Dawn Damon 0:05

Hey Bravehearted Women I hope you are doing amazing today, I hope you're experiencing a wonderful life. Because you're choosing a wonderful life, and you've created a massive action plan that when you have execution and not just any kind of execution but fears brave uncomfortable action, that kind of execution you are smashing your goals and you're living the life that you've always wanted to live. We're going to talk about today, something that will help you reach your goals and actually achieve success. And that is this thought about habits. Yes, your habits. I'm gonna ask you a question. Are your habits, serving you well, because all successful people if you look behind the veil. They have successful habits, That's how they got there, they have intentionally created habits in their life, that when they do them over a long period of time, it leads them to success, it leads them to victory, it brings them to the place that they want. So if you know for example that you want to build and tone your arms. You have to have a powerful habit that supports that goal. In other words, you have to go to the gym, or you have to go to lifting weights anyway, every day or every other day you have to make it happen. So as much as you'd love to put strong arms on your vision board and stare at those every day. That is good. That is so powerful, you have to do that, but that's not enough.

You can want it. You can want it with all your heart, and that is important to define but then you have to have a plan that includes massive action. So your habits become something that support you so that you do reach your goals. So let's get into this a little bit like Albert Einstein's quote the world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking. So your world your reality is basically what you think about. And when you're thinking you're producing. And when you have powerful habits that support you, you can think about your goal you can dream about what you want and then you can create the life you want. By finding those powerful habits that will support you and bring you to your goal, because you're not going to just want to wait for inspiration and motivation, forget it, motivation doesn't come motivation follows action, a habit is more dependable habit is what's gonna sustain you, whether you feel inspired or not, whether you feel motivated or not. When I wake up in the morning, I don't always feel motivated, but my habit is to work out, so I know I'm going to do that, because ultimately my goal is, yes, to have toned arms, my goal is to have tight abs. So, I have to do the work, I can put them on my vision board, and they're there, and I could want that, and I do, but if I don't do this situps or if I don't do the curls, didn't matter how much I want it, it's not going to happen. So defining what you want, seeing what you want, and then developing some really incredible powerful habits that serve you well they don't sabotage you, but they serve you well and they bring you to your goal. So, 40% of everything that you do on a daily basis is habitual. It is unconscious. Did you know that?

That means that a big part of your life is almost entirely on autopilot. You don't even think about it, it's just stuff that you do. So we have to evaluate our habits and we can do that. Really by asking some questions. So let's think about this for a moment, your habits. Do they empower you, or do they disempower you. In other words, when you're done with your habit do you feel powerful, or do you feel a sense of shame and disappointment in yourself. Do your habits limit you, or do they free you. Are you limited because your habits have not supported you well and you just got caught up in doing, you know, It's my habit to watch TV and now I feel limited I haven't, I haven't gone into this realm of building my business where I could be free, because I can make six or seven figures. Your habit has limited you do your habits help you or hinder you from reaching your goals help or hinder, and just overall do your habits serve you, or do they forsake you. So your habits, again, over a period of time, bring you to the goals that you want, instead of looking at the result of doing the habit once. Think about looking at that habit, as the result of doing that same thing over.

For a long period of time where would your life be in one year. If you had a powerful habit that you decided on today, and you did it every day, or you did it three times a week, you would be transformed, that every action that you take is fuel for the kind of person that you want to be, or for the kind of life that you want to lead. Success is a product of many right choices. Those choices become daily habits. So in essence, to direct your life, you have to take control of your consistent actions. In other words, you have to take control your habits. I like Tony Robbins comment here it's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but it is what we do consistently, You are what you consistently do. So, do you have the right habit, because that's the trick to success is to choose the right habits and do them over and over and over again. If you need to learn something new, you need to develop a habit of reading of studying, so that you can learn the new thing, but you might have a habit, like I said a moment ago of watching TV so your habit is not serving your goal to learn this new thing. Instead, it is hindering you. Remember Bruce Lee, the famous martial arts. He said this I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks, but I do fear the man who has practiced. One kick 10,000 times. So again habits are the things we do habitually, we've learned them through repetition. Maybe we started in because of boredom, maybe we started a bad habit because of stress, we learned how to do something, but it's time to become consciously aware of the patterns are the habits that we have that we engage in. And then, if you find yourself engaged in a habit to ask questions of those habits, and to look critically at whether it is serving you, or keeping you stuck, did I do this on purpose or was this just autopilot did I really go to the refrigerator right now because I'm hungry, or is it just a habit because I eat at night, it's a habit because I have dessert every day. It's a habit because I have that glass of wine, every night, is it serving you well, or is it hindering you or sabotaging you. So, habits, as you know are grooves or ruts in how the neurons fire in the pathway of your brain.

