18 Apr Get rid of those bad habits…the LAZY way!
One way to look at happiness is that it's the result of doing the right things, consistently.
In other words, happiness can be seen as the culmination of good habits.
But another way to view this is to see happiness as the absence of bad habits!
So happiness might just as well also be the culmintation of NONE of the wrong stuff!!!
In yet another great article, Eric Barker provides us with 8 research backed ways to kill those bad habits, clear the way for good habits, and allow our happiness to come to the fore…
Bad habits; we all got’em. You know what they are. You know you should stop. But… it’s hard. In fact, sometimes you feel downright powerless. And you’re not crazy…
Research from Duke University shows 40% of what you do every day isn’t a decision — it’s a habit.
From Charles Duhigg’s excellent book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business:
One paper published by a Duke University researcher in 2006 found that more than 40 percent of the actions people performed each day weren’t actual decisions, but habits.
Yeah, you spend almost half the day on autopilot. And changing bad habits isn’t just “kinda nice.” If you want to be a success, studies show habits really do matter.
People who have career momentum are 53% more likely to have good habits.
Via The 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People:
Comparing middle management employees, researchers have found that those whose careers continue to have momentum are 53 percent more likely to engage in healthy life habits than those whose careers are stalled. – Roberts and Friend 1998
If we’re on autopilot for half the day, we want those routines to be good ones. So what really works for ditching bad habits? And isn’t horribly difficult? Let’s get to it…
1) Change A Bad Habit. Singular.
At one time we have all felt as if our lives are a constellation of bad habits. You get home from work, you’re exhausted and you go from one “I should not be doing this” to the next.
It’s like you need to change everything. And you need to do it tomorrow… No. Bad. Wrong. Does not compute.
Do less. Just focus on just fixing one thing at a time. When I spoke to Power of Habit author Charles Duhigg, he said that’s the key to lasting change. Here’s Charles:
If you try to transform everything at once, it tends to be very, very destabilizing. In general, what people should do, is they should think of change as a project. It’s a project that takes a while… Now, it might feel frustrating to say, “If you have ten habits you want to change, that means it’s going to take eight months or nine months.” The truth of the matter is if this is a behavior that’s really important, changing it will have this huge impact on your life. It’s worth spending a month to change one behavior permanently. You’re going to be reaping the benefits of that for the next decade.
You don’t need to overhaul your life. Just kill one bad habit. Give it a month and then move on to the next.
Okay, you’re focused on one thing. What’s a painless way to start?
…keep reading the full & original article HERE