Don’t deny it. You have some bad habits that are holding back your entrepreneurial success. If only someone could show you a way to break through. Hold on, wait a second… if only someone could show you, let’s say 39 ways. Well, wouldn’t you know it; the HARO & TPE community delivers again! Start reading. It’s time to finally break your bad habits:
1. Worrying About What Might Happen?
How To Break A Bad Habit: Put 100% of your focus on the present moment and what you want. You can’t control or predict the future or other people’s actions but you can control what you choose to do right now. Courage is not bred of fear or fearlessness but rather by the unyielding embrace of a calling that is far greater than fear. Connect with your WHY – your calling that is greater than your fear – and you will move easily through and past your fears.
How To Break A Bad Habit: When you evolve and grow as a person you start with: 1) VALUES which create 2) ATTITUDES which create 3) BEHAVIORS. When you want to change your internal culture the process must move in reverse, which is unnatural, making it much more difficult. You must start with: 1) NEW BEHAVIORS which will create 2) NEW ATTITUDES which will create 3) NEW VALUES. Example: You don’t want to work long hours
anymore because it has taken a toll on your family so you want to change your internal culture by starting with a behavior. You will stop working longer and begin working SMARTer. You will change your behavior by setting SMART weekly goals that are broken down into SMART daily goals.
How To Break A Bad Habit: I had a bad habit that I overcame by learning how to listen. Sometimes when I used to have knowledge about a particular thing, I never gave a chance to hear someone else tell me anything regarding it (even if they agreed with my belief).
The result was that I always sounded defensive in my reply and by quickly cutting them off. Best case, I always looked like as I had done something wrong. Worst case, they were far from being my fan.
When I learned to LISTEN things changed. I now let them speak first, am thoughtful of their comments and occasionally (but only occasionally) find out they are right.
How To Break A Bad Habit: To keep from being late to work (there is always one more thing to do at home before heading out) I go to early morning networking meetings, especially at www.InSights-Group.com. I’m occasionally a little late to those meetings, but I am relaxingly early to work.
5. Visualization: Imagination Is Stronger Than Willpower
How To Break A Bad Habit: I quit smoking after being a smoker for 16 years. It has now been 20 years since I quit; I’ve never gained weight or replaced smoking with another habit, and I NEVER crave a cigarette. The secret is VISUALIZING a new image rather than just changing the physical behavior. For me, I imaged being a master of my mind and body rather than a slave to cigarettes. VISUALIZING a new self image creates permanent change. The full story is related in a book I wrote entitled The Law of Attraction and Other Secrets of Visualization.
How To Break A Bad Habit: Keep your desired end in mind. Embrace your fear and set off on a focused journey, sloughing off all that does not serve you.
How To Break A Bad Habit: Entrepeneurs have to be lean, mean and resourceful. My BAD HABIT was not delegating small tasks to others. I broke this bad habit by prioritizing tasks into two categories: 1) tasks that could ONLY be done by ME and 2) all the rest. I now ask myself: “Will it make any difference to my customer or my business if someone else does this?” If the answer is NO, I hire part-time help.
How To Break A Bad Habit: “Broken habits repair themselves. Habits outgrown leave town for good.”
Breaking a habit suggests willpower, the weakest agent for change on the planet. Willpower is always temporary – a sprinter not a marathon runner.
Noticing a habit, while it’s happening, gives you the best strategy for outgrowing it. The more often you notice a habit in midstream, the less it comes around, until it’s gone for good. (Think clothes you wore as a teenager).
How To Break A Bad Habit: The habit I had to break was trying to do too many things at once without accomplishing anything. I started to make a daily to do list so that I could get things done. It works wonders for me.
