The Importance of Habits

Habits Aren't All Bad

Habits are the foundation for reaching your goals. Think of any goal you have accomplished recently, and I'm sure you can pinpoint a habit that helped you complete it. Is your goal to write a novel? Then you'll need to make a habit of sitting down and writing daily, weekly, or what have you. Do you want to manage your time better? Then you'll need to get into the habit of limiting time wasters and avoiding procrastination. There are countless examples of establishing habits to help you accomplish goals.

Here are some simple steps you can take to use habits to help you make daily progress:

1) Decide on one goal you would like to accomplish. I recommend choosing a "Keystone" goal. Keystone goals or habits are something that affect multiple areas of life. For example, people who work out feel less tired, more motivated, eat healthier, etc (Charles Dewhig). If you choose a Keystone habit, it's likely to enhance your life in multiple ways. Can you come up with a Keystone goal?

If you are struggling to come up with some goals, try referring to this list of "The Essential Seven" by Gretchen Rubin (Better Than Before, p.38):

- Eat and drink more healthfully (give up sugar, eat more vegetables, drink less alcohol)

- Exercise regularly

- Save, spend, and earn wisely (save regularly, pay down debt, donate to worthy causes, stick to a budget)

- Rest, relax, and enjoy (stop watching TV in bed, turn off a cell phone, spend time in nature, cultivate silence, get enough sleep, spend less time in the car)

- Accomplish more, stop procrastinating (practice an instrument, work without interruption, learn a language, maintain a blog)

- Simplify, clear, clean, and organize (make the bed, file regularly, put keys away in the same place, recycle)

- Engage more deeply in relationships—with other people, with God, with the world (call friends, volunteer, have more sex, spend more time with family, attend religious services)

2) Identify obstacles that are keeping you from completing this goal. These might be distractions, bad habits, procrastination, etc. 

3) Create a mini-habit that will help you avoid these obstacles. Mini-habits are easy actions that take 30 seconds or less and will initiate bigger actions. Let's say my goal is to write a book. I know that I am the most productive in the morning, and my obstacle is procrastination. In order to avoid procrastinating, I will need to get myself writing right away. So, my mini-habit will be to sit down and write one sentence after I finish my breakfast. Once I get a sentence written, I should easily continue writing.

An important part of your mini-habit is to have it directly follow another action, one that happens daily. I always eat breakfast, therefore I will know to sit down and write right after breakfast. Make sure to always have your mini-habit follow a habit already in place. Do not say you will sit down and write before breakfast because this may delay or replace that important habit. More examples of mini-habits are:

 - When the kids wake me up in the morning, I will immediately get out of bed (to avoid wasting time in bed looking at Facebook).

- When the kids ask me for something, I will stop and think about it before saying no (to avoid missing opportunities to spend quality time with my children).

- When I get out of bed, I will put on my workout clothes (to encourage me to exercise).

4) Follow through, and make this mini-habit a part of your daily life. Mini-habits are the starters of a chain reaction of good habits that will help us accomplish our goals. If you miss a day, start again until you have successfully established this routine in your life. It's time to feel productive and make daily progress!

Co-Written by Teresa Hancock and Angela Hancock

Visualize Your Life

"If You Could Do Anything, Be Anything, How Would you Live Your Life?"

When you look back on your life, how will you want it to have played out? What do you want others to say about you? What are your life goals?

In order to reach our life goals, we must first know what we want the finish line to look like. If you find it difficult to answer the questions above, then you may need help visualizing your life.

Write down a list of every career or achievement you’ve desired over your lifetime. For example, I have wanted or still want to be a teacher, photographer, painter, architect, pianist, organist, and harpist. I wanted to create retreats to help others using artistic therapies. I studied, wrote, and presented my senior project about these expressive therapies.

I find that the key number of items you should have on your list is seven. If you're struggling to come up with seven, here is another example to help: My daughter tried this exercise and she found seven things she’s wanted to do as well. These include being a writer, teacher, actress, surgeon, small business owner, greenhouse owner, and now a farmer.

Look at your list and find one thing they all have in common. It might seem impossible at first, but I’m sure it’s there. When I examined my list I found two things they had in common, either they were to help others or to express my artistic/creative side. Therefore they all had this in common: I want to help others creatively. My daughters list was a little less obvious. They didn’t seem to connect quiet as much, but if you look carefully, you’ll find a desire for independence, either financial or personal independence, in each career choice.

Have you found the one something everything on your list has in common? I call this your Life Goal or Purpose. This is what you desire most or want to accomplish during your lifetime.

Another exercise that can help you picture how you want your life to be, is to create a Dream Board (see example above). This can be done with digital images in a Word document or on paper with magazine cut-outs. Find images that represent what you want in your life and what's important to you. Create a collage with these images and have fun with it. It's time to dream BIG! and remember, "if you could do anything, be anything, how would you live your life?"

This Dream Board is now a visual representation of your life. Refer to it often, share it with family and friends, and add to it whenever you find new desires in life. Let it become motivation to move forward and make achievements. It should help you to set life goals and reach those goals.

It's time to find your compelling life purpose, reach for your finish line, and do something you love every day.

Check out the sequel to this topic: Setting Attainable Goals - the beginning step to reaching your dreams.

Co-Written by Teresa Hancock and Angela Hancock