5 Steps to New Habit as a CEO/CXO/Leader

[5 Steps to New Habit]

Let’s face it’s we tend to jump straight to the new action and then more often than not we quit.

Perhaps after 30 days perhaps often after 1. I know I’ve been there.

I’ve given up smoking, drinking, junk food, I’ve started workout programs, diary management strategies and a whole bunch of other things that never became habit.

It turns out that action is actually the last step of creating a new habit and that new action should be simply carrying out the inevitable rather than a step taken in hope and uncertainty. The first step is safety.

Safety
Think about it. Usually the first step is some sort of emotion. We are frustrated, angry or upset with ourselves and our current reality and we act from that place and often in the extreme of what we think we SHOULD do. This is the worst place to act from. Instead we need to feel like ourselves. Whether that’s with a walk, doing something we love or connecting with all the things that are pretty great about our lives.

Exploration
The safety brings us back in touch with reality so that we can explore what’s actually happening. Ultimately what motivates the desire for a new habit is an effect that your current actions are causing. Exploration will identify a completely different path to the desired result.

Clarity
In this phase we have clarity around what is causing the effect and the most simple most aligned step to achieving the result. Without clarity we are acting against an existing habit and existing habits are always stronger than new actions, we can’t win without clarity.

Belief
This isn’t about believing in yourself in the motivational sense where you have to pump yourself up. This is an absolute trust and certainty that this simple action will happen and produce the desired result. Just like the belief that your front door key will work. If it’s not mundanely inevitable you lack the required belief.

Action
Action is the final phase, free from emotion and uncertainty just simple inevitable action that the brain observes and turns into a habit as it recognises the effort to reward ratio to outweigh that of the previous habit.

Our current reality, the good the bad, the ugly are all a product of our habits. Trying to force new habit is the most effective way to more deeply embed all the habits you are trying to change.

What you resist persists. With these 5 phases the old habit disappears.

Do you get caught in a loop of trying and failing to create new habits?