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Things You Might Be Doing Wrong

11/14/2013

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Have you ever felt like you don’t understand the things you do? Felt like if you stopped doing certain things and started doing certain other things, you’d be so much happier?

If your unsure, here is an easy-to-use, Self Development tool for understanding just that. With it, you will know exactly what you do and be able to figure out if it’s worth doing.

This simple tool is known as an Actions Audit. It’s a simple list of the actions you take in your life on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis with the positives and negatives that action has on your life.

Here is a template that goes into detail of how it works:

Actions Audit

1.       Put the name of the act here
  • Pros – put the positives of doing the act
  • Cons – put the negatives of doing the act 
  • Improves – Put if it’s worth continuing the act or how to improve on the cons of the act

Here are a few examples:

1.       Exercise
  • Pros- Improve Fitness, Health, and Body    
  • Cons – Excessive time consumption
  • Improves – Find ways to exercise at home to decrease time consumption

2.       Going out on the weekends
  • Pros- socialize with my friends, meet new people, and feel good
  • Cons- spend too much money on over-priced food and drinks, never hear from the people I meet again, break my diet and training habits, and feel terrible the next morning
  • Improves – Stop drinking and focus on finding other ways to meet new people and hangout with my friends

3.       Academics
  • Pros – Increase Career Potential, Improve Mind
  • Cons – Time Consumption
  • Improves – Invest in new study methods to cut study time down

By just writing down these three things I do on a weekly basis, I have found that I can maintain my academics and exercise as they supplement my life goals. On the other hand, I found that going out to party on the weekends is not helping me and is detrimental to the very things I want to accomplish.

With this simple tool, you can easily do the same by refocusing your perspective on the things you do, and understand yourself and your life a lot better. 


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How to form, maintain, and maximize your habits for Success.

11/11/2013

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Picture
You are your habits. Everything in your life from success to happiness is a summation of your habits. Therefore, to be successful is to have successful habits.

When looking at how habits form, they follow a three stage pattern, called the Bliss, the Struggle, and the Acknowledgement.

Stage 1: THE BLISS

This stage is known for the bliss you feel when you’re motivated to change your life. This is the most important stage as your motivation is highest to prepare the foundation to change.

The most important part of this phase is setting Reminders to trigger your new behavior. This can be alarms on your phone that go off when you want to do your new habit or combining your old habits with a new habit (For example, by putting your razor on top of your tooth brush will remind you to shave every morning). To institute this changes, you must schedule your reminders into you’re planner to make it a part of your routine.

Reminder (the trigger that initiates the behavior) – A good reminder such as an alarm clock on your phone, a posted note on wallet, or a timer app that keeps you moving (Timers4me Application)

Routine (the behavior itself; the action you take) – institute the reminders into a written schedule or phone schedule

Stage 2: THE STRUGGLE

This phase is where most people quit their new habit due to having a poor foundation, missing their triggers, and having a fall-out of motivation.

A few techniques to help you in this stage are Recognition, Self-Talk, and the Reward.

Recognition – Recognizing that you are struggling to uphold your habit and need to stay on track by using self-talk and rewards.

Self-Talk – Telling yourself to stay motivated by using positive criticism (I can do this), creating a rival (I can do better than them), or having a goal (If I do this, I will be successful and accomplish my dreams.)

Reward – Giving yourself a reward when you maintain your habit (I ate healthy all week and I deserve one piece of chocolate cake.)

Reward (the benefit you gain from doing the behavior) – start small and build gradually instilling small victories along the way to that ultimate victory

Stage 3: THE ACKNOWLEDEMENT

In this stage, you acknowledge your habit as second nature. However, problems can overrun your new habit causing a relapse.

What to look out for:

DISCOURAGEMENT: Moments of weakness where you feel the habit isn’t working or isn’t delivering the results you want.

DISTRACTIONS: Detracts your focus from forming the habits you want by taking you out of your routine. (Emails, Texts, Social Media, etc.)

SATISFACTION: Being satisfied can stop you from maximizing your habits potential as you stop focusing on the things that made you successful in the first place.

Tips for Habit Formation:

Forming new habits is easiest when you are in a new setting such as a new apartment or while on vacation because all your old triggers to your old habits are gone. This lets you start fresh and build new habits that you can carry on into your daily life.

The best way I know to discover a good reminder for your new habit is to write down two lists. In the first list, write down your habits chronologically that you do every day that you can combine new habits with.

1.       Wake up

2.       Weigh Yourself

3.       Make coffee

4.       Make Breakfast

5.       Brush teeth

6.       Drive your car

7.       Check the mail

In the second list, write down things that happen to you each day that can be used as triggers for a new habit.

1.       A commercial comes on

2.       Getting a text message

3.       Getting an email

4.       A song ends

5.       Stopping at a red-light

This gives you a wide range of things that you already do and already respond to each day that are perfect reminders for new habits.

Works Cited

Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. New York.: Random House, 2012. PDF. 


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    Author

    Lucas Thomas, professional writer, entrepreneur. and business owner. 

    Blogs to keep others up-to-date on new ways to stay healthy and save time.


    Interested in LT Copy writing a blog article about something your interested in?

    Then let me know personally through email or comments and I will do more than accommodate.

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Behind LT Copywriting

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Lucas Thomas.
 
Professional Writer. 
        +
Professional Editor.
         =  Professional  Copy.

        
    
                 I have been a professional writer for the last five years. Never thinking to become one until after receiving my very first writing project from my friend.
                 I didn't even want to do it because I didn't have the time. But as the story goes, he made me an offer I couldn't refuse. And on that day I fell into a job I knew would become my career.

For more... See my ABOUT ME!