Stephen Scoggins breaks down habit change into four steps: identify the bad habit, design an opposite one based on a principle, practice it for 66 days through discomfort, then reinforce it with milestone rewards. Write down your why and find an accountability partner.
How to turn bad habits into good habit. In this video, we're going to break down what it takes to turn any bad habit into a great habit. So stay tuned.
Hey, guys, this is Steven Scoggins with the Journey Principles. And this channel is all about helping you go from stuck to unstoppable in every single area of your life, from your relationships to your finances, and even to your fitness. You see, we believe that anyone can go from stuck to unstoppable as long as they have a hunger to learn and a grit to apply everything that we teach you. And if this is your first time checking us out, my entire team and I want you to know that we want you to live a life full of passion, purpose, and consistent progress. The problem is, most of us are not armed with the right information and the tools to make progress. And the tools that are out there tend to be a little bit overly complex and even scary at times, which is why we created this channel for you. And every single piece of content that we have was designed to make things easy to understand and also, more importantly, easy to apply.
Today, we're going to drill down into habits. More specifically, turning those habits that always get us into trouble into habits that always help us make consistent progress in our lives. But what is a habit? Well, the dictionary says a habit is a system of routine behaviors that if you repeat often enough, they become like muscle memory. In fact, most habits are triggered subconsciously. That is, of course, until you fully understand what I'm about to tell you. You see, it doesn't matter if the habit is drug use, unfortunately, or as simple as biting your nails. With enough perspective and focused intensity, every single habit can be removed and replaced with a new one that can both give you hope and predictable results and that can actually allow your dreams to become a reality. How long does it take to form a new habit, for example? Have you ever considered that? Have you ever wondered? Well, the truth is, a recent study showed that it takes on average around two months before a new behavior becomes a habit. Roughly 66 days, to be exact. You might be thinking, that's great info, but how do I actually change my bad habit? Well, here's our four step process on replacing a bad habit with a good one. First of all, you have to do these things. Find, replace, take consistent action, and then reinforce. So let's break it down. Step one, Find, clarify and identify the habits that seem to be causing you the most trouble first. And then work backwards to the ones that aren't quite as important right now, for example, you might be biting your nails, but you also might be overspending and always running out of money. Or maybe you're making a lot more money than you used to, but now you don't have time for quality relationships. Well, clearly overspending or spreading yourself too thin should be addressed. Before you worry about biting your nails, it's vital that you write down your habits you want to replace in your own words. The reason is there's tremendous power in being personally accountable. Make sure you also write down the why it is important you want to change that habit and the three benefits you'll obtain from from changing this habit in your area and it'll help you start to win. All right. Step two Replace. Just like Newton's law that states every action has an equal and opposite reaction, every negative habit also has an equal and opposite positive habit that you can implement to replace it. Since money is oftentimes where people seem to struggle the most, let's go ahead and use it again for an example. If you want to stop a negative habit or the place of a negative habit, a overspending, for example, you'll need to replace it with a new habit of creating a living budget. A budget is nothing more than a simple document resource where you actually prioritize and pre spend your money on paper before you actually get paid. In short, when you have the right budget and have the right plan for your finances, you'll start to win. The key to choosing better habits is to create the habit around principles that serve your life. The principle in this example would be live within your means and a budget is a simple tool that will help you get there. The positive habits you need to implement are always hidden on the opposite side of your negative habit that you want to replace. So when you look at your negative habits, ask yourself what is the total complete opposite of the negative habit I want to replace? Position it in your own words again, making sure to restate the why as clearly as possible. It's important to you to restate the three benefits again and again and you'll get this area changing and motivating and progressing in the right direction. Alright? Step three Take committed action. You see earlier in this video you already heard it can take up to 66 days before a new habit is formed. Far too often the biggest mistake I see people make is they tend to be very short sighted and unwilling to put on delayed gratification. Well, it takes hard work over 66 days in order to take the bad habit and turn it into a new habit. Don't fall into that trap. This is how people stay stuck. You see, unfortunately, people give up way too early before the new habit is truly set into place. So make sure you practice the new habit and avoid the negative habit daily for a minimum of two months. You see, I can tell you right now that the first 30 days you'll most likely feel very uncomfortable. But you gotta keep going. Why? Because this is how you do it. Do whatever it takes to stay on track. Repeatedly look over your why and remind yourself of the benefits until this becomes practically memorized. This is why I had you write these things down. It will help keep you on track. And if you want to get there even quicker, partner up with an accountability partner who you can both trust to give you love and and support and annoy you when you're trying to create that new habit until it's formed. Sometimes the best way to stick to a new habit is to allow the accountability partner to help you kind of reinforce it. Which brings us to our next point. Step four, Reinforce Reinforcement is where you take this to a whole new level. Remember this. What you reward, you reinforce when you set out to fully overhaul a set of habits. It will probably mess with your level of confidence and belief in yourself. And, and at times you may actually feel like you can't do this, but you can do this. This is why you need to reward your efforts and do something fun. When you're able to stay on track with a milestone marker, it could be as little as a piece of candy or going out for a nice meal. But the reward should start out small and become bigger as you progress further. Consider a reward at the following milestones. 15 days on track, 30 days on track, 45 days on track and 60 days on track. You see, every time you pass one of these milestones, take the time to give yourself a little reward and give yourself a moment to celebrate these incremental wins and the abundance of the effort that you put forth. This will reinforce your new behavior and motivate you to keep going day after day after day until 66 days are long past. Alright guys, that should be enough to get you going. Feel free to comment below and let us know what habit you want to change and how you're going to replace it. Then take action on it and remember to reward yourself as you win. And we'll see you on the next Face to Face. Take care.
Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed that video. I highly encourage you to check out our whiteboard lessons. In fact, one that you may want to check out is that one right there. Yeah, right there on principles versus habits and how that can help you start to win at life. So if you haven't done so, click the link. Like, seriously, like. No, no, like, really click the link. Right? Yeah, click the link, man. That way you can start winning at life. Until then, we'll see you on the next journey. Principles.
