TES 034 - Shifting Your Habits for Faster Success

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience Live it is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there. I'm Mel Abraham, the author of the number one best selling book the Entrepreneur's Solution and the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy, where we teach you how to design a business and create a life, a life of financial freedom and peace of mind. And welcome back to this episode of the Entrepreneur's Solution. And in this episode, I talk about habits. Interestingly enough, one of the questions that got recently asked to me at one of my live events, Business Breakthrough Academy, by some was how do you deal with habits? How are habits created? How do you change habits? And so when we come back after this brief introduction, I'm going to talk a bit about habits. I'm going to talk a bit about this book, the Power of Habits, a phenomenal book. If you don't have it in your library, you're going to want to get it. But we'll talk a bit about the framework and also the anatomy of changing a habit. So when we get back after this brief introduction, we'll jump right into it. And as is with every other episode, I always have some sort of tool template guide, something that can accelerate your progress, accelerate your path to success. And the way to get that for this episode is go to melabraham.com session034. And if you're not at your computer, you happen to be out running at the gym or you're just not at your computer, you're driving. Go ahead and text mylegacy one word, no spaces mylegacy to 38470. You'll immediately get the link, the download link, so you can make sure that you get all the tools and templates to serve you, to support you in your growth. So I'll see you back here right after this brief introduction. See you soon. Bye.

Welcome to the Entrepreneur Solution, where highly successful entrepreneur Mel Abraham becomes your entrepreneurial mentor. Here, Mel reveals his business building strategies and even gets a chance to answer your questions. Mel Abraham, a CPA by education, but an entrepreneur by exhilaration. And a true believer in the entrepreneurial way of life. It's through entrepreneurship that we create community, support society and live our dreams.

It's where possibility meets reality again and you can have the life and lifestyle you want. One of freedom and peace of mind. Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur Solution where it's time for you to be bold, dream big and live life your way.

Hey there. I'm Mel Abraham, the author of the number one best selling book, the Entrepreneur Solution. And welcome back to this episode of the Entrepreneur Solution show. And as I said in the introduction, we're going to get a chance to talk about habits and talk about it in the context of this book also the Power of Habit. But let me give you some backstory. I was just recently doing, doing my live event. I do a couple of live events and this happened to be the business breakthrough. Caveat. A bunch of entreprene came in. We work through rolling up our sleeves and really digging into their business, getting clarity on their vision, getting clarity on their business. What are the different things that they need to do to really move themselves forward to build that business in a way that it gives them a life of financial freedom and peace of mind. And one of the questions that came up after the event, we started to talk about habits. What, what does it take? What creates a habit? And what's the anatomy, the anatomy of changing a habit. And so I want to just kind of give you my thoughts on it as well as this book's thoughts on it. And when you look at this, Charles Duhig, and I hope I pronounced his name right, talks about this concept of a habit loop. And he talks about three factors in the habit loop. The first is what he calls the cue. This is the driver, this is the initiator of the habit or the routine. For instance, you may automatically come home from work. And for some reason, you know, when you come home from work, there's this innate craving to maybe go get a glass of water or some people might be to go get a drink or do something like that. And so that there's this connection with something that he calls a cue. I call it typically a trigger or a hook or something like that that all of a sudden triggers this pattern that's in our system. It's a neurological pattern, it's a physiological pattern, it's an emotional pattern. It's some sort of pattern that starts to play out without a whole lot of conscious thought. So that first piece is called the cue in his habit loop. And many of us, if you Examine your life. I bet you'll find something that. That every time you do this thing, you know, whether it's, like I said, coming home, whether it's, you know, the first thing you do when you wake up, that it triggers this pattern. And in doing that, the second piece that he talks about in the book is this concept of the routine, which is really the habit. Once the trigger is triggered or the hook is hooked or the cue is cued, whatever it is, once that happens, what's the series of events? What's the series of things that happen? And that's the routine. That's the actual habit. It's the things that you repeatedly do over and over again that are a result of the cue. So you've got the cue, you've got the routine. And then the last piece that he talks about is this element of reward. This is the end game. This is what happens once we run that pattern out. And this can be what we call. I've heard psychologists call it secondary gain. It's gain. It's the benefit that we get out of it. Now, this benefit could be a positive benefit. It could also be a negative benefit. So I'm not judging what it is. I think that we can all agree that science has shown that smoking is bad for your health. Yet there's plenty of people that still smoke, and they smoke because there's something in it for them aside from, you know, the addiction that comes out of the nicotine and some of some of those things. And I'm not. I don't. I'm not talking about that. But many times people smoke because it allows them to slow down. It allows them to reconnect with themselves. And there's some other additional elements of wars. Some people eat, and they get connection through that. So what's the gain? What's the reward out of this habit, this routine, this pattern that is playing in your life? And so one of the things that Charles talks about in his book is understanding how to manage these things. Now, as I've kind of gone through it, I realized that there's a critical point where I think we have the ability to shift, change our habits if we're conscious and we're aware of it. Many times, these habits that happen, and I'm sure I have plenty of them, and probably the easiest way to find out is to simply ask my wife. She'd probably say, yeah, here's a whole bunch of habits that probably irritate the heck out of her. But the bottom line is that we all have them. And they can move us in a direction of growth, or they can move us in a direction of shrinking and not going. So the key is, really, how do I make sure that I create habits that move me in the direction consciously and intentionally move me in the direction that we're going? And those of you that know me know that intentional living is one of the things that I talk about when we talk about designing a business. We talk about being intentional with how we create something so we can have the life that we want and not passively being some passenger on someone else's bus of life and doing it that way. So there's a critical point, I believe, as I've kind of looked at this, that we can shift things. So I kind of took his habit loop model and added one component to it. So I think that once we get through the trigger or the cue or the hook, as I call it, the routine, that we're walking through the habit, then the reward there is a moment. And that moment could be ever so slight or it could be lengthy, where we have the opportunity.

