routines Archives - Debra Kasowski

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“Motivation is what gets you started.

Habit is what keeps you going.”

Jim Rohn

Our habits are foundational to our success. I have been studying personal development for decades and it always fascinates me to learn the success habits of powerful people in life, leadership, and business. I love learning about how people grow and transform their lives. Success leaves clues so it is important to pay attention. Over the years, I have adapted and adjusted my routines to find out work best for me. If I made you pause over the last statement – great! I changed my routines to create new habits.

There is a difference between habits and routines.

Routine

When you have a routine, you have a set of habits. You have a regular way of doing things. A routine requires that you think about you are doing and can take a lot of energy in the beginning. Don’t worry you won’t expend too much energy once it is established. Once you build the routine it will eventually become unconscious.

Habits

Habits are those continual set of behaviors; a repeated way in which you do things. You often do not even think about it.

They are very important to adding structure too often a chaotic schedule of needing to do many things or be several places. You will notice that as children we thrived on structure and routines. As we became adults, we were exposed to new things – some serving us and some not.

When you get into the habit of doing things a certain way it is easy to become comfortable. Staying in this place can get people stuck and dissatisfied with the way things are. There is no challenge. Even the greatest athletes have learned to change things up – to fine-tune their skills. Tiger Woods would change up his swing. Wayne Gretzky would change up the way he skated on the ice. You only grow on the outside of your comfort zone. Growth comes from new experiences and lessons. If everything stays the same, how will you grow? Create a 21-day challenge for yourself to do one thing every day that will challenge you.

Stepping out of your comfort zone exposes you to a new experience in which you see things from a different perspective, challenge assumptions, and stretch into your potential. You may take bigger calculated risks.

According to researchers, it takes 21- 66 days to change or create a new habit. It all starts with your routines. Examine how your day looks. What do you do each day to set up you day for success? I know some of you are shouting coffee – “I can’t start the day without coffee?” Take some time to think about routines you have in place.

What do you do without even thinking about it? For example, some people have a smoke after every meal. They may have been doing this for years. It is something they “just do” after eating. It became a routine. Change up the routine and you can then change the habit. Stop smoking after meals; change the activity. Maybe you go for a short walk instead. If you have a habit of retail therapy and the mall is your trigger to spend. Go with a list or a free-standing store instead if hitting the store up in the mall. Go with a shopping with a specific list or a certain amount of money. Do not take your credit cards with you. Change the association, change the routine, and change the habit.

How you start your day is often how you end it. Start by creating a morning routine and schedule that serves you.

Spend time in silence and clear your head. You may decide to meditate or pray. You are open and ready when you are in a state of calmness.

Repeat powerful affirmations, watch an empowering video or listen to a podcast to get your head in the game.

Write down 3 things you are grateful for? Why not send out a gratitude card? Journal your thoughts, trials, and tribulations to gain a clear perspective of the supportive and non-supportive stories you may be telling yourself. Let your mind wonder over possibilities and look for solutions.

Visualize and focus on the outcomes you want to achieve. Feel what it will feel like to achieve those things. What do you need to do to become, do, or have those things you visualize?

Ensure you are getting regular exercise – get the blood flowing throughout your body.

Read or listen to a book in your industry or personal development.

Create new routines establishes habits that serve you.

Set yourself up for success. Become self-aware of what habits are serving you and which ones are not serving you. Where do these habits show up? Which routines? Change up the routine. Suppose you are an entrepreneur and you put all you receipts in a shoebox and year end you gather and organize them and give them to the accountant. How do you know how much money you have on a regular basis? You make better decisions when you know the flow of money coming in and the flow of money going out. To change routine, you could keep a spreadsheet and set aside part of a day or a day to focus on working with your numbers every week. You could hire a bookkeeper and set aside time to scan over or turn in your receipts. Break the habit, swap the habit, create a new habit by changing up your routine.

We would love to have you subscribe to the Success Secrets newsletter on my website at www.debrakasowski.com where you’re going to get my just release FREE e-book about the 21 Habits High Achievers Kick to Achieve Success. I would love to hear about this podcast has impacted your life. E-mail me at Debra@DebraKasowski.com. Thank you for listening to The Millionaire Woman Show where we talk about leadership, business, and human potential to help you live rich from the inside out. Subscribe to The Millionaire Woman Show. Share it with Your Friends. Give us a 5-star rating!

