How to Break Bad Habits Forever - Kevin Ward

Hi there, it's Kevin Ward with yes Masters Real Estate Success Training, helping you get more yeses and more successes in your business and in your life. And today, let's talk about breaking bad, bad habits, that is. How do you break the bad habits that literally make you hate yourself? Now, if you're like me, you've had them. Most of us still have some of those that we want to get rid of. Maybe you have a lot of them, maybe you have a few of them. But it may be a bad habit. Like it may be anything from biting your nails to talking too much, to interrupting people, to not listening. It could be a bad health habit, like you eat too many bad snacks, you eat too much, maybe too much drinking too much smoking. It may be procrastinating. It may be using bad language when you don't want to. It may be showing up late. It may be putting things off. It may be not starting what you finish. It could be maybe one of your bad habits is complaining, having a negative attitude, or maybe being a pessimist. It could be a bad habit, could be excessive screen time. In other words, you're spending too much time on your smartphone or in front of a computer screen or in front of a tv and it just sucks you into that. And you just like, I hate it when I do that. I hate it when that happens. And it may be a habit that you've tried over and over and over to quit and it just is relentless, it just refuses to go away. So how do you break these bad habits that literally make you hate yourself? And the reason I say they make you hate yourself is because whenever you realize I committed that bad habit, whenever you do it, you get mad at yourself, you feel guilty, you feel, you blame yourself, you feel bad about yourself. And anytime we do that, it literally takes our self image and it degrades it, it hurts it, it contaminates how powerful we can be. And the worst thing about it is, is that bad habits, when you try to break it and you can't, make you feel powerless. And so the reason I'm coming to you today is to tell you it's time to take them out. It's time to just eliminate the bad habits out of your life. Now, you're not going to be able to eliminate all of them today, but what I'm going to do in this training is I'm going to give you a five step strategy, a five step process that will literally help you to break bad habits. And so what I want you to do right now is I want you to think about one or two of the bad habits that really drive you nuts, that seem to never want to go away, that you want to get rid of right now, that over the next 30 to 60 days, what are one or two bad habits? You're going like, that's it. I'm ready to beat that habit. How do you break that bad habit? And then let's talk about how to do that. And what I want to tell you is, is that much of what you've been taught, much of what we've been taught about getting rid of bad habits or breaking bad habits doesn't really work, and that's why you still have them, Right? It hasn't worked. So I want to show you a couple of the things that I'm going to teach you today will absolutely be just huge eye openers. They were huge eye openers for me when I realized that's the reason the bad habit seems to keep coming back. That's the reason I haven't been able to beat it permanently and keep it gone. And when I began to understand how to work this process, it literally changed everything. Where I can beat a bad habit and it never comes back, or if it does come back, it's like that and it's gone again. So I'm going to show you exactly how today you can start eliminating bad habits and defeating them without ever having them come back to beat you again. So, five steps. The first one, I'm just going to give you a keyword for each step and then we'll talk about it. So the first keyword is key idea. If you want to break a bad habit is, number one, obviously, you have to commit. You have to commit to defeating the bad habit. It's not going to happen because you want to break it. It's not going to happen because you wish for it. In fact, coming up, we have New Year's in a couple of months. And when New Year's comes, people set New Year's resolutions. Well, a New Year's resolution ideally is a commitment, right? It's a promise you make to yourself. It's commitment you make to yourself, or a resolution that you make with yourself that I'm going to start doing this, or I'm going to stop doing this, or whatever. We make them and we treat them more like New Year's wishes than actually commitments, actually like a resolution. And what happens is, is we say, okay, I'm going to start exercising every single day or five days a week, and I'm going to stop eating Chocolate. I'm going to stop doing this. I'm going to start doing this. And we make this resolution without really including or engaging very much resolve at all. And if you want to break a bad habit or if you want to create a good habit, whatever it is, whenever it comes to habits, it requires commitment, which means you've got to make a promise or a commitment to yourself, a resolution that has resolve behind it, that says, that's it, period. I will not be denied, I will not be defeated. I am going to accomplish this goal. I am going to defeat this bad habit. So number one is you got to make that commitment. Number two, the second term I want you to write down is I want you to write down the word and enemy. And what that means is if you want to break a bad habit, one of the first things you've got to do is you've got to identify it and define it and see it for what it really is. And that is a bad habit is an enemy. A bad habit is not just a weakness. A bad habit is not just something that's annoying. A bad habit is you've got to see it as your enemy. This is not small time, this is big time. Why is it your enemy? Well, because every time that you commit the bad habit and makes you hate yourself and so forth, it is an enemy of your happiness, it is an enemy of your success. It is an enemy of your self approval and your self respect. And whenever we just see it as a weakness, what happens is we go like, I have this weakness. Well, the idea of a weakness tends to elicit a weak response because we look at