How To Break A Bad Habit: The one bad habit I feel was stopping me in my tracks in my career was that I expected things to just happen. I would just sit back and wait. Many days that meant I gave my power to another person and hoped for the best. After the last disaster of a ‘job’ I woke up one morning and made a committed decision to look at the day differently. I start each day now with the intention to create opportunity and wow is that working for me. I am not waiting for another people to tell me what to do. I’m not sitting back feeling sorry for my lot in life. I’m not crying into my lukewarm coffee as the day spirals downward.
Now I sit down at my desk and just go with the flow. My flow. I follow my intuition, my instinct and I don’t give a cat’s meow what people think of me.
How To Break A Bad Habit: To break a bad habit is to “recognize!”. It’s best to do this in the moment…ask yourself “is this action in line with my goals?” The key to breaking a bad habit is to stop yourself “in the moment.” Ask yourself “is this action or behavior worth the consequence?” Oftentimes, if you can distinguish the behavior in the moment, you can make a choice not to act. Knowingly doing something not in line with your goals is a lot harder than mindlessly doing it. Once you know, it’s hard to act like you don’t know. Breaking bad habits is like building muscle…you gotta work at it.
How To Break A Bad Habit: It’s been said that people do not decide their futures. Instead, they decide their habits–good or bad–and their habits decide their futures. If you have bad habits you need to break and/or good ones you need to make, it’s easy. Decide what your new behavior involves and commit to doing it for 21 consecutive days. Each day, put a check mark on your calendar to show you’ve executed the new behavior for that day. Develop a support system of people who care enough about you to remind you to stick to your new habit-formation. The future is yours!
How To Break A Bad Habit: 1. Write it down, make it happen. Studies show that by simply writing down short and long-term goals, we are 90% more likely to attain them. It is a form of self-hypnosis.
2. If your goal is to give up drinking, try writing down in your datebook: “Drink only water today.”
3. We get whatever we focus on, and whatever we focus on expands. Focus and write what you DO want to do/have/be/create/generate in your life.
How To Break A Bad Habit: First, you have to really want it. “I think it would be a good idea to change” is not good enough. If you believe something is really holding you back and undoing much of your hard work, there are only three other things you need:
1) specific knowledge of what you need to stop doing, 2) a specific alternative behavior that you can do instead regardless of the situation, and 3) a trigger so you can watch for the moment to make the substitution.
How To Break A Bad Habit: I have a hard time keeping up with all the daily/weekly duties in promoting my business online, and I spent way too much time on some things and not enough on others. So I put a list of everything I need to do daily and weekly on a single index card that sits by my computer. Easy to remember, and seeing it keeps me from getting distracted or going down the rabbit hole on Twitter or Facebook.
How To Break A Bad Habit: Early in my career, I was a “people” pleaser. I remember eating a rare steak at a dinner filled with higher level executives just because I didn’t want to stand out in a negative way. I would have NEVER done this in my personal life. I broke the habit, by first making a decision, that I wanted to be different, I needed to be me. In fact, I think most good things start with making a decision. So I replaced that bad habit, with a good habit. I learned to be myself and to say no, graciously, when necessary.
How To Break A Bad Habit: Here is how to break a bad habit – You just decide. Decide to stop doing the thing you have done for so long that it doesn’t serve you anymore. Decide to stop. You decide to stop everyday until it dissipates and you don’t remember that it was a part of your life
If you do slip and fall back on that bad habit. You wake up that next day, don’t be hard on yourself, move forward and decide to stop again.
You just decide that it is enough. You Decide to Stop!
How To Break A Bad Habit: Not following through with phone call leads. I was great at batching email inquires and following up with them, but phone calls often went unanswered. I created an excel sheet phone log and a script for my V.A. Either she or I follow-up the calls within 24 business hours. She has a script to follow and knows what kinds of calls should come through to me.
How To Break A Bad Habit: I had a terrible habit of taking criticism personally. I had very thin skin. I finally realized that there was more than one way to take censure:I could fold my tent and go away or I could use it as feedback and make appropriate changes. I chose the latter. Feedback in all forms makes me a more successful leader. Sometimes people are jealous, sometimes people want to help. With thick skin and a little discernment, I have come a long way!
