It’s been said that successful people are just ordinary people with extraordinary habits. This might seem rather mundane.  Most of us were either taught or came to believe that success is a rare combination of talents that only a few people are lucky enough to be born with. Each of us knows someone successful, but can’t quite put our finger on why they’re so successful.

Could it just be the right habits?

It can. But it’s not just having the positive habits. It’s avoiding negative habits, too. Unsuccessful people are just as skilled, only they’re skilled at avoiding success by engaging in poor habits. Over time, it’s your habits that ultimately determine your success. The good news is that habits are learned behaviors. Just as you learned to brush your teeth or get out of bed each morning, you can learn the habits of success. The bad news is that habits can be tricky to install and maintain. Bad habits are hard to break. However, if you can enhance these two skills, you can live the life you’ve always wanted.

Before we get started, let’s consider what a habit actually is. The dictionary defines a habit as “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up”. So, a habit is just something that you do regularly. You do it with little mental effort, like brushing your teeth.Making 100 cold calls each day can be a habit. But being miserable throughout the process suggests that it’s not a true habit, since it would be easy to give up.So, we’re not just talking about doing something useful on a regular basis. We’re talking about making it a comfortable part of your routine. That makes all of this a little more challenging.

So how do you create a new habit?

You already know that new habits aren’t easy to create. With an effective process, though, you can accomplish nearly anything. Instead of attempting to force yourself to create new behaviors in your life, use a more methodical approach. If you learn how to create new habits, you become a very powerful person.

Try this process to develop an effective combination of habits that help you succeed:

1. Identify the habit you want to create. Let’s use exercising daily at the gym for 40 minutes as an example.
2. Know why you want to create this habit. What will you gain? What are the advantages. Think long and short-term. Give your brain a good reason to want to go to the gym.
3. Identify the cost of not creating this habit. What pain will you endure if you don’t exercise regularly? An unattractive figure? Low self-esteem? Poor health? An early death?
4. Determine the lowest level of the habit. Let’s use exercising daily at the gym as an example. You want to make the habit easy to accomplish. The hardest part of working out at the gym is just getting there. So, the lowest level of this habit might be to get to the gym and exercise for one minute. That’s it.
5. If that proves to be too challenging, make it even easier. You just have to set foot inside the gym.
6. Make it easy to be successful. There are things you can do to make it easier to go to the gym. A few ideas include:
7. Find a gym close to home.
8. Pack your gym bag the night before.
9. Choose a form of exercise that you like.
10. Find a workout partner that you like.
11. Choose a time of day that is convenient for you.
12. Rent a locker so you can keep a few things at the gym.
13. Keep your gym shoes by the door.
14. Choose a trigger. A trigger is something that you do right before you perform the habit. It might be walking out to your car in the morning or after work. It might be saying goodbye to the receptionist at work on your way out the door.
15. Think about when you brush your teeth. You perform that task right after doing something else. It might be turning off the hall light, shaving, or availing yourself of the facilities. But you have a trigger.
16. Determine a trigger for your habit.

7. If possible, perform your habit daily. Every-other day habits are harder to implement. Once a week habits are much more challenging.
8. Celebrate when you are successful. Remember, for this example, getting to the gym and exercising for one minute is success. Be excited! Jump up and down like you just won an olympic marathon. The key is to make yourself feel good, so you’re more likely to go to the gym again.
9. Be patient. The largest study done on habit formation found that it took an average of 66 days to create a habit. Some people can do it much quicker. Others take longer.
   You might have heard 30-days, but that’s not supported in the scientific literature. Be prepared for your new habit to take a while to sink in.

*Remember, the initial focus is on creating the lowest level of the habit. The important thing is making a habit of getting yourself to the gym. The actual exercising will tend to take care of itself.

New habits can be nearly as challenging to develop. Willpower isn’t enough. It’s necessary to use an effective process that will increase the odds of success. Your habits can lift you to the stars or sabotage your success. The choice is yours. Reach for the stars and MAKE IT HAPPEN!

Jenny Ryan

Make It Happen

@jennymakeithappen

www.jennymakeithappen.com