Our lives are run by the habits that we have developed. How we dress every morning, the way we brush our teeth, how we drive, the food we eat, our hobbies, what we watch on TV, the list goes on.  These habits become very powerful actions in our lives because they are 'unconscious actions' we carry them out without giving them very much thought at all.

Come the 1st of January every year we decide that our New Year resolutions will be to stop smoking or get fitter or loose some weight. Many gyms say that up to 30% of all new subscriptions happen in the month of January alone.  After an unfeasibly short amount of time we have given up trying to change our habit we slump back to our old ways and hope that next January we will be more successful.

Why is that?  It is because our old bad habits are more comfortable and normal than the new ones we are trying to practise.  Habits are powerful things.

We may be unaware of how entrenched even the simplest of our habits can be and how awkward it feels to try and change them. Try this for a second. Just fold your arms like you normally do. Ok, now do it again but pay attention to how you do it, which arm do you move first etc. Now do it again but the opposite way, fold your arms but move your other arm first and note your reaction and how it feels. Does it feel strange?

Even simple physical habits we have feel ‘right and normal. ’Habits are not just restricted to physical activities though; all our thoughts and attitudes and our whole outlook on life are formed and dictated by our mental habits.

  • Being late is a habit
  • Failure is a habit
  • Complaining is a habit
  • Lack of confidence is a habit
  • Success is a habit
  • Winning is a habit
  • Achieving your goals is a habit

We use these mental habits everyday when we are stressed we have an habitual reaction to cope with the feelings, when we are happy, when we are stretching ourselves or when we face disappointment we have a mental habitual responses that deal with all our emotional crises.

This weird eclectic bundle of responses, habits and attitudes is commonly referred to as our comfort zone some where safe, established and well…. comfortable. We hear so many times that we could find it difficult to move out of our comfort zones because our habits are so powerful they have become our default actions that we habitually carry out without conscious effort.

So ask your self this question.

‘Are my working habits positive and successful or are they negative and limiting? You know deep down the answer to that question and so do you’re your co workers, your manager and the Company you work for because unfortunately in selling just like being a sportsperson there is no place to hide, your results are there on public display for all to see each and every day.

It is the habits we develop in our working life that will determine whether we ever reach our goals or not. Our habits are the quality of the actions we take day by day.

Successful habits turn our goals from wishes and dreams into our new reality

If we have bad habits we do these habits without any effort or thought and the outcome will mean we are habitually unsuccessful.  What if we found a way to change these bad habits to good, positive successful habits?  That would mean we would be successful without too much effort or thought on our part!

(Get ready…. it’s epiphany time) The secret of success is right there. Successful people have good habits and unsuccessful people have bad habits and it really is as simple as that.

How do we change our habits?

Changing habits is the easiest thing in the world to do… short term.  Even the biggest over eaters can avoid junk food for one day.  The problems come with long term change because those nasty habits are linked mentally with our belief systems, our meta filters, physical responses and a whole host of other factors.

Wow!  Sounds complicated.   The reason most people fail in their attempts to change their habits because they only ever deal with the behavioural aspect of their habit, i.e. they stop doing whatever it is they wanted t change, forgetting the more involved aspect of what our feelings and beliefs are toward the habit.

There are three parts of our habits and behaviour which we need to address with equal effort to effect a long term change:

1)    How we feel about our habit

2)    What we actually believe about habit

3)    The behavioural aspect of the habit

Only if we address all of these different factions of a habit can we make a lasting change. 

We do not have the space here to show how to turn your habits into ones of success but our seminar 'the inner game of selling'  shows you how to make permanent changes to your habits so success becomes your new habit. 

Good luck.  Click here for our next article.

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