The secret about habits - How to create long-lasting change.

This week has been all about HABITS for me.

We’re on the last day of the 7-day habits challenge and we’ve seen people get excited, shift mindsets, and implement their new habits. It’s been fun!

Today, I want to share with you the?secret about habits…

Habits are just the tip of the iceberg. In order for a real shift to happen, we need to dig deep and change something inside ourselves.

Call it mindset, approach, way of thinking, a clear decision - It needs to be something within you where you’ve had enough and are now ready to commit to something different.

When that happens, habits help you be consistent, create regularity, and get into action.

Once you make it a habit, it doesn’t take that much time.

Here’s an example of how I’ve seen this work.

At the moment, I’m working with a client (let’s call him Steve), who didn't think he needed or wanted to work with a coach. He’s a highly successful founder, sharp thinker, and top achiever. Steve has weathered many challenges, as one does, and managed to see great business growth and results over the years. With all his success and appreciation for his people, he knew that his leadership style was not ideal but always accepted it as part of the deal.

"When you’re building a business from the ground up, you need to be tough and can’t always stop to think about how people feel. They’ve got to pull their weight or find somewhere else to work,” was something Steve would say.

Over time, it started niggling at him that he wasn’t always so proud of the way he behaved. He was aware of the gossip about him being a tyrant. He'd have an occasional outburst when his frustration levels were high and started to feel a bit embarrassed about it. He wanted to do better. He wanted to be a better leader.

When the niggle became a little too strong to ignore, he knew he wanted to do something about it and our work together began.

That’s what I’m talking about when I say something has to shift inside you first, in order to create change. Maybe the pain of the status quo is too big to bear or you become fed up with the way things are or maybe you’re ready to take that next step in learning, growing, and developing yourself to get to be and do better.

When you listen and take in the feedback from your environment or from deep down inside yourself, you’ll know when you're ready to do something about it.

You’ll know it's time to build habits to support you on your path of development.

Habits are the tiniest things you can do to create the change you want.

With support and accountability, you’ll begin to notice that things do change and keep?them?going.

This is what we saw happening with the?Habits Challenge?this week.

Here’s what people said about why they joined the challenge:

• Build confidence as a leader
• Grow my influence as a leader and build my leadership brand
• Improve my leadership skills
• Be a better role model to my staff
• Get the best from my team
• Improve my personal leadership, productivity, and goal setting
• Better work-life balance

The habits they chose to work on:

• Recognise staff more regularly
• Meditation for 5-10 minutes a day
• Develop a regular writing habit to clarify my thinking
• Better listening skills
• Reading more for inspirational messages or enhancing knowledge
• Switch off technology at a certain time of night
• Daily exercise
• Reduce sugar intake
• Focus on getting a certain amount of sleep
• and many more

The key thing here is to notice that you need to know?what you want to change, why it’s important, and then identify the habits that will get you there.

Small actions can turn into habits that help you keep moving towards that shift you’re looking for.

We may think of habits as more things to do, but if you change your thinking to see?habits as a support for the way you want to be, it changes everything (and for much longer). That’s the secret about habits and creating long-lasting change.

For today, I’d like to ask you,

What change would you like to see for yourself?

What habit could help support that change?

Would you like to get clear on the daily actions and habits that define your leadership style and set you apart as an extraordinary leader?

Find out about our?Leadership Habits?Bootcamp here.