How many helpful habits do you have?
How many harmful habits do you have?
Do you know what the BEST habit to have is…the mother of all great habits?
Great question. I love the quote by Matthew Kelly, “Our lives change when our habits change.” It's so true. For better or worse, our lives change…when our habits change!
Today I’m going to reveal the healthiest habit, the ultimate helpful habit, the habit on which all other habits hinge…the habit that is arguably THE most important. Then I'm going to show you how to implement said habit, and finish with a bonus tip on the easiest way to safeguard said habit, so be sure to read til the very end!
Fun fact: This article was inspired by my bunny bouncing onto my belly, which happens to be a fun-fest when it comes to feeding him his food. You see, it used to be a habit for me to lay on my back in his pen, his name is Willow by the way, because then he would hop onto my belly to eat from his food bowl. But somehow this habit hopped out of my head.
After we moved, for a while there wasn't enough space for me to lay on my back. Then recently I realized that the fun-fest could once again resume. You might call it a "Rabbit Habit."
Here's the thing, helpful habits have a way of being forgotten if they aren't written down. Which leads us to THE healthiest habit: the habit of evaluating your habits!
If you want to protect your progress and continually grow, you've gotta do it.
Because this habit helps reveal the things that you should continue doing and things you should stop doing. Without it, who knows how long a hindering habit will go undetected, overlooked, or ignored. It’s imperative that you periodically review which ones are HELPING you, and which ones are HINDERING you. After all, you can’t fix what you don’t know is broken.
So what's the best way to evaluate your habits?
When it comes to taxes, it's a word we would prefer not to hear: Audit. But this has nothing to do with taxes, so just relax and receive this three word recommendation: Audit your actions.
This is how you evaluate your habits...by auditing your actions.
What do I mean by that? Go through a typical week listing everything you do, and then review. How do your habits look when it comes to eating, sleeping, exercising, working, spending, saving? You get the idea.
Start with your morning and evening habits, the bookends to each day. A great morning begins with a great night: getting enough sleep and prepping your mind for the next day.
And a great day begins with a maximized morning.
Even better, ask yourself what habits are helping you in each area of your life, including fitness, focus, feelings, faith, family, friends, and finances.
If you'd like a complete list of the 10 major areas of your life, you can download the Facets of Life Fulfillment Worksheet I created in the downloads section at JeffTeresi.com. Once those are all in order, everything else seems to fall in line. But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself!
Once you do, leave a comment below and let me know how it went for you. I'd love to hear from you!
Now for that bonus tip I promised. This is how you safeguard the mother of all great habits: Set a recurring alarm on your phone to go off every 1-3 months that says "Evaluate your Habits - Audit your Actions." Feel free to do it more often than every 1-3 months if you'd like, but never go longer than that. And the key, is when that alarm goes off, actually do it!
Your challenge this week is to evaluate your habits. Create a list of the ones you want to keep, the ones you’d like to kick or replace, and the new ones you’d like to put in their place. And stay tuned next week, when we'll be discussing how long you can expect for a new habit to take, and an old habit to break.
If this article added value to your life, please help me by hitting that like button, leaving comment below, and sharing it with 3.7 other people you know. I greatly appreciate it. And I appreciate you for reading.
And remember, you're not alone, you are loved, and whatever you do, believe in yourself! I look forward to seeing you again real soon!
-Jeff Teresi
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