"Your net worth to the world is usually
determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good
ones." Benjamin Franklin
Do you check your email many times a day, even when you should
be focusing on other work? Are you late
for appointments or training calls? Do
you take personal phone calls when you should be working? These and many other bad habits can prevent
you from being successful with your business – and even damage your
reputation.
One definition I found for the word “habit” is,
“a settled or regular
tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. There are helpful habits of course, like
being on time for work or being optimistic.
In this post, I’m discussing harmful ones than can prevent us from focusing
on tasks that need our attention and ultimately affect or personal lives or
careers.
We all know examples of really obvious bad habits like being
late for appointments, gossiping, being resistant to change and negative
thinking. Some are not as obvious, so you’ll have to think hard to determine what
they are.
Bad habits are difficult to overcome because
they are automatic. We do them unconsciously,
giving them no thought. These
deep-rooted behaviors have become habits.
In some cases, we actually prefer doing these activities instead of work
we should be doing. Texting or sending
emails to friends on our cell phones is more enjoyable than attending a
training session. The enjoyable
activities become habits although they are not good habits.
Overcoming bad habits is not an overnight process and can take
weeks or months to break them. Once you
do break the habit, however, it is a great feeling of accomplishment. The biggest incentive to break a bad habit is
the knowledge that it could be harmful to your career and reputation.
You must be aware of the behavior, the bad habit, in order to
eradicate it from your habitual activities.
As you go through your day, pay attention to your actions. Are you doing things that are nonproductive
or even harmful to your business?
Once you are aware of your bad habits, you can use a variety of
strategies to replace bad habits with good ones. One particularly good way to begin is by
including habit-breaking into your goals.
As with other goals, break them down into mini-goals so you’ll recognize
your achievements as you work toward totally eliminating the habit.
Self-awareness and self-motivation are required throughout the
process of eliminating your bad habits. Some
people prefer to quit a behavior “cold turkey,” but most are more successful if
they limit the behavior or a period of time.
Using the example I mentioned above about surfing the internet
when you should be working. You may
start out by limiting yourself to a few minutes per hour for a week. The next week, reduce the time to five
minutes every two hours until you have eliminated the behavior altogether.
The method you use may depend upon the habit you are trying to
break. Sometimes avoiding temptation
helps. For instance, if you are aware
that you gossip, try avoiding the break room if that is where you normally gossip.
Replacing bad habits with positive behaviors can be very
effective. For instance, if your goal is
to stop checking your email during meetings begin taking notes during the
meetings, thereby keeping your mind and hands busy.
Reward yourself for overcoming a negative habit with something
you really want. If you are consistently
late, after you have worked hard to be prompt for a week, reward yourself with
a gourmet coffee or lunch out with friends.
You can also make the rewards better and better as your positive habit
replaces your poor one. Eventually, the
positive behavior will become a habit.
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