Your habits will determine your success or failure in the new year. So how do we go about changing our weakest habit? These key principles will help you to alter any habit:

Work on ONE habit at a time. Change requires discipline, determination, and willpower.  Just like energy, we have a limited supply each day.  It is much better to focus all your determination and willpower on one habit than diffusing it over many different changes. 

Schedule your new habit early in the day. Your determination and willpower are greatest in the morning and dissipate throughout the day. Give yourself the best chance for success by starting first thing.  

Perform your new habit at the same time every day. Behavior can be triggered by your schedule — like eating lunch at noon whether you’re hungry or not. Set a consistent time to trigger your new habit. If your goal is to make 20 phone calls, try to make the first call before a set time every day.

Break your habit into the smallest steps possible. You want to make starting the new habit as easy and painless as you can. If your goal is to exercise, rather than start with 100 pushups, start small and gradually increase. Ten today. Eleven tomorrow. Twelve the next day, etc. It is the consistency and the habit that you are trying to accomplish. 

Create a value for each step. It is difficult to know the value of small actions. If you know one sale is worth $3000, break that down into steps. What is each sales interview, appointment, contact, and referral worth? You will be more motivated taking each step on the path than trying to tackle the big picture all at once.

Create “streaks.” A streak is going so many days straight performing your new habit. The more often and longer streaks you create, the easier your new habit will become. Avoid negative streaks- it is okay to miss a day here and there if you never go two or more days in a row without your new habit. Make a game out of it, always trying to beat your last streak. To create a visualization, put a calendar on your wall and put a big red X on every day you perform your new habit. As your chain of X’s gets longer, you will be even more motivated to not break your chain. 

Success is the result of streaks of small wins. Most people don’t break goals into bite size pieces. You can’t improve or change everything all at once, you can only make very small changes each day. That is how you will progressively realize your goals! 

F.M. Alexander said, “People do not decide their futures; they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures!” Next year can be your best year ever, if you focus on the small changes that you need to make to take your business to the next level. You can find more resources by visiting Achievable.com or reaching out to Michael@achievable to discuss how he can work with you and your team to make next year your best.