A Quick & Dirty Guide To Breaking Bad Habits & Creating Good Ones

Breaking bad habits. Change your mindset. 

You’re a habitual...

Habit maker. It’s undeniable. You can’t escape it. And your bad habits are leading you to a lesser version of you.

A Duke University study stated 45% of your waking behavior is habitual.  Just imagine, if your habits aren’t quality, game-changing habits. You spend all your day doing dumb shit. 45% worth. Yikes!

You’re underperforming. Let’s look at eating junk food...

It causes you to gain weight. You become insecure. You’re timid and quiet at work because your confidence is low. This affects your output. Your quality. You have low energy. You get snippy at 2 pm. You become stressed. You go home and eat the cabinet. You can’t sleep. And the vicious cycle continues.

The tiny habit of having an endless supply of candy bars in your drawer leads to immense ROTTEN behavior.

Now repeat this to any bad habit. Drinking too much. Binge watching TV every night. Surfing Facebook at work, interrupting people, being rude, and the list goes on.

So, I’ve compiled a cheat sheet for you. And me. A quick and dirty guide you can use every day to break bad habits and create good ones.

 An awesome book called The Coaching Habit inspired this post. Read it, it's worth your time. 

A Quick & Dirty Guide To Breaking Bad Habits & Creating Good Ones

As you navigate breaking a bad habit and creating a new one, go through these 6 steps. At the end, we’ll put it all together.

Make a commitment to others

Sure you want to lose weight. Be less grumpy. But who cares about you. You’re the reason you have this messy bad habit.

The fix?

Think less of what the new habit can do for you, but instead of what it can do for others.

If you need to start eating better, it’ll give you more energy to play with your kids. Or it’ll help you live longer so your kids aren’t without a mom (harsh but true). Or you’ll be able to think better and have more energy to help your coworkers reach their Q4 goals.

Make a commitment to someone else other than yourself. And if you want to notch it up bit, post your commitment on Facebook. Then, report on your progress weekly.

Give your commitment room to help keep you accountable. Bring others into the conversation.

Determine what your trigger is

Once my ass hits the coach and I flip on an episode of The Game of Thrones, I either want to eat or drink. Preferably both. I’m relaxed and it’s pleasurable. I can shut my mind off for 45 minutes. Occasionally it’s okay. But every night it’s a bad habit.

My trigger is sitting on the couch.

For you, it might be “When Sloppy Sally hands me a pile of unorganized papers...” Or, “When Timid Tom is in a meeting and we’re all discussing an issue involving his team/project and he never pipes up..." Or, “As soon as I see candy...”

Whatever you trigger is, the more detailed you are, the better your outcome will be.

Be short & specific

Your new habit should take less than 60 seconds to complete. It’s your micro-habit.

It’s the first step or two of what might be a bigger habit. Let’s say you want to eat better. In order to do this, you’re going to start making a healthy breakfast to help fuel your morning.

Here are examples of micro-habits:

• Take a multivitamin every morning (5 seconds) 
• Drink a glass of water as soon as you wake up (15 seconds) 
• Add 3 eggs, a tablespoon of grass-fed butter, a handful of kale, a serving of kidney beans, and a sprinkle of salt to a pan within 30 minutes of waking up (60-120 seconds. The cooking will take about 5min). 
• Set your your clothes out the night before so you don’t have to stress about the dress in the morning (60sec)

You can apply these micro-habits to anything. 

Practice Deeply

Practice small chunks. Start with cooking just your eggs every morning. Or practice delaying all your emails by 30 seconds so you don’t send off an angry message.

Then repeat. “Do it fast, do it slow, do it differently. But keep repeating the action.”

Finally, celebrate your wins. Be proud you're making improvements.

Plan how to get back on track

We all stumble. We all get stuck. That’s okay. If you’re seeking perfection, it’s not going to happen. Know you’re going to trip on your progress. And know what you’ll do when it happens.

If you’re notorious for sending cold, harsh emails, and when you do, call the person and apologize for your abrasiveness. Then, get back on track.

If you accidentally eat the candy bar, realize how it hurts your stomach or zaps your energy. Then, don’t eat another. Realize you messed up and move on.

It’s okay to get stuck. Move on and create better systems so they don’t happen again.

Putting it all together and creating a great habit

You’ve got this far. You’ve identified your triggers and created a small habit you can do in less than 60 seconds.

Now, put it into a statement you can remember.

Identifying the trigger: when this happens...

“When Susie puts her cookies on my filing cabinet...”

Identifying the old habit: Instead of…

“...instead of eating 5 pieces and getting frustrated and irritated with her...”

Defining the new behaviors: I will...

“...I will recognize it’s because of my own poor self-esteem and ask if she would mind putting them in the kitchen as I want to eat them all when I see them.”

Stating it this way will help you avoid interoffice conflict. Feeling annoyed. And indulging in the junk.

Now you’ve stopped a bad habit by creating a new, healthier one. You can use this in every facet of your life.

Go create world-changing habits.

Be great,

Nate Anglin