How To Break A Bad Habit: For thousands of years people have been motivated by shame and guilt. It still works! Whether it is procrastinating making sales calls or avoiding confronting difficult business problems, I always succeed when I committ my goal to someone I trust. Once I tell a close colleague or friend what my goal is, the shame of not doing it is more powerful than the fear of failing. Try it. And let shame and guilt work in your favor!
How To Break A Bad Habit: In order to break a bad habit you need to make it public! Broadly. It’s just like creating something positive, making a dream happen. Make yourself heard, let people know what you are up to and repeat it many times – that will make it real.
How To Break A Bad Habit: I mistakenly thought that being disciplined would mean I would have to force myself to do things I hated doing, rather than enjoying them. And that came from a fear of the “C” word — Commitment. At some point it dawned on me that I was afraid to commit because I thought if I made a commitment, I’d be trapped. What I came to realize is that I was trapped by my lack of commitment — once I got clear on what I wanted, and decided to do what it takes to get it, I was free.
How To Break A Bad Habit: Oh, those few minute distractions…… a cat in your lap or a phone ringing. I have been easily caught off guard with distractions that should have been, for all good intentions, a momentary or brief passing.
I have had to make rules for myself. No calls from friends during certain hours and make progress when the cats are napping.
How To Break A Bad Habit: The trick to breaking my bad habits was to know thyself. Identify your deficiencies and strengths. Know what you are good at doing and be honest enough to admit what you are bad at doing. The things you are bad at doing, seek someone else to fill the gap. Do what you do best and allow others to do what they do best.
How To Break A Bad Habit: When launching my marketing firm, I was in the habit of dramatically slashing what I was worth. Even worse, sometimes I’d think if I did something for no charge I’d show how much I cared and would get the prospect’s long-term business. Was that smart? Nope. Bad idea. My good will was trampled on. No business, no referrals, not a happy camper. And I kept doing it. It was more than a bad habit. It was keeping food off my table.
I broke the habit by charging for proposals. If the client wasn’t willing to lay out some equity in the deal, I knew they’d be unlikely to sign up for the actual project. The first client opportunity that arose after my decision said there was “no way they’d pay for a proposal.” I stuck to my guns and THEY remain a happy client, now 10 years later.
As a little green Jedi Master says: DO or DO NOT. THERE IS NO TRY.
How To Break A Bad Habit: Once I’ve identified a negative habit I want to change, I will actually say to myself “Stop!” whenever I begin that thought pattern or behavior. Then I deliberately change my focus or behavior. It takes time, but eventually the new behavior “sticks” and I have a new, positive thought process or behavior in place of the old destructive one.
How To Break A Bad Habit: There is no such thing as breaking a bad habit. When you remove one bad habit, you leave a vacuum unless you replace it with something else. So, at the very least, determine a ‘better’ habit than the one that is causing problems and begin practicing that habit instead.
How To Break A Bad Habit: Bad habits are not hard to break if you put your mind to it. Once you decide you can set the wheels in motion by committing to do the opposite to make a fast break. For example if you are always late, take the next 30 days & focus on arriving early. It takes 21 days to adjust to a new routine at which time you will find something that you like about the new habit that will motivate you to continue. Before you know it, your bad habit is a thing of the past.
How To Break A Bad Habit: I always seemed to spend too much time on non-crucial tasks (preventing me from getting the important stuff done). I got an electronic timer and put it next to my keyboard on my desk. I set it for a certain amount of time for each task I need to complete and it really helps me stay focused, on-target and in control of my schedule (instead of always running behind!).
How To Break A Bad Habit: If you want to break bad habits, don’t focus on the bad habit, but focus on the new habit. Think of it like driving a car on the highway. You don’t look at the exact part of the road you are over, but you look ahead farther down the road.