it like, ugh, it's just weakness. What do I do about it? But once you see it as an enemy, you understand it is not a weakness. It is powerful. It's not weak at all. Your habit is exceptionally powerful. The problem is it's against you. It works against your happiness, against your self acceptance, it works against your success, it works against your prosperity, it works against you. So it is an enemy. And it's time if you want to beat the bad habit. And you've got to see it as it really is. And that is it's an enemy. The problem is it's a tough enemy. It's been kicking your butt, right? It's like, I'm going to do this and you just. And then all of a sudden, bam, it just kicks you in the butt and it's like, oh, I did it again. Oh, it got me again. And then we feel helpless. So once you identify first it is an enemy, then you got to realize it's a tough enemy. I've not been able to beat it. So how do you beat tough enemy? And this is the breakthrough, the really two breakthroughs that I had in terms of breaking bad habits was understanding, number one, it's not a weakness, it's an enemy. Once you see it as an enemy, you see it as something that must be crushed. It must be just annihilated. You can't allow it to stick around. Then the second thing is, once you identify it and realize this is a tough enemy, it's not going to be easy. Is this third word I want you to write down is the word train. Look, if you're going up against a tough opponent in a competition, if you're going up and that would be, we'll call that opponent the enemy. You got to train for it, right? In fact, recently there was one of the most celebrated ultimate fight championship bouts in women's sporting history. It was the women's ufc, the title bout for the World UFC Championship between Ronda Rousey and and a virtual unknown named Holly Holm. And Holly Holm is a world class athlete. She is the world's women's boxing champion in her weight class and all of this, and had just gotten into mma, mixed martial arts, and then started doing some ultimate fight. Ronda Rousey, on the other hand, has dominated ultimate fighting UFC in women's sports for a long time. In fact, she was named as the most dominant woman athlete in the world this year. She that's what that everybody just saw her as unbeatable. In fact, in the four bouts, the four fights that she had had before Holly Holm, she had fought a total of 2 minutes and 26 seconds in four championship bouts. That just means she was such a ferocious enemy that she ended the bout. She took her opponent out that fast. Then in four fights, it added up to 2 minutes and 26 seconds. 26 seconds. Not a lot of time, right? That's how dominant she is. And she now, Holly Holm was now going up against Ronda Rousey, who was, you know, undoubtedly the toughest opponent she had ever faced. How did she beat her? Because Holly Holm upset Ronda Rousey in the second round and knocked her out. How did she do it? First thing, as Holly Holm said, is, I did not underestimate my opponent. See, if you want to break a bad habit, you got to look at it and go like, that's a tough opponent out there. How do you beat them? Well, it's not just determination. I'm Just going to bring it. Come on. I'm ready. I'm so. I am totally determined. The problem is, if Holly Holm had gone in with just sheer determination, she would have got cremated. She would have got crushed. Why? Because when you're going up against a tough enemy, determination is not enough. It takes stamina. It takes strength. It takes finesse. It takes skill. You've got to train your mind, and you've got to train your body to be able to stand up to that enemy. So what do you do if you want to break a bad habit? You got to train yourself. You got to train yourself one. You got to train your mind. You got to train your mind with declarations. You've got to train your mind with visualizing yourself not doing the right thing instead of the wrong thing. Visualizing yourself when you don't have that habit anymore, declaring that you're doing this. So let's just say. We'll just use this example. Let's say that your bad habit is you snooze your alarm every day. And you snooze at 17 times on average, right? So that's your habit. How do you break that habit? Well, you got to train for it, train your mind. A declaration would be like, I wake up quickly and easily every morning. I wake up wide awake, rested and full of energy every day. And you can make that kind of a declaration and you just declare it over, not just affirm it. You don't say, I wake up easily every morning. I wake up easily every morning. That's an affirmation. A declaration is I wake up easily every morning. See, it's with energy. It's a declaration implies passion. It implies conviction. It implies emotion. An affirmation is just an agreement. Yeah, I wake up easily every day. But you need that emotion to be engaged. In fact, Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich talked about the power of auto suggestion. And he said the fastest way to reprogram your subconscious mind is with declarations that have lots of emotion attached to it. And so that's how you train your mind. And then you train your actions simply by repeatedly saying no to that bad habit. And every time you say no to it, you got to celebrate it. It's like, bam, I took them out. I beat it. I beat the opponent. I won this round. Now, you got to know the fight may not be over. It's a habit, Right? A habit doesn't break in one day. To defeat a habit is going to take weeks, if not months to actually break the habit. But you train Yourself. You train your mind and you train your actions simply by training, deciding, I'm not going to do it again, and then saying no over and over again. And every time that happens, you get stronger whenever it comes to facing the opponent. And then the fourth thing you got to do, the fourth term I want you to write down is I want you to write down the word rally. What's a rally? Well, a rally is. The definition says a rally is basically, it is coming back to the fight after a setback or a disappointment or a defeat, which means the enemy is getting beat. They beginning pushed back, they're retreating, and all of a sudden they