You are a habit building machine

I spent the whole day yesterday painting the holiday house, 

I don't really mind doing it, 

I actually quite enjoyed it, especially when I put an audio book on. 

The girls were desperate to help.

And when children want to do something they are incredibly focused and single minded in making it happen. 

It's an admirable quality. 

They will debate, shout, rebuff excuses, offer alternatives, persist, persist, persist using every weapon in their arsenal to get to yes. 

It's the only thing in their heads. 

They cannot imagine doing anything else...

Until you give them something better to do. 

For my daughter it was giving her a camera and asking for lots of family photographs, 

She was instantly distracted, 

Actually, no, more than that, it became her sole focus. 

It was all she wanted. 

She couldn't imagine anything else. 

This isn't just children. 

We are drawn to what we focus on. 

If you want to change something, stop paying attention to it, put all your attention somewhere else, 

Something that you can be equally passionate about. 

When we make habit change about resistance we don't stand a chance. 

Don't resist, just look somewhere else,

Somewhere equally mesmerising but that delivers a desired result. 

Ed Ley