How To Break A Bad Habit: When you identify a bad habit that you’re committed to breaking, tell everybody close to you about your revolting and disgusting habit. This means you tell your employees, colleagues, boss, family, the person who sells you coffee every morning, and especially, your enemies. Enlist everybody to help you with your revolting habit. Believe me, they will (especially your enemies!).
How To Break A Bad Habit: Tip: Keep your eye on the prize, also know as what it is you want.
Specifically re shedding weight (my area of expertise) keep a picture of you around of what you aspire to look like, and look at this often, 10-20x day. You will be reprogramming your mind’s eye to see you as slim, which is of the utmost importance because the brain can only see in pictures,
and the brain will direct your body to do things to support the internal vision. See yourself as fat, be/become fat. See yourself as slim, be/become slim. This is why putting up a fat picture of yourself as motivation ultimately fails. If you don’t have a picture of yourself at a weight you like, create one using your head and someone else’s body.
How To Break A Bad Habit: I used to ask for things with an apology in my voice when I had no confidence. I’d be suckered into doing extra work and ignored when I wanted something. Now I catch myself and speak with positive expectation. I broke the “whimpy talk” habit by becoming aware of my tone and posture. Even when I wasn’t confident yet, I could fake it– stand straight, make eye contact, speak slower with a lower octave (to allow leeway if emotions kicked in). Now all the confidence is real!
How To Break A Bad Habit: The title seems strange I know. You need to know what you will gain… if you break a bad habit you will bust open your bank account as the money flows in.
One bad habit I had was talking down to my customers, especially if they were b2b types. In business, you have to be professional. Unfortunately, I would be informal and unprofessional in my dealings. A friend pointed that out to me.
I began using visualization and mind control techniques, and before I knew it, I broke my bad habit very quickly. I owe it to my subconscious mind and my willingness to quit the bad habit.
Now I treat my customers properly and get great results from it.
I second what Meggin said. Great work everybody! These tips are amazing. I really like Norris’s tip (Tip #24)… very out of the box thinking.
- Mike
Mike Michalowicz Says:
July 1st, 2009
Here’s an email I just got:
I have a block buster to share. I know this sounds easy but not many people follow through with it. When you want to break a ‘bad habit’, you need to do the opposite for 21 days. For instance, if you drink alcohol every night and do not wish to have this habit, you need to fill it with a different habit for 21 days. Instead of coming home and pouring yourself a drink, exercise instead….go for a LONG walk around the neighborhood or join a gym or go for a bike ride. Do this for 21 days straight….I dare you. Your bad habit will be erased and a new habit will endure!
Yea.
I hope this helps.
I actually shared this with my sales team. I had them call on 3 new clients a day for 21 days straight. NO EXCEPTIONS. After they were done with the 21 days, they realized they (habitually) call on new clients without thought. Now they are my TOP PRODUCERS on my team.
What a fabulous list. I’ve gone and friended you all on facebook.
My Tip for breaking habits is to surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do. Facebook is the perfect medium. Whenever I log on, the statuses of the people I network with make it near impossible to fall into any neagtivity or bad habits.
I love that this list is from different people. It really gives it an incredible multi-faceted perspective.
Mike Michalowicz Says:
July 1st, 2009
@Tanya – thanks for the comment. I agree, the variety of contributors makes this post amazing. I love all the vantage points too. There is knowledge in numbers!!!!
- Mike
kerry whyman Says:
July 1st, 2009
~~~ GREAT TIPS!!! ~~~ …& great to have various input/perspectives, Thank YOU.
Matt | Small Biz Bee Says:
July 1st, 2009
#25 resonates with me. Not only is it a great way to break a bad habit, but is a nice tool to use when goal setting. Tell people what your goals are, get it out in the open, and then you’ll feel a little bit accountable to those people to make your goals happen.