turn around, they rally, and boom, they come right back. Now, here's what that means when it comes to breaking a bad habit, is don't let setbacks defeat you. So I'd make a decision. You decide, okay, I'm going to break this bad habit. I'm going to not ever show up late again. And then you start going on and you start showing up on the appointments, every appointment, I'm going to start on time. When I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to start on time. I'm going to start respecting my schedule. And so let's say for three days, you do it perfect, and you're showing up on time, you're starting things on time, it's going awesome. And then the fourth day, life happens, or negative thinking happens, or something happens. And it. You just, you got. You showed up late. It's like, ugh, dang it, I hate it when that happens. What are you going to do next? You see, that is the moment that separates champions from those who get defeated. The champion is the one that when he takes a punch, he doesn't collapse to the floor and give up. The champion is the one who knows how to take a punch. Now, here's what you got to know. And this is kind of like I remember, I think about the fight between Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey. Holly Holm knew she was going to get hit. It wasn't like, well, I'm going to go in and I've got to prepare so good that I can never get hit. When you're in a fight against a tough opponent and you're going to get hit. So the question is not how can I avoid getting hit. The question is, how can I prepare myself to take a punch and not quit, not get beat. That if you get knocked down, you get right back up. The key is you got to make a commitment to when I'm when the habit, when the bad habit comes back, that I pop right back up. Because here's what you have to understand. You made the commitment. I'm going to break this bad habit. And you broke it three days in a row. You. You stayed true to yourself. You said no to the bad habit three days in a row. And then the day four, it got you. It sucked. It smacked you right in the nose. It's like, now what are you going to do? I'm not going to go into, oh, no, no. I'm going to go to a pity party or a failure dance. I'm going to get right back up. Oh, that hurt. And now I'm ready. Bring it. And you go. You take the fight right back to the enemy. You refuse to lose. What makes Rocky the movie Rocky an icon in our culture is because Rocky is the epitome, is the perfect example of the fight in all of us, of the guy who gets knocked down and refuses to stay down, he gets right back up and he goes back at it. You see, failure hurts, but failure isn't final as long as you bounce back up and you keep fighting. And here's the beauty. Every time that you fail, when you do get punched and you are going to fail, whenever you're trying to do something great, whenever you're trying to start a new habit, break an old habit, whatever it is, there's going to come moments of failure. What happens in the moment of failure? You make a decision. I'm going to keep fighting. I'm going. I'm not going to let this knock me down. And the other thing is that when you've gone, you've kept your commitment three days in a row, and on day four, you messed up. Do you realize that those three days that you did it. Yes, yes, yes. And then I messed up. You're stronger today than you were up here. You're stronger now than you were when you first made the commitment. Because now you've got some victories under your belt. So all you got to do is say, oh, that hurt me. I went three steps forward, I got one step back. What am I going to do? I'm going to jump right back up and I'm going to do it again. And I'm just going to keep on piling on the victories. And when I get. When I fail, I'm going to realize, you know what? I just got. They got a lucky punch in that old bad habit. Just got lucky. But I'm not backing down, I'm not quitting, not defeated. And you keep Fighting until the bad habit is absolutely, permanently, forever crushed. That's how you beat the bad habit. And then finally is as you're in the process of beating the bad habit, of defeating it, I want you to write down the fourth thing is to replace the old bad habit with a new good habit. Replace the enemy. If you're think of it as territory, think of it as that an enemy has invaded your territory. Well, as you beat the enemy and you drive them out of the territory, you can't leave the territory empty. You can't leave it unoccupied. Now you've got to take and bring a new friend, a good habit and replace the old habit and bring it into its place. You want habits in your life and around your life that are your friends rather than your enemies, that are good habits rather than bad habits. So when you break a bad habit, even as you're breaking it, you want to be replacing the bad habit with a good habit. Now this is nothing new. You've always been told, you know, if you're going to break a habit, you need to replace it with a new habit. So if you're going to quit smoking, you know, take up chewing gum or take up something else, take up yoga, which is some awesome, an awesome idea. However, putting bringing in a new friend doesn't. If it doesn't, if the enemy is not destroyed, the enemy is going to come back. The enemy is not going to leave you alone until you train yourself and rally yourself to defeat the enemy forever. And then you've got the friend, the good habit to replace it and your life is forever changed. And the beauty of all this is that when you follow this process with one bad habit and then you follow it with the next bad habit, every time it happens, you get stronger. Breaking habits and building habits is like a muscle. And the more you exercise your will, the more discipline you have of taking these steps. And this just gives you a structure, a framework of how to see it, of how to see the bad habit and how to approach the bad habit and how to beat the bad habit. Every time you do it, you get stronger. So I hope you like this video. If you do, please thumbs up it, give it a thumbs up like comment, ask any questions. I want you to simply win and this will help you win every time over that bad habit.