Learn the habit promise strategy to see effective, long lasting results in your life. If you've ever tried to quit something before or even start something new, the habit promise is a proven way to change behavior.
Habit promises are going to be the core of your success.
A habit promise is a commitment that you make to your self and it is stronger than your excuses.
Pick one thing you really want to change in your life.
E.g. I want to lose 20kg.
What promises to yourself did you break overtime to lead you to this point?
E.g. I told myself I would stop eating junk food everyday, but the temptation always got the best of me and I gave in.
Now we have the goal and the reason why you got to this point. The aim of the habit promise is to get you out of the hole the same way you got in, so instead of continuing to accumulate broken promises to yourself we are going to start building up kept promises to yourself.
The key to this is to start with small achievable habit promises and build on these overtime to create massive and lasting change in the long term. The smaller and more achievable the goal is – the more likely you will be successful. Even if it seems silly because it’s so small, it is making a huge difference in the way you think and will be building the confidence within yourself that you can achieve whatever you set out to.
First pick a specific goal:
E.g. I will go for a 20 minute run at 6am every morning before work.
Now break that down into a tiny habit promise (remember we need to build up slowly):
E.g. I will go for a 5 minute walk at 6am every morning before work.
Can this be broken down even smaller? Remember the more achievable it is, the better and don’t worry, we will soon be building on this. The extra time spent on building a habit promise ensures life long change.
E.g. I will wake up at 6am every morning, put my shoes on and gentle jog on the spot for 1 minute.
In the example above you are getting yourself used to the first part of your new habit (waking up at 6am and getting your heart rate up every morning), which will be enough to adjust to in the beginning. Do your first habit promise for a week and if it feels easy by this point you can take the habit promise up a level.
E.g. (Continuing the example above), 2nd Level: I will go for a 5 minute walk at 6am every morning before work.
Don’t go up more than 1 level on your habit promise each week. By completing the commitment you have set for yourself you are proving you can do this, but as soon as a habit promise becomes too difficult to maintain everyday, you increase your chances of breaking a promise. If you feel like you need to stay longer than a week at a certain level of your habit promise, you should do that and wait until you feel very confident before moving to the next stage.
At some point, for whatever reason, you may have a day that you do not fulfill your habit promise, but you can overcome this by getting right back on track and not using it as an excuse to give up your habit promise. If you miss 1 day, it is detrimental that the next day you continue on with keeping your commitment to yourself, because if not, 2 days of skipping your promise easily turns into a week or months.
I would recommend adding no more than 1-2 habit promises to your routine at a time, as more than this can feel overwhelming and even though they may be small, it can become too much throughout your day to have to commit to when its something you’re not used to.
Once you’ve completed a daily habit promise for a month or more you may find it’s much easier to include in your life, but remember it must always stay as a habit promise to yourself otherwise it can slip away over time without you realizing and you will need to start from level 1 again.
Habit promises can be very powerful when executed wisely, so choose your first one and make it the strongest commitment that you’ve ever made to yourself. On paper, fill out the below.
My Long Term Habit Promise is:
Level 1 of my Habit Promise is (which I will complete in week 1):
Level 2 of my Habit promise is (which I will begin once I feel confident with level 1):
Level 3 of my Habit promise is:
You can add more levels if needed.
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