year?
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What are 3 steps you can take to start to break this habit? Write more if needed.
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What 3 new Habits you would like to cultivate this year and Why?
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What is holding you back from starting these new habits?
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Of the 3, what 1 new habit is important enough to start now?
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What are 3 steps you can take to start to break this habit? Write more if needed.
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“The more you appreciate yourself, the more likely you are to stick to habits that are good for you and lose the ones that aren’t.”
Jen Sincero, Author Badass Habits [Penguin Life 2020]
Pick up Jen Sincero’s new release, Badass Habits: Cultivate the Awareness, Boundaries, and Daily Upgrades You Need to Make Them Stick, to clear psychological blocks that keep you from sticking to your habits and learn proven tools and tricks for anchoring in awesome new habits and permanently banishing habits that need the ol’ heave ho.