Jan 6, 2020
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What habits do you want or need to change?
I mean REALLY time to nip it in the bud.
In this sea of ‘New year, New you’ posts I thought it would be useful to highlight why 92% of ‘resolutions’ fail. And fail pretty quickly. (Check out why I don’t think you should make them HERE)
It’s because people don’t focus on their unconscious IDENTITY and their unconscious beliefs.
Who they are on an unconscious level. It’s the unconscious habits and beliefs that need the work because they’re what runs 95-99% of the show, not the external stuff.
There’s no judgement here on what constitutes good and bad habits either, it’s not about making you ‘wrong’ in any way (I mean some habits are very obviously not as ‘good’ as others and there is definitely an element of honesty required when you KNOW something isn’t good for you)
Rather, it’s what is a good and bad habit TO you and FOR you, what gets in the way of you having what you want for your life?
So it’s not about focusing on the negative, It’s about focusing on the positive changes to get you what you DO want and to who you want to be, and making it about what you actually WANT for you and for your life. And forming a habit around those.
Most of the time the focus IS on what you DON’T want and also, kind of focusing on beating yourself up for all your perceived faults! How about mixing it up and you work out what you want and then work out what behavioural habits you need to have to get there instead...so the focus is on getting what you want.
It’s not just about the external, physical habits. It’s those thinking habits, those thoughts that lead to certain self sabotaging behaviours. Not just eat less, move more. So identify those and put your focus there. What recurring thoughts do you have that make you sabotage your efforts?
I know i’ve talked before about the power of habits and having a good routine (Read more HERE), especially in the morning, but this is a slightly different take on it.
I’m talking about the slightly more ‘incognito’ rather than the glaringly ‘obvious’ habits.
The habits that every single decision you make and action you take creates, even the teeny tiny ones.
Think about your mental mental habits and tendencies.
The little things that seem harmless but create a neural pathway and ingrained habitual behaviour in other areas that you haven’t noticed.
So going into 2020 it’s time to make sure we stop repeating the same old behaviour and patterns and expecting different outcomes.
“The way we do anything is the way we do everything.” - Martha Beck
If we have a habit in one area of our lives you are highly likely to find it in several others.
So, as an example, if you have a tendency to ‘cut corners’ in your personal life, you know, do something that’s not quite to the best of your ability but ‘it’ll do’, it’s very likely you’ll do the same in your business, and we know what that can and usually will lead to!
It’s not a great energy to be coming from and people will see through the lack of effort.
So if you just started noticing when you COULD cut corners but pattern interrupt and do something different that supports the behaviour you DO want, that’s the start of you creating a new neural pathway to doing things well and to the best of your ability. It’s about catching yourself in the habit and making a different choice.
Your internal thoughts and habits are what ‘manifests’ as ‘things’ in your external world. It’s what creates the results you get, or don’t get.
Sounds woo but I promise it’s not.
Manifesting is absolutely real, you’ve just got to understand a little bit about psychology and the human mind to see, it’s unfortunate that so many of the people that teach it frame it in such a fluffy way that makes rational minded people go ‘yuck’ and totally ignore it. Your unconscious beliefs and habits lead to the results you get. Full stop.
Another example, If you have a habit of procrastinating on things you don’t really want to do rather than just pushing through and getting it done...it’s highly likely you’ll do the same in your business. Procrastination is many things but one of the biggest is a habit! You are not a procrastinator, you have a habit of procrastinating. (Read more about how to overcome procrastination HERE)
It’s really easy to slip back into old habits even with the best of intentions, it’s like there’s this invisible pull back towards it.
Which is where the awareness and self discipline comes in giving you back the power of conscious choice. And my favourite tool from Mel Robbins, the 5 second rule. Catch yourself in those thoughts of going towards the behaviour you don’t want. Count backwards 5-4-3-2-1 and physically move and take the action towards what you do want. (Read more about how to cultivate self discipline HERE)
Remember, changing habits takes awareness, effort, discipline and a little time and then THAT behaviour becomes your habit...THAT is your unconscious go to programming so think about how you can make it easy on yourself. It also takes a little kindness towards yourself. You will slip up, it’s not about being perfect, it’s about getting back on it when you do slip up.
So, rather than just setting your goals in your business set some about WHO you want to BE. How do you want to show up? (Read more about how to set goals that work FOR you HERE)
By who do you need to be, I mean what characteristics would you need to possess? Confidence? Generosity? Determination?
What characteristics do you admire in the people you follow? Write all this down and refer to it daily! Set a reminder in your phone!
Who can you model that's done what you want to do and what can you learn from them?
What can you read about them? Their daily routines and habits, their non negotiables that you can adopt into your own life?
What habits does a person who has what you want to have, have? (that's a mouthful!)
What habits do you need to let go of?
Remember, change only happens when the pain of things staying as they are is greater than the pain (as in effort, discipline etc) of change. (Read more about why it always feels so hard making a change HERE)
There are things we simply need to let go of to get where we're going.
Some of the things i’ve let go of are a lack of confidence, self deprecation (that was a BIG one), negativity, giving up when it was hard or I didn’t know the answer, caring too much about what other people think, laziness, not taking action through fear, Fear over investing in myself due to lack of self worth and guilt (if you haven’t done any money mindset work PLEASE do yourself a favour and book in a call with me HERE, it’s absolutely critical to work through!) making excuses, not taking responsibility for my part in my results, blaming. There are lots more but you see my point.
I did all of this and then some.
There’s STILL work to do, this stuff is continuous.
I’m human.
All of these were habitual thought programmes and 100% up to me to change in order to get where I wanted to go. This is what I mean when I say it can be confronting. You really have to own your ‘sh*%., no one else can do that for you’
You simply can't expect different results from the same behaviours, so what needs to change?