To reflect, to reflect and ask ourselves the question, does this habit serve me? And not necessarily well, it serves me because.

I like to eat or what have you, But. But does it serve you in creating the life that you want? Is this going to move you closer to that type of life? And if it's not, does it make sense to start shifting the habit? So there's this moment, this crack, if you will, in the armor, where we get a chance to reflect on what just happened or what we just did, what unconscious pattern we just ran through, and say, does that serve me? And if it doesn't serve me, what could I do? And how could I shift it to allow me to create a different habit? Now, I'm not saying that you eliminate habits, because I think that what happens is we create these neurological trenches, if you will, these connections. And so what we need to do is, rather than trying to eliminate it, how about we replace it so there isn't a void there, but let's replace it with something.

That moves you in the direction that's more positive, that moves you in the direction that you want. And so in that moment of reflection, I think that we have a time where we can shift and change things in our life. And so that leads me to this concept of, well, what are the things, what's the anatomy, if you will, of changing a habit? And here's how I see it, and here's how I've done it through the years. Here's the Things that I've looked at over time to really start to understand that. And the first is to specifically define the cue, the trigger, the hook and realize that or redefine it. Let's look at it that way. If I have a specific hook, maybe I can shift and, and redefine it. Or if I want to create a new habit, then I can just define it from the get go. And my trigger, my hook can come from a couple of different places. One, it could be time. It could literally be, for instance, when I'm working about every 90 minutes.

Between 70 and 90 minutes, I get up and I move around and I try because I want to keep my energy up. So, so what happens is that I have a time trigger that gets me to do that, stand up and move. So I could have time of day, I could have a time trigger. I could have, you know, when I wake up, the first things that, the first things that I do are this, you know, whether it's brush my teeth and, and get ready and the first thing I do is go to the gym. So, so there's this, this process, this, this pattern that I run based upon time. The other thing that we can do with Q is it could be based on location. I know that many times.

It'S interesting when I travel a lot and for some reason every time I get into a hotel room, I have this desire to just, maybe just get something to eat. And it's not because I haven't eaten. Usually I've eaten on the plane or I've eaten on the way, but I noticed that. So remember that reflection piece? I noticed that. And I go, am I really hungry? Or is it a psychological trigger that has set off a series of habits or series of events or pattern in my system that's getting me to say, hey, you know what, let's get something to eat. And I look at it and I decide, do I need to do it or not? So could be time, could be location, it could be an event, it could be something that happens, something that.

