Hello and welcome to the channel. I am so glad that you stopped by. I don’t know about you, but I am so glad that 2021 is here. The one thing that I realized about last year is that I need to develop better habits. The habits of highly successful people allow them to consistently perform behaviors that breed success. For instance, Michael Jordan spent his off seasons taking hundreds of jump shots a day. Highly successful people have learned to develop good habits, and it takes discipline. Courage and hard work on a daily basis to keep those habits in place. It makes sense to adopt habits that will facilitate success, so why are they so difficult to adopt?
Can Habits Be Formed in 21 Days?
The fact is that most people belief that if you perform a task for 21 straight days that it will develop into a habit. Unfortunately, it takes about 66 days to develop a habit. So why is everyone believing that habits can be formed in 21 days? Well, it is a misinterpretation from Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s work on self-image. In fact, Maxwell Maltz did not find that the completion of tasks for 21 days turned into a habit. But people want it to be true, so it grew in popularity.
Now Tom Bartow a successful business coach has developed a model of what habit formation should really look like.
The Three Phases of Habit Formation
The first phase of habit formation is called the “Honeymoon Phase”. In this phase you feel that “this is easy”. You are excited and motivated to develop this habit. As any married couple can tell you at some point the “Honeymoon Is Over”. When this happens, you move on to the next phase.
Phase 2: The Fight Through Phase
Soon your inspiration fades and reality sets in. You find yourself struggling to complete the new habit each day and those old habits seem to be right around the corner. In order to succeed in this stage, you must win 2 or 3 “fight thru’s”. This is the most critical stage of your habit-forming journey. You must win to achieve success. Here are a few techniques to help you win the battle.
Recognize
- Recognize that in order to win this battle you need to fight through the temptation to quit. You need a few wins to move past this. Winning each fight thru will make it easier to win the next one. The same thing goes if you chose to lose the fight. It will be easier to lose the next one.
- Ask Yourself Two Questions. “How will I feel if I do this?” and “How will I feel if I don’t do this?” You need to bring EMOTION into the equation. Let yourself feel the positive in winning the fight thru and negative in losing.
- LIFE PROJECTION: If you still have not moved into action, then imagine in great detail how your life will be in 5 years if you do not begin making changes. Now be totally honest with. Yourself, and allow yourself to feel what life will be like if the changes are not made.
Now we can move on to the third phase.
Phase 3: Second Nature
You know when you have entered this stage as you get the feeling that you are “getting in the groove.” Once you reach this stage however there are 3 common interruptions that can send you back to phase 2.
- DISCOURAGEMENT: An individual allows negative results discourage him or her into thinking, “This is not working, and there is nothing I can do.”
- DISTRUPTIONS: You experience significant changes to your current pattern. This could be vacations, holidays, illness, or weekends.
- SEDUCTION OF SUCCESS: You begin to focus on the positive results and begin to think, “I’m the special one. I have finally figured out how to have great results without a great process.”
If or when you experience an interruption that sends you back to the fight thru phase, winning 2 or 3 fight thru’s will bring you back to second nature.
Good Habits – Summary
In Summary, most people want positive habits to be as easy as riding a bike. But you need to realize that is not that easy. In fact, building good habits requires sacrifice. It requires doing things that others can’t or won’t do. Let’s face the fact that great habits must be done daily. They require consistent commitment.
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