Everyone has bad clothes. All. Now, some people have less than others, and some people’s bad habits are more rewarding than others’, but we all have them. The good thing is we don’t have to!
Can you imagine a life where you couldn’t change? What kind of life would that be? But we can, so let’s go!
There are two kinds of bad habits: those you know you have and others may or may not know about, and those you don’t know you have but everyone knows you have.
For the good of everyone involved, we should get rid of them, right?
Well, Chris, how can I break a bad habit if I don’t know I have it? Simple, but hard. Ask someone to be brutally honest with you! You might think, “Yes, but I’ll be embarrassed.” Would you rather have everyone talk behind your back? Arm yourself with courage and ask. Ask someone who loves you and has the best for you in mind. Be elegant and don’t defend yourself. Just accept it and work on it.
What happens with the ones we know, which are all once your good friend tells you the ones you were missing? Those are the hard ones. How do I know they are hard? They must be tough if you know them and still have them! If they weren’t harsh they would be PREVIOUS bad habits! got me? Good!
So how do you break a bad habit? How do you jump start your life? Here are some things that need to be part of the plan to see those things go away forever!
1. You must want them to go away. That’s right, some people want them to stay. I have seen parents choose alcohol over their grandchildren. I have seen smokers continue to smoke while watching their parents die of emphysema. They don’t want them to leave. The first thing is to go deep into the corners of your heart and ask, “Do I really want to give this up?”
2. Do you do it? Good. Step Two: Make a list of all the reasons why you want to break your bad habits. Make them positive. Make the long list! Start with the really powerful and dramatic one if you must. Now memorize them. Put them in your mind. You are making connections between stopping bad behavior with the good things you will get from doing it. If you want to lose weight, imagine yourself slim and looking good in those skinny people clothes! If you want to quit smoking, imagine your wife kissing you instead of sending you to the bathroom to brush your teeth!
3.Choose. That’s right. Once you have the information, it boils down to one thing: it’s an act of the will. Choose to do it. Say to yourself throughout the day: “I am choosing…” Eisenhower rightly said: “The history of free men is not written by chance but by choice, their choice.” It’s your choice. You can write your story.
4. Take action! Point four is complicated because there are two philosophies about it. One theory is that you should take massive action. You must go all or nothing. Using the weight loss example, this person would spend $500 to join a gym, modify her schedule, and exercise every day for a year. They will get rid of all the grease in the house. They go for it all! That works for some. Others would burn out with it, feel like a failure, and be worse off than before. They must start slowly, taking small steps, but working diligently toward a planned goal. This person would decide to start walking three days a week. They would decide to limit dessert to two nights a week, instead of seven. See how this works? Either way is fine as long as you reach the finish line eventually. Which I am? The first two people to email me the correct guess will win a “Best Proof” CD.
5. Tell someone. This is your accountability partner. Tell them your goal and tell them your plan. Write it down for them and ask them to ask you at regular intervals about their progress. This will prove invaluable!
6. Recover from failure. Inevitably, most people will have setbacks. The key is to be setbacks and not setbacks! Get up and get going again. Some people may want to lose 30 pounds and after losing fifteen they eat a gallon of ice cream. So they feel bad and give up. Whose! Reset your goal for another two weeks and get back on track. Write it down to experiment! Tell yourself: “Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn.”
7. Reward yourself. That’s how it is. You should regularly compliment yourself by rewarding yourself with some gift for yourself. Start small with small wins and plan for a big one when you’ve finally kicked the habit.
It’s that easy? Most of the time, no. Habits are hard to break. There are so many intangibles that it would be difficult to cover them all. But this is a simple and doable plan that will help you make great strides if you apply the principles.
Get underway! Give those bad clothes a kick! Good luck!