How to Form a Habit – Develop and Maintain Good Habits // Are you sick of setting goals and falling short? Are you tired of making commitments and not pulling through? Watch this video and you will learn how to choose, install, and execute new habits to help reach your full potential in life. Choose to work on yourself, improve your lifestyle habits and listen to the top tips for a high performance life to discover what becoming your best and the greatest you really take.
KEY POINTS
Why Do You Want To Reach Your Goals? – What is it that you are trying to achieve? Why is it important? What are the benefits that you’re going to get from achieving that goal?
Successful People Are Simply Those With Successful Habits! – Create habits that if done well will make the success of your goals inevitable! What are the 20% of habits, which will create 80% of the benefit that you are seeking?
Failing To Plan, Is Planning To Fail! – Create a schedule for your habits. What are the weekly goals and targets you want to hit? And how will you accomplish them? What gets scheduled gets done.
Track and Reflect – At the end of the week, look back and ask yourself, how that week went? Did you perform your habits at the quality level that is required to reach your goals?
Set Up Tools For Success – What, if done well will enable you to carry out your habits easier. For example, If you are going into a certain mode of work, what are the tools you need laid out on your desk ready to enable you to do so.
Seek Help and Guidance – Enlist the support of others. Is there a community that you can plug into, that can give you the challenge and support you need?
Go Public With Your Ambitions – Put yourself on the line and tell people what you want to achieve and by when. Vocalizing your goals makes it more likely that you will achieve.
Implement Rewards and Recognize Achievement – Create micro rewards along the way, little milestones where you can treat yourself when reaching small goals.
TRANSCRIPT
Are you sick of setting goals and falling short or of making commitments, but not following through? Well today, I’m going to teach you how to install better habits so that you can achieve the goals that you set out for yourself because without good habits, without the ability to do what needs to be done habitually, you won’t achieve the success that you’re seeking.
Hi, my name is Eric Partaker and I’m a Peak Performance expert and I’ve also been recognized as the CEO of the year. I’m also the author of two best-selling books, including the three alarms. So number one, the first thing that you need to do to install better habits is you need to connect with your why. What is it that you’re trying to achieve is important, but why are you trying to achieve it? What are the benefits that you’re going to get from achieving whatever this thing is? What’s the value that it provides? How will it make your life better? How will it provide benefit? Not just for you, but those around you. Deeply connect with the why behind what you’re trying to achieve. That is step one in helping you install the habits that are connected to this achievement.
Number two, we need to choose the habits. We need to choose the things which, if done habitually, will make the success of the achievement that we seek inevitable. It will just fall out out of the back end just as a result of the daily consistent action that we’re taking. So we need to choose our habits, but we shouldn’t just choose all the things that we could possibly do. We should look for the leverage where, what are the 20% of habits, which will create 80% of the benefit that we’re seeking?
What is the one habit, the Keystone habit if you will, which if done will create a positive ricochet effect than all the other ones? What’s the one thing that you can do? Think about that. What’s the number one habit, the number one thing which if done daily would help you achieve whatever it is that you’re looking to accomplish?
Number three, we want to think about these habits in the context of what are our weekly goals and targets that we’re trying to hit. So if we’re trying to go to the gym, for example, well, how many sessions that we want, do we want to be doing? And what days of the week do we want to be doing those sessions? If we want to be writing a new presentation or finishing a report, similarly, when in our week are we going to be working on that? What is the time that we’re going to be dedicating towards that? Know where you’re going to be doing your habits in the week and what the target is, the frequency that you are going to be shooting for.
Number four, we need to track and reflect on our performance. So when we get to the end of the week, we need to look back and go, how did that week go? Did I do the habits that I wanted to do? Did I do them when I said I was going to do them? Did I do them for the length of time that I said that I was going to do them? When I was doing the habits, was I doing them at the quality level that’s required? The quality level that’s consistent with the best in me? Or is it at the quality level that’s consistent with something less than the best in me?
And all of that reflection can then be used to inform how we’re going to go after our habits or whatever changes that we’re going to make to the next week, the following week and week after week we become better and better. More consistent, more reliable, acting at a higher and higher level of quality, acting more and more congruently with the best in us, rather than something less in us.
Number five, install, habit ramps. So things which if done will make it easier to do whatever the habit is. So going back to the idea of, for example, getting an exercise routine in place or a new gym habit in place, lay out all your clothes the night before so they’re ready, so you can kind of get out of bed, straight into the clothes and out the door. If you want to be going into a certain mode of work well, what are the tools that you need laid out on your desk so that they’re already ready for you? If you want to start developing a reading habit, lay out the book where are you going to read it in the morning. Open to the page that you want to begin with.
Next step is to make sure that you have help and guidance along the way. Enlist the support of others. Is there a community that you can plug into, that you can get a feeling of both comradery and challenge from? Is there an accountability partner in the form of a friend or a colleague that you can report your progress to on a weekly basis to help troubleshoot where you’re going wrong and help plan out your week ahead. So how can you tap into the help and guidance of others? Through a community or an accountability partner.
Number seven, go public with your ambitions, use that as a way to create necessity. Put your butt on the line and tell people what you want to achieve, by when. When you put that public scoreboard out there, it makes it more likely that you’re going to want to make sure that you’re winning the game in the end, because you’ve just told everyone about it.
So have the confidence and the faith and the courage to share your truths and your ambitions. Go public with the things that you want to commit to. Go public with the new habits that you’re trying to install. And last but not least, we need to implement rewards and recognize your achievement. So you have that vision of why, why you’re doing this, what life will look like when you achieve the thing that you want to achieve powered by these daily habits that are going to help you get there.
But what’s the reward for getting there? And can we create micro rewards along the way, little milestone events, whether it’s time doing a favorite activity or a little mini holiday or a night of socializing, but what can you treat yourself to? Because when you have something to look forward to, you’re more likely to be able to stay there in the moment, doing the things that you know you should be doing from a habit point of view, whether you feel like doing them or not.
And I’d love to hear from you. So don’t forget to leave a comment and a rating as well. And if you’d like to get a copy of my new book, the three alarms, please head over to my website @ericpartaker.com. That’s E-R-I-C ericpartaker.com, where you could pick up a free digital copy of my new best-selling book, The 3 Alarms.