What do you need to let go of?
So for inspiration and transparency here are a couple of the things I’M letting go of this year:
- Junk food and eating things I KNOW I'm intolerant to!! - WHY? Because I know it drastically affects my mood, my productivity and my health overall and it stops now!
So whenever I have a goal I ask myself...What are the 5 steps someone would need to take to help make this a habit in the easiest possible way?
1) Stop going to the supermarket. It's a little more effort but worth the pay off to go to farm shops. There are plenty around here so there's no excuse really.
2) Ask their chef husband to help create some basic dishes that I love that I can always have on hand and teach me some basics of cooking healthy tasty food that doesn’t come out of a packet.
3) Get rid of any junk from the cupboards.
4) Enroll the hubs in the cause and do it together.
5) Plan more so I don't get caught in the trap of HAVING to get unhealthy food. Thanks self sabotaging unconscious mind!!
This one is a GREAT example of the only thing standing in my way is me. My own excuses, habits and responsibility. I have literally EVERYTHING I need to be able to make this happen so I have to be honest with myself and call it out!
Where and in what areas are you doing the same thing? Where you already have ALL the resources that you need but you’re just not using them?!
Booze is also involved in this and something I worked on last year. I don't drink very often at all these days (ex party girl right here!) but when i've felt I 'had' to i've paid for it!
My productivity is affected for DAYS after, along with my sleep...it's not worth it!
So I have a few ‘rules of thumb’ now because my aim wasn’t to become teetotal, although I didn’t drink a drop from January until the end of May last year.
I only drink with the people I actually WANT to drink with, I only drink the drinks I actually enjoy for the flavour (Red wine with good food and cider….the west country girl in me!
Occasionally a little summer Pimm’s...because, yum!) If I know I've got a lot on, I won’t drink at all. If I WANT to have a drink I won’t put anything in for the next day. Those are just my rules for me, my boundaries for myself! You need to make up yours in any of these areas, I'm just sharing what I do.
- Next one is my need for ‘control’ over situations - Why? This is still a habit from the fall out of losing everything and being SO out of control 5 years ago. It's something I work on but it's HUGELY important to me to completely let go.
I believe everything happens for a reason and a positive will always come from a negative but my need for control spills into how I interact with the hubs and also creates a need of feeling I have to do certain things on my own... Fran solo if you will!
A belief of 'If I don't control things they will go wrong' is a strong one for me based on so many instances of NOT having control. It’s a deeply ingrained habit and why i’ve not done an episode on it before, once I master it i’ll let you know! I know all the practical ways to do it...but I'm not just yet. So in the spirit of practicing what I preach it’s an episode for another day...soon ;-)
This year I'm letting it go, life's way more fun that way!
What will be will be and 2 heads are usually better than one!
And trying to 'control' an outcome is a surefire way to make it move further away because you're approaching it from an 'I'm doing this because I don't want THAT to happen' so the focus is all on the thing you don't want to happen....hello self fulfilling prophecy!
This is why I'm always saying try not to have an attachment to the outcome, treat it as an experiment, and test to tweak as you go. The more you do this the more the need for control lessens.
One has a ‘heavy’ emphasis and is stressful and unpleasant.
The other is much ‘lighter’ and there's no self beating involved!! And dare I say it...it’s way more fun!
- I'm letting go of anywhere I'm not showing up as the best me. - Why? Because it’s important to me to be the best version of me, in ALL areas of my life, not just some, and with all people. Even the ones that rub me up the wrong way! I want to be compassionate and empathetic in all situations and hope that how I show up can help someone else show up how they want to too. We’re all reacting to each others unconscious programming ALL the time and it’s very easy to ‘react’ in the moment and when we do, it’s not always how we would have liked to.
There's a certain way I want to be but sometimes habits get in the way...so what does that mean...you create new ones!
Every single micro decision you make creates your habits, it doesn't matter what they are you CAN change them.
So I'm letting go of everywhere I'm not showing up as who I want to be.
So I will be catching myself in moments where I want to judge, cut a corner, or leave something for 'later' or getting sucked into distraction.
I also love a bit of gossip...I like to be in the know BUT I increasingly find even being involved in those kinds of conversations negative and a bit draining....so i'm going to let go of my FOMO and need to know and simply staying in my own lane, and politely making my excuses to leave.
This one's going to be tough because I LOVE people telling me their secrets ha! I’ve always been the person that people tell everything to and they know their secrets safe since I was young. BUT, fun as it can be, it’s almost always negative about someone else and I don’t want to be around it anymore.
So there's a few...there will be plenty more!
So when you’re thinking about setting your goals, working out what you want and how you’re going to get there, don’t just focus on the external habits. Focus on the internal ones, the characteristics, qualities, the little mental habits that put together lead to a lot of big results.
It’s SO important you work out what they are and how you want to show up, remind yourself constantly, make it as easy as possible.
Don't underestimate how much these seemingly little personal habits can affect your business and how you show up in the world!
Catch yourself when you're slipping back into the same habits you said you don't want any more!
Call yourself out on any negativity, excuses, anywhere you aren't taking responsibility, anywhere you know you have the tools and aren't using them.
We all do it, it's human nature.
Like I’m always reminding you, 95-99% of everything we do is run by our unconscious mind and therefore our habits, so we've gotta call ourselves out on it. It's so freaking empowering when you do!
Goal setting is great but if your habits aren't matching up to what you want it's going to stop you and sabotage you.
So set your goals, but WHO do you need to BE to achieve them?
What habits do you need to start or let go of to get there? THAT's the stuff to focus on.
So what are you letting go of??