1. Recognize new habits take anywhere from 20-80 days to form. The more ingrained the old behavior, the longer retraining may take.
2. Learn the CUES that trigger the behavior you want to change. A cue can be a certain place, circumstance, person, emotion, activity, season, or time of day. Becoming consciously aware of the cues is critical.
3. When the cues happen, initiate the NEW BEHAVIOR. It could be setting a budget, refraining from speaking in anger, spending more quality time with family, exercising, etc.
4. REWARDS. Every time a cue occurs and you respond with the new behavior, make sure to give yourself some kind of _reward_, even if it's small. It needs to be something you really enjoy. I suggest carrying a bar of single origin chocolate with at least 70% cacao content...works for me ;-)
Help others develop new habits by giving them approval and affection when they initiate new behavior.
5. Try to find a KEYSTONE HABIT, that, if you changed it, would make many other habits easier to change or alleviate negative ones altogether. Some habits are interconnected.
For example, say there is a certain person in your life that you want to impress. Whenever they show up, you overspend your budget wanting to pay for meals, treats, or gifts to win their approval. The person is a cue. You could retrain and reward yourself for sticking to your budget when around them. But, perhaps there is a keystone habit of a core emotion at play. Maybe it's a feeling of unworthiness? So whenever you feel unworthy (initiated by certain cues), behave and treat yourself as worthy and then reward yourself for the new behavior. If you address unworthiness, you may not need to address your overspending problem when your friend is around!
Summary: Habits are comprised of a cue, a behavior, and a reward.
For more great content on this, check out, "The Power of Habit," by Charles Duhigg. I pulled from his ideas to write the content above.
#resolutions #youcandoit
