Habits are highly effective because they are the building blocks of your future. By directing your habits towards the future, you direct your efforts towards fulfilling more goals in your life. Here are some examples:
Work on your strengths. Habits that directly promote your strengths are far more likely to be successful. This is especially true when it comes to work. The key to becoming a highly productive worker is by focusing on your core strengths.
Have clear goals. Goals give you direction. They give you a reason to work towards achieving them. Without goals, there is no drive to work towards them. Habits that direct you to take desirable actions toward your goals are also more likely to be successful.
Develop and support new habits. When you notice behaviors that you don't like, or habits that are hindering progress in your life, begin to explore new ways in which you can conquer them. Habits are simply habits that lead to something more desirable. When you add new habits to your daily routine, you strengthen the ones you already have, while fostering the ones you want to become stronger and more frequent.
Increase your personal energy level. Habits that create a feeling of personal efficacy instill self-esteem, which makes it easier to get things done. These habits include taking short showers (which is almost a form of self-massage), eating healthy meals (which boosts your metabolism), walking instead of riding the elevator, and wearing clothing that makes you feel good about yourself. These behaviors are extremely effective at increasing your energy level.
Create a small "honeymoon" period. Habits that last for a long time are not highly effective. Habits only have real value if they are used in moderation. Habits like smoking, overeating, and drinking alcohol are habits that are used on a daily basis and are very easy to give up once they are put into action. Create a habit of taking short naps every now and then, going out with friends, and having fun on your own.
Habits are easily turned into habits. There are certain actions or things that can be replaced with another behavior in order to make the old habit less powerful. For example, if you always skip breakfast, try to skip it until lunchtime, or having it on your morning menu. This doesn't mean that you have to eat the same amount of food, just that the behaviors will be different. People who are habitual snorers may want to go to the dentist every six months, but if you replace smoking with an occasional walk to the coffee shop, it won't take long before you are smoking fewer cigarettes. Habit replacement creates momentum; with this, changes don't occur abruptly, but rather over time.
Changing habits is one of the most effective changes that can be made to improve your overall life. Once you create the new habit, it becomes easier to maintain. By making small lifestyle changes, habits can become powerful tools that can lead to greater success in your life. With the right motivation and the right tools, you can turn even the hardest habit into an effective tool that can greatly improve your life.
Habits are also highly effective when it comes to habit replacement. Most people go through similar routines every day. These routines include brushing our teeth, getting dressed, going to work, and returning home. However, most of these habits get ignored or are not used as they should. If you are ready to do a few simple things differently, such as creating a morning routine, adding in a 10 minute break, taking a walk instead of driving, and using the phone instead of e-mail, you can significantly change how you live your life.
In addition to using simple habits for habit replacement, there are also other more advanced practices that can be used as effective habit replacements. For example, one practice that is widely accepted as very effective involves learning a conversational hypnosis technique. You can use this technique to completely change the way you think about a specific issue. Hypnosis works by changing your beliefs about something rather than just replacing them. Using conversational hypnosis, instead of simply reprogramming your brain, you can change your behaviors as well as your behaviors alone.
Changing your habits is an important part of developing a habit replacement system that works. By keeping a journal of your new positive habits and behaviors, you will be able to see which ones are the easiest to change and which need the most work. This will allow you to make small changes in your life on a daily basis without having to wait for weeks or months. When you keep track of how your habits are changing, you will be able to easily notice when you are getting stuck in a certain habit or if you need to make a habit substitution so that you can move forward in your life in a new and effective direction.