Matt
Wellness Wednesday « Ungenita Beauty Blog Says:
July 2nd, 2009
[...] You can’t have a beautiful life if you are not living well. Are your habits serving you or are they sabotaging you? Here are 39 Fabulous Tips to trade your bad habits for good habits including yours truly at #32 Make A Fast Break. The “Bad Habits” Blog is up for you to view : http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com/blog/39-ways-how-to-break-bad-habits [...]
39 Ways How To Break Bad Habits « Loving Life Blog Says:
July 2nd, 2009
[...] a bad habit”, to change something that stops you in your life. That I did, and you can click here to see the full list – I am number [...]
Walking the Talk – Declaring the Independence! « Loving Life Blog Says:
July 4th, 2009
[...] was published by the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur (TPE) along with 38 other tips three days ago. Next thing I know, I get an invitation to participate in the “Business [...]
myhelpwithbudget.com » Blog Archive » Sonya & Bad Habits Says:
July 15th, 2009
July 1st, 2009
Whew! Once again…VERY HELPFUL! Thanks team!
Meggin
July 1st, 2009
I second what Meggin said. Great work everybody! These tips are amazing. I really like Norris’s tip (Tip #24)… very out of the box thinking.
- Mike
July 1st, 2009
Here’s an email I just got:
I have a block buster to share. I know this sounds easy but not many people follow through with it. When you want to break a ‘bad habit’, you need to do the opposite for 21 days. For instance, if you drink alcohol every night and do not wish to have this habit, you need to fill it with a different habit for 21 days. Instead of coming home and pouring yourself a drink, exercise instead….go for a LONG walk around the neighborhood or join a gym or go for a bike ride. Do this for 21 days straight….I dare you. Your bad habit will be erased and a new habit will endure!
Yea.
I hope this helps.
I actually shared this with my sales team. I had them call on 3 new clients a day for 21 days straight. NO EXCEPTIONS. After they were done with the 21 days, they realized they (habitually) call on new clients without thought. Now they are my TOP PRODUCERS on my team.
Another success story.
Hope this helps, Janet.
Warmly,
Elise Rainey
949-723-0111
http://www.imagebyelise.com
July 1st, 2009
What a fabulous list. I’ve gone and friended you all on facebook.
My Tip for breaking habits is to surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do. Facebook is the perfect medium. Whenever I log on, the statuses of the people I network with make it near impossible to fall into any neagtivity or bad habits.
I love that this list is from different people. It really gives it an incredible multi-faceted perspective.
July 1st, 2009
@Tanya – thanks for the comment. I agree, the variety of contributors makes this post amazing. I love all the vantage points too. There is knowledge in numbers!!!!
- Mike
July 1st, 2009
~~~ GREAT TIPS!!! ~~~ …& great to have various input/perspectives, Thank YOU.
July 1st, 2009
#25 resonates with me. Not only is it a great way to break a bad habit, but is a nice tool to use when goal setting. Tell people what your goals are, get it out in the open, and then you’ll feel a little bit accountable to those people to make your goals happen.
Matt
July 2nd, 2009
[...] You can’t have a beautiful life if you are not living well. Are your habits serving you or are they sabotaging you? Here are 39 Fabulous Tips to trade your bad habits for good habits including yours truly at #32 Make A Fast Break. The “Bad Habits” Blog is up for you to view : http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com/blog/39-ways-how-to-break-bad-habits [...]
July 2nd, 2009
[...] a bad habit”, to change something that stops you in your life. That I did, and you can click here to see the full list – I am number [...]
July 4th, 2009
[...] was published by the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur (TPE) along with 38 other tips three days ago. Next thing I know, I get an invitation to participate in the “Business [...]
July 15th, 2009
[...] http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com/blog/39-ways-how-to-break-bad-habits « What my Grandmother has to say about CB&DR…. yep she calls me Pumpkin
[...]
November 5th, 2009
Good points – potential application to other aspects of life but need some refining. Do you have them in book form? Related references?