Precedes the event. For instance, there's a series of things that I do before I go out and speak. So I do my own live events. We do three day, four day workshops, two day workshops, and then I go and do keynotes and speaking around the world. And before I get on stage, there's this pattern of things that I do to set my state, to set me in a place so I can be focused on the audience, I can be focused on you to make sure that I can serve at the Highest level. Even before I turn the camera on and do one of these things, one of these episodes.

There is a process that I go through. So there's this pre event, this.

Pre event kind of pattern that I go through. So your trigger could be event based, it could be emotionally state based. And so one of the things to be aware of is that depending on emotional state, like I know, and I will tell you, you know, totally up front, if I'm going to eat, I'm a stress eater. I usually eat extremely healthy and extremely clean diet. I do have a bit of a sweet tooth and all that, but for the most part I eat pretty healthy. And the fact of the matter is that I can see in myself that when my stress level goes up, I'm a stress eater. So that emotional state sets off a series of events. That trigger. That sets off a series of events. And then the last piece, it could be people, believe it or not, that you can see someone, be with someone, or do something with someone that sets off a pattern. So consider this and think about how this will affect your relationships if each and every time you walk in and you see your spouse or your significant other, your partner, you create a habit. For instance, a lot of times I'm working in my home office and my wife is out doing her things for the day. She's running her business and running her teams and she's out in the field and she comes home, she comes home from a long day doing what she does. And I could easily turn around and, and have her walk in and go, hey, honey, and just go about my day. But one of the things that I've tried to do, and I think I'm pretty successful at it, we can ask her.

Is that when she comes in, I stop. And it's a habit to stop. Give her my moment, give her that moment and say, how's it going? How was the day? That type of thing. And I know that I'm not 100% on it, but, but I know I have that habit. And so people can be that trigger habit. So one of the things to do is think about your cues. Be consciously aware about the cues that you have in your life, the trigger points that you have in your life. And maybe if you're trying to create a new habit versus changing, shifting the cues and defining something that makes sense for you. The second thing I think we can look at is defining the reward.

Some people will talk about this as the why. And I talk about this in the context of building a business, saying the how and the what is pretty easy. It's the why that we got to get straight, because that's what's going to drive us, that why. That reward is the magnet that pulls us. It pulls us in. And when we, you know, rather than trying to push yourself along, when you have something that's magnetizing you, that's pulling you, that's drawing you in, that force is much greater than the push.

So how you define your reward becomes really, really important if you're primarily focused on a reward that has feeble connection with something that's meaningful for you. For instance, a lot of the stuff that I do is driven.

It's never driven primarily by money. It's driven by. Primarily by purpose, by transformation, by making shifts, by having an impact, by seeing the light go on in people's eyes to see their dreams come alive. That's why I do what I do. And that reward pulls me forward and continues to pull me forward. You know, in this last business breakthrough, we had a young boy, young man, I should say, not a young boy, 14 years old. And he literally was there for. Because he wanted to understand entrepreneurship. He wanted to understand it the right way from the ground up. And he's been reading about entrepreneurs, whether it was Zuckerberg and Branson and Gates and understanding what's their thought process. And, you know, the coolest thing about it was he came to his dad and he said to his dad, and his name's Drew.

The boy's name's Drew, went to his dad, and he says, here's what I want for my birthday. I would love to. To go to Business Breakthrough Academy so I can learn from an entrepreneur that's done it and has worked with some tremendous entrepreneurs. So he literally came and sat in that audience, totally focused and taking tons of notes and looking at his future at 14 years old. And I look at that and I said, how does that not drive me forward? That's what drives me to see that young, vibrant soul looking at things and saying, I want to be better. I want to have control. I want to be able to live life my way. I want to have an impact. I want to do things differently, and I want to make a difference. And that. So that's the thing about rewards. So what's the why behind that habit? What's the reward you're going to attach to that habit to draw you through, to pull you through? Third is this expectation association, and I call it expectation association because it's about what other people expect of you. And this can be just as well Negative in the sense that society has expectations, society norms kind of a thing. But when you talk about society norms potentially they say, well, this is the way it's always been done and follow that well worn path.

