Guest Author - Katie Byrd
Creating healthy habits, as you probably already know, doesn’t work very well by setting New Year’s resolutions. (We’re all familiar with the low success rate of these.) Nor does it work when you’re upset, disappointed or disgusted with yourself.
Success begins with knowing what you want and making a grounded, positive, committed decision to establish a new habit. Once you’re clear what you want to create, it’s time to follow up with careful planning, focus and persistence.
Failure often comes from skipping the planning step. For example, many people would like to lose weight. Yet, instead of working out a doable plan to establish healthy lifelong eating and exercise habits, they desperately jump on the bandwagon of the most popular fad diet. We’re an action oriented society, but action without a clear vision and long range business plan usually amounts to spinning the wheels of failure.
So, once you have a specific desirable habit in mind and you feel good about your goal, begin the process of doing careful research, analysis and planning. It’s essential that you make a PLAN of action BEFORE you take ACTION. (Plan before action).
If the habit you want to create is something simple like eating more vegetables, driving within the speed limit or keeping your checkbook accurate, the research you begin with will be self analysis. Ask yourself, “What is my current habit when I write a check? How could I do it differently? What do people who keep good records do?” At that point you might start asking others what their system is – but only take advice from someone who has successfully established good bookkeeping habits.
Remember, you want to come up with a plan that works and a system that can stand the test of time. The plan should be a clear map to success. With your checkbook, for instance, you could make a plan to carry a pocket calculator and to always write the information in your registry and do all the calculations before you write the check.
After formulating your plan, the next step will be patient, persistent practice until your new habit becomes automatic.
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