If you are back from Christmas holidays, this message will be useful for you. It deals with habits, life coaching concepts and setting goals for the New Year.
A big part of being human is having habits. Some habits are useful and constructive, we call them ‘good’ habits; others are self-limiting, even irritating, we tend to label them ‘bad’ habits. A life coach takes great interest in observing people’s habits, as they can help us understand what drives a person.
How do you break an old habit? As a rule of thumb, it takes 30 days of repetition to break an old habit, or to create a new one. That alone can be a challenge… managing 30 consecutive days of refraining from something that has become quite routine, or even more challenging – 30 consecutive days of doing something that is new to us.
The act of repetition would be the easy bit if that’s all it took, yet time and again when we set out to create or break habits, there seems to be an emergence of the saboteur in us that does anything possible to maintain the status-quo.
Let’s examine why this is, and then look at what it takes to improve our chances of breaking old ‘bad’ habits and creating new ‘good’ ones.
Firstly what is a habit?
A habit is an act that has been wilfully repeated so often that is has become automatic. It is a deeply ingrained condition we have established in our subconscious mind through our repeated conscious promptings to ourselves.
This repeated act becomes an established pattern, and is usually hard to break because even when we become aware of it and decide we want to do something about it, we may have wilfully programmed our subconscious mind into such an automated state that it is now independently looking ahead to comply with our wishes.
No wonder there is a long history of New Year resolutions not being very resolute!
Life Coaching Tips on Habits
If we want to improve our chances of breaking old habits, one effective method is to establish a counter-habit to overcome the first one. To do this effectively there are some things you will need to consider:
- Is the new habit practical?
- What are all the pros and cons involved? What will happen if you keep allowing the old habit to continue?
- Is it something that will be useful for you, does it hold meaning for you? (HINT: the more constructive, meaningful and beneficial it is to you, the easier it will stick).
Once you have ticked those boxes, it is important to engage your WILL by making a firm and final decision to see this through. A new habit will only be formed once you have consciously submitted your reasoning as a final decision to the subconscious mind.
Most of the stories of so called ‘overnight success’ you hear about ignore the trail of unsuccessful attempts prior to this firm and final decision. So make sure your counter-habit is in line with your values.
Finally, if you’re still battling with your saboteur, you might want to consider life coaching with us. At Life Coach Auckland, we’re good at identifying patterns and short-cutting your journey in developing new habits.
Contact us today for a Free Interview.
Vaughan Jones
Life Coach Auckland