And the challenge with that is that well worn path many times is a path of mediocrity. And so we need to be aware of that. And one of the things that we can shift is our expectations.

Above and beyond what.

Is out there. And we need to be really deliberate about.

What expectations we associate with. Which kind of takes you to this next piece also. And I think they go hand in hand. And that's this what I call belief community. And when I talk about belief community, it's about who you surround yourself with. So expectation association, you know, you look at and say, look, I need to shift my expectations in order to shift those expectations. And I might actually need to shift the associations and the community that I'm operating in. In other words, I want to surround myself with like minded people. I want to surround myself with people that will raise the standard. I want to surround myself with those people that understand the values and the things that I'm trying to accomplish and are going to pull me through, that are going to support that journey, that are going to look at it and say you got this and champion and cheerleading for you. And so it's about creating a belief community. And now don't mistake what I'm saying here. I'm not talking about surrounding yourself with a bunch of people that are only going to say yes to you. I want you to surround yourself with people that understand where you want to go. Whether it's I want to lose weight, whether it's I want to build a big business, whether it's I want to be a better dad or I want to be a better partner, whatever it is, I want you to think about, have I surrounded myself with good role models and people that and a community, that one will have a belief in me, have an expectation of me and kind of going to support that journey and say, you know, are you sure you want that third ice cream if you're trying to lose weight and do those things for you versus just coddling you and allowing you to do the things that maybe don't serve and don't serve the journey that you want to be on. So when we look at habits, this is the way I look at it. And I think that moment of reflection is the most important part. Because then when you look at that, I then have the ability to look at and say, can I Change the cue or the trigger? Can I redefine the reward that draws me through better? Can I shift the expectations and associations? Can I shift the community that I'm operating in? Can I change and tweak the pattern in doing that? And that's really how I see the anatomy of changing a habit, in looking at it from that perspective and realizing that a habit is simply a neurological pattern, a physiological pattern, an emotional pattern that's been created over time. And we can adjust and tweak and do things to shift those patterns or develop new patterns, develop better patterns, develop better habits that serve us at the highest level. The first things first with everything that we're trying to do is we need to become aware of it. So I hope that you found that this at least starts to dissect the elements of habits and how those habits can affect you and how you can affect them.

We're never really the victim of our habits. We are never at the mercy of our habits because they were internally created. They can be internally recreated or shifted or redefined. Once we become aware and conscious of it, we then have the ability to make the proper shifts to shift us in the direction that we want to be. So I hope that serves you. I hope that that gives you some food for thought, some things to consider as you move forward. And just like every other episode, like I said, there's a work, there's a guidebook that goes along with this to help you start to define and redefine your habits, to look at some habits that maybe you don't have and want to bring into the game. So go ahead and download that by going to melabraham.com session034. And if you're not at your computer or you happen to be at the gym or you're driving and you're just not in a place that you can download the guide, go ahead and text mylegacy one word, no spaces to 38470. We'll send you the link. So when you get back to your computer, you can immediately download the tools and do it that way. And if you found this of value, you got some friends out there you go, there's some habits they might need to change or some new habits they might need to create. Why don't you share this with a friend, share this with them, and let's give them some of the same tools that we're giving you to accelerate your success, shift the path that you're on and to give you the freedom that you're looking for in your life. And if you haven't done so already, make sure you subscribe. So you're always going to be on the list and get notified every time I put out a new new tool, a new template, a new training that's going to allow me to be your entrepreneur and mentor, your success mentor and allow you to build on it. And I'm here to answer your questions. And if you have any questions for me about business, success or wealth, go ahead and leave them. Go to askmelnow.com and leave me your question there. We'll make sure that we get it on an upcoming episode so I can serve you and support you on your journey. And until we get a chance to see each other again, may your vision be grand, may your journey be epic and your legacy significant. See you soon. Cheers. Bye.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure you subscribe so you get access to all of Mel's business and success tips. And if you like this episode, share it with a friend. If you have a specific business or success question, you can ask it at www.askmelnow.com. remember, it's all about bold, dreaming big and living life your way because the world needs you. Until the next episode, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant.

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