DEBRA KASOWSKI, BScN CEC is an award-winning best-selling author, transformational speaker, blogger, and Certified Executive Coach. She has a heart of a teacher and is certified in Appreciative Inquiry and Emotional Intelligence. Her writing has been published in a variety of print and online magazines. Debra Kasowski International helps executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations boost their productivity, performance, and profits. It all starts with people and passion. Sign up the Success Secrets Newsletter and get your free e-book download today! www.debrakasowski.com

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“Good habits are the key to all success. Bad habits are the
unlocked door to failure.”
― Og Mandino

We all have habits. Some habits serve us and some habits sabotage our success. Some habits we are aware of and some habits we are unconscious of. Habits are often referred to as a settled practice or tendency in the way you do things. It is your usual way of behaving. It can be as simple as your morning routine or your night time rituals. Many of the habits you have developed you do not even notice until the results or impact start to show up. When things are going great, you feel good. If things are not going so great, you may start to realize that something needs to change.

There is no sense pointing your fingers at others blaming and complaining about why you got the outcome you received. Don’t even attempt to come up with excuses. You need to start looking at how you are responsible for your results and making a change. What is working? What is not working? What do you need to stop doing? What do you need to start doing?

What makes a habit good or bad? Look at your outcomes. Bad habits are those actions or inactions you take, a negative pattern of behaviour, that do not serve you. Examples of bad habits are procrastination, overspending, gossiping, interrupting conversations, mindless eating, watching excessive amount of TV, staying up late and not getting enough sleep, skipping breakfast, and being short tempered and being reactive in situations. Good habits are those habits you have put in place to support you in achieving what you want to achieve. You plan, prepare, and execute. You work from a budget. You speak well about yourself and others. You actively listen and ask thoughtful questions. You eat to fuel your body. You limit your TV watching and use the time to read or get exercise. You ensure you get enough sleep to function well and you do not skip any meals. Before reacting to situations, stop and recognize how you are feel. You take a deep breath and wait a few minutes until you have calmed down to respond. In the meantime, you may be asking questions to gather more information so you can understand the nature of the issue or concern at hand. When you are angry or upset, your brain does not think rationally. It goes into a protective mode and shut down rational thought leaving you in a reactive survival mode.

What habits are serving you? What habits are sabotaging your success? Are you getting in your own way?

Here are more habits that can be impacting your success:

Being late to meetings	Not being prepared	Skipping the gym
Using your cellphone in bed	Checking your cellphone compulsively	Forgetting names
Breaking promises to yourself and others	Spending too much time online	Saying “yes” to everything
Criticism – negative self-talk	Rearranging instead of decluttering	Misplacing your keys
Blaming or Complaining	Binge watching Netflix	Borrowing and not returning things
Finishing people’s sentences	Being a workaholic	Emotional shopping

Changing a habit takes time. It is not an overnight fix. Many of the habits you have, have developed over time. The easiest habits to break or change are the ones that have the least meaning to you.

Ask yourself the following questions:

What is one change that would make the biggest difference right now?

Are you ready to make the change?

What is it costing you to not make the change?

What do you need to put in place to ensure the change is successful?

How motivated are you to make the change?

Why is this making this change important to you?

How confident are you that you can make the change?

What would make you more confident?

What are the barriers in the way of making this change?

What can you do to eliminate or navigate those barriers?

What benefit will you gain from changing this habit?

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” – Jim Rohn

Everything around you is a result of your habits. The every day choices you make. If you want to make a change stick, you will want to put reminders in place such as sticky notes with reminders written on them or setting a phone alarm. Experts say it takes 21 days to create a new habit, I say go for at least 30 days to help it really stick. You are creating new pathways in the brain embedding your new habit. Remember to help make it stick to reward yourself. The reward can be simply acknowledging your smallest win to purchasing an outfit or going to a game or show. It is all the small changes that you do that will make the biggest difference.

You want to start choosing new habits that will support the achievement of your goals. Print off a 30-day calendar to track your progress. Start with small changes. They are more believable and you are more likely to follow through. Let’s say you want to declutter a room. The thought of it seems decluttering the whole room feels over whelming and would take hours. Can you spend 15-30 minutes each day for the next week decluttering the room? Sounds doable, doesn’t it? What you measure gets managed. Changing a habit requires consistent action. If you fall of track, simply get back on the next day. The more you work the plan, the greater success you will have.

Let the habits you put in place serve you!

I would love to hear about how you have changed some of your habits and achieved success.

We would love to have you subscribe to the Success Secrets newsletter on my website at www.debrakasowski.com where you’re going to get us free MP3 download 10 Surefire Strategies to Power Up Your Productivity and Performance. I would love to hear about this podcast has impacted your life. E-mail me at Debra@DebraKasowski.com. Thank you for listening to The Millionaire Woman Show where we talk about leadership, business, and human potential to help you live rich from the inside out. Subscribe to The Millionaire Woman Show. Share it with Your Friends. Give us a 5-star rating!

Keywords: good habits, bad habits, change a habit, routines, success habits, changing a bad habit, stop limiting yourself, simple ways to change habits

EPISODE 170 – Change Your Routines Change Your Habits

Episode 103 – Habits: Serving or Sabotaging Your Success