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Having Trouble Building Habits? Get Into A Rhythm!

By Patrick Thean

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It takes time, energy and focus to create habits.  We have all tried at some point to create a new habit and realized unfortunately that it takes more than the idea and decision to create a new habit.  The best demonstration of this are the millions of people who start the year with a resolution to exercise and lose that holiday 5 pounds.  I am being kind or I would have said that accumulated 20 pounds.  We have the desire and even the physical reminder of the importance of our decisions to lose weight.  We hit the snooze button in the morning instead of getting up right away and being active. We see the effect on ourselves every day when we look in the mirror, from the extra slice of pizza we chose, th

at we did not need. To succeed, we have to create the habit and ritual of exercising to lose both the weight and the extra slice of pizza.

It is hard to create habits and rituals.  So... how do we make it less hard?

Let's start with a simple process.

  • Step 1:  Choose the habit that you want to build in your life.
  • Step 2:  Visualize what success looks like
  • Step 3:  Red Yellow Green it!  Create success criteria that is objective
  • Step 4:  Do it and track it!
  • Step 5:  Review your progress, celebrate your success, cry a little if you need to, and make the necessary adjustments.

For our clients who are using Rhythm (Our Business Execution System), follow the same process:

  • Step 1:  Choose the habit that you want to build in your life and put it in Rhythm as a Priority
  • Step 2:  Visualize what success looks like
  • Step 3:  Red Yellow Green it!  Use Rhythm to put in your success criteria
  • Step 4:  Status this every week... Red Yellow Green it
  • Step 5:  Review your progress, celebrate your success, cry a little if you need to, and put in your Action Plan for the week

This works for both personal habits and business habits.  The right habits will help you to succeed.  The wrong ones can kill you.  Choose 1 habit today and work on it this quarter.

Patrick Thean

 

Photo Credit: iStock by Getty Images