Oh Those Pesky Bad Habits, Part II

Okay, now that's you've read part 1 and have your list of good, positive habits together, it's time for part 2 and back to those negative pesky habits again .

What I have discovered that grabs our attention the most are those pesky habits, both small and large, that seem to get in the way of our overall happiness, peace and contentment. Annoying, irritating and wretched habits in ourselves and others that we blatantly blame as being responsible for creating the misery, unhappiness and glumness in our lives!

What a cop out!

(Yes, yes I know I might be showing my age. But ever since our kids left home to find their place in the world, I'm not quite up on the 90's equivalent of some of the more expressive colloquiums of my era!) You know of course what's coming next don't you? Uh huh… I'm going to
put on my Dr. Phil hat, pretend Oprah has asked me a question deserving of a profound answer and shoot straight from the hip.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you stopped for a moment and examined your habits, you are going to discover that every habit you have, whether positive or negative is a choice that you have made at some point in your life.
You made this choice because you felt that somehow it would serve you in some way. Rest assured there is a payoff for continuing them! And,as my Mom used to say, "You make a mess kid, you are responsible for cleaning it up!"

Okay, now that the applause had died down and you all
are marveling at this fascinating insight I have just imparted, let me get on with the "rest of the story" (thanks to Paul Harvey for this wonderful phrase!).

The way I see it, all too often we look at negative habits through a negative lens and beat ourselves up for doing what we are doing. Of course, this negative ‘beat up on myself’ motivation strategy doesn’t make the habit go away (which I think, in many cases we often secretly hope it will otherwise why is its use so prevalent?). This ostensible motivating strategy leaves most of us feeling pretty yucky about our "self" and it sure doesn't seem to contribute to getting to the root of the problem. Nope we just play on the surface driving ourselves crazy asking "Why do I do this over and over again?" in a disgusted tone of voice! We get even more disgusted with ourselves when we don't get a simple explanation back! And I can tell you from my own experience, doing this to yourself doesn't work! But you probably already know that because you have tried it yourself too. So let's
start talking about what does work.

The first part of designing any strategy for change is to identify specifically what ONE habit you want to change. Now, I know, if you are like me and most folks I know,you may have a couple of REALLY BIG negative habits that you would like to banish from your life forever. But please, do yourself a favor. Start small. Pick a daily living habit
that annoys or bugs you!

Take a look around you. There are lots of them. Let's start with not taking vitamins regularly; paper clutter that drives you nuts; misplacing your keys; shoes all over the house waiting to be tripped over; misplaced bills that need to get paid; those half empty coffee cups that sit on your desk for days growing critters. You get the idea.

"But, but," you may be protesting, "This is just "small fish". I've got more to do than there are days in the week right now! I've got no time to myself. I work day and night. I need more time." (Don't you just love martyr stories?)

That's precisely my point. How much time do you waste looking through the piles of paper on your desk for that bill? 10 minutes? What about looking for your keys? 5 minutes? And how about cleaning up accumulated mess? 15 minutes? That's 30 minutes a day, three and a half hours a week, and over a week a year out of your life! That's
over half of the normal 2 week vacation fun time that most people get. How much money do you make in a week? Because you are "donating" a week's to keep these habits up and it's money out of your pocket! What does it cost you in energy (stress, irritation, relationship conflicts, etc.)? Because you pay for it in terms of your emotional,mental, physical and spiritual health!

One of the biggest reasons you want to keep to the small stuff at this point is to build up your success and motivation energy. Nothing builds on success like success. Picking something that is irksome but relatively easy to change will help you prove to yourself that you can
make changes! But that's not all. You'll gain back energy as you plug up these "energy suckers" that you've been putting up with. You'll gain it back to tackle some of the bigger, more complex habits you'd like to change.

I encourage you to get started today. When you begin with something easy to accomplish and accomplish it, it makes you feel good, want to continue and instills hope and optimism to tackle bigger things. Try it. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the results!

Your next step:

Request a copy of the article "The 5 Steps to Eliminating Those Pesky Bad Habits" via autoresponder. Send a blank email to eliminatehabits@instacoach.com and you'll receive it in your email inbox in just a jiffy :)
Copyright 1999 Dr. Sharon House, Master Certified Coach