Are habits running your life? (And would those be the good habits or the bad ones? 😎 )

Our daily habits make our life what it is. What we can achieve every day is entirely down to how we spend our time. And that’s often governed by habit!

We all have habits

We have habits we chose to adopt, and many others that kinda snuck up on us! We didn’t know we were doing them till perhaps someone pointed them out to us, or something necessary for that habit to happen wasn’t there.

Hey - we can’t snack on chocolate if there isn’t any in the house! Right? Right?! 

And we all know what time can be wasted on tv, the facebook scroll, watching the news … I raise my hand - GUILTY as charged ...

It can require some superhuman efforts to free ourselves of some habits! Don’t we all know it! 

And we all know how hard it can be to start a new habit. We have great enthusiasm for … maybe two days. Then realise it’s all too hard and fall by the wayside. 

How to make a new habit

So we need to start looking at our habits, and choosing what we really want or don’t want!

Suddenly deciding on a new fully-fledged habit may be making too big of a leap. Suddenly changing from being a couch-potato to a marathon runner is not going to happen overnight (though it certainly can happen over time!)


But you’ll be glad to know there are ways to set a new habit that actually work!


The first thing is to break it down to the smallest new step.

And THEN attach it to something you are ALREADY doing.

You want to go for a 2 mile walk each morning? At the moment you get dressed, eat breakfast, go to your desk. Where is the walk going to fit in? 

How about: Get dressed in your walking gear, GO FOR THE WALK, eat breakfast, go to your desk?

Or If you want to get up within 10 minutes of your alarm each morning instead of hitting snooze multiple times! Set a second alarm, with a different tone, 10 minutes after the first. This will remind you to leap from your bed. You’re already setting an alarm. Just fru-fru it up a bit by getting into your head with a second alarm!

Can you see how attaching a new habit to something you’re already doing is going to help you remember the new thing? Do comment below if you’re getting this!

The other important point is not to aim too high. In the examples I’ve given you, I’ve suggested you do one small thing - dress in different clothes, set an extra alarm - which is easy to do, but which triggers the new habit you want. Don’t decide to walk 5 miles every morning when you don’t yet know how to get outa the door! This is bound to fail! 

It’s one of the things I love doing with my coaching clients - helping them see where they’re losing direction and focus, and how to establish new habits that will support their dreams!

How to conquer a bad habit

Now that’s great for starting a new habit, you say, but what about ditching an unwanted one?

Well, I’ve found the easiest way to get rid of an unwanted habit is to supplant it with a new one. 

So, let’s say you come in from work, kick off your shoes and turn on the tv news. This puts you into a bad humour, plants you in the armchair, and attaches you to your tv remote.

How about instead - when you come in from work, you kick off your shoes and go to your room and change your clothes? Or go straight to the kitchen and get out the ingredients for your dinner? If you’re physically exhausted and need to sit, can you sit in the garden? 

You need to break the chain of actions and insert a new link in that chain which will disrupt your habit. Once you’ve broken that habit, you can look at a different one to have instead.

Breaking free from habits that aren’t serving you is vital to achieving what you want.

So how can I sustain the good habit and make it stick?

So you’ve seen that you need to trigger the new habit reliably by attaching it to something that you’re already doing. And that you have to break the new desired-for habit down to its smallest initial part.

Now you’ll want to sustain it and grow it.

You may need to leave post-its round the place to remind you, to start with. Once you no longer need those reminders, the habit is beginning to stick!


Now you can consider growing it. If you walk for 10 minutes then turn back, you could now set a timer for 12 minutes before turning back. Look! Your morning walk has grown by nearly 5 minutes already!

You may want to attach a new habit to the new habit! Maybe walk as far as a low wall or bench and do 2 minutes stretching, building up to 5 minutes over time. Now your morning exercise has reached half an hour and you’re motoring! 

Does this make sense to you? Are you seeing how you can build a brilliant new habit by taking these tiny steps? Do tell me below in the comments!

Your homework!

I’d like you to get started with ONE new habit this week. Pick something tiny, something so easy to achieve, and anchor it to something you’re already doing. 

You can come back and tell me in a few days how your new habit is going!

Working out what habits are helping you and which are holding you back is an important first step. Some of those habits are downright sneaky! Are you confused that you’re working so hard yet something is stopping you?

Join us in Creativity Central where we discuss these type of things, and people report their progress!