So let's look at something we've learned all kinds of habits. I think we're going to talk about maybe four or five different kinds of habits that we have. So first of all, you know we have, we have habits that are self defeating these are self defeating habits such as we might have a habit of making excuses, rather than owning something it's just our habit. It's our neural pathway to blame someone and make excuses we rationalize, or we procrastinate. Maybe we give up easy, or we take rejection we withdraw. Maybe we nurture fears, easily and quickly instead of nurturing faith, we have habits of reacting and interrupting. So these are self defeating habits the all that I just mentioned, excuses rationalization procrastination, giving up easy no resilience no grit, taking rejection, quickly, you know, nursing that fear talking about that fear rehearsing that defeat over and over again. And those things are not going to lead you to your goal, or your success. Unless of course, your goal is to be a victim, then yes, by all means keep these habits.

But we also have habits of the mindset, which are thinking habits, So we have a fixed mindset, habits, inflexible, we think that we cannot change so we have a closed mindset. Maybe we instantly go to the negative, or problem identifying, we have negative thoughts. Maybe our mind races to judgment, right away and shaming right away. These are habits of the mindset. We talk inside our heads in the negative, and judgmental and shaming and defeating ways. We also have listening habits. We have good habits or poor habits, I'm kind of identifying some of the negative habits right now, but we have negative listening habits we listen without empathy, or we listen to interrupt we're just waiting for them to take a breath so

we can start talking about what we want to talk about. We have listening habits of reacting. Instead of responding, we get defensive, or we get on the offense we easily become offended, and maybe we shut down or walk away, we project and we blame these are just habits. And what about social habits. Maybe you withdraw or isolate, that's a social habit, you haven't pushed yourself or inched out into some uncomfortable action, potentially to go ahead and be social, get in the mix, say yes. Tell yourself go upstairs and put on your going out dress and go ahead and enjoy some social activity that we don't we have a habit of guarding ourself, you know, or maybe in social situations we try to impress people so we over talk or we come on too strong. We as bravado, kind of wearing those masks and covering up our true selves. Those are social habits, we have physical habits, we have sleeping habits and eating habits, your spending habits. We talked about exercise habits, sexual habits, and you have habits of coping. You have habits of responding to feedback or criticism, self defense retaliation self protection, you name it, we've got a habit now you might say well I don't have any of those terrible habits. Well, okay, good. That's wonderful, but do you have any powerful habits, what are the very good habits that you have that will take you further than just writing something down. I've written down this goal. Okay what habit do you have to support them. Successful people and powerful people are people that just have really good habits successful and powerful habits. So, you have to work on those. Oh here, spoiler, spoiler alert, try to say that, spoiler alert, you cannot down load a good habit, no you cannot, you cannot download a good habit. Don't you wish you could. But you can't we have to intentionally pursue those habits and work with them, so we can change, and we can grow, but we have to become deliberate. So experts tell us that you can make a good habit in 21 days. But really, in all honesty to make it automatic you need 62 days 63 days somewhere around in there where the brain automatically just starts firing neurons in this direction. So, we don't want to give up and we don't want to settle. But we need to do this on purpose so do the work because a lot of us feel defeated because we have bad habits. I used to exercise, but I could stop doing this but I have someone once that was telling me and yeah she was struggling something with her weight but,

but it's hard. No, I, I don't have anybody to walk with I could do it, but it's lonely. Well, it's going to be lonely, sitting on the park bench when everyone else is on the rides, or doing whatever else you're sitting in a chair where everyone else is on the dance floor. So we need to get rid of our big butts right. If we stop saying hi could do something, but no, we're here to get rid of our butts, we can say, instead of saying, but how about if we just even use the word however, that's a good reframe and a pivot that you could use like, I'm, I'm overweight however I'm valuable and today I choose to eat better. I have some debt. However, today I make choices that bring me wealth. So don't try to just stop doing the bad stuff without adding the right stuff and changing your mind about it, you need to renew your mind would you know it has two parts we put off the old, but of course we have to put on the new and Zig Ziglar said this once there is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs, there's no easy way about this, we got to climb these stairs so let's think about how do we make good habits, because you know at first. You make your habits, and then your habits make you, and you'll never change your life until you change something that you do every day. So the first habit that you might want to think about is that I would like to have a powerful morning routine, that becomes habit. This is so powerful, y'all, because there are so many books that are written about this, there are so many podcasts that so many people have tapped the power of morning routine. Everything that you need to do, if you could do it in the morning before 8am In terms of mindset, speaking your affirmations, meditation, journaling and exercising these are all the things that I do every morning, and they've become habit for me. I feel really out of sorts, actually when I don't do them. I don't always do them in the same order, many people do, they drink their smoothie, they go to the gym, they come back they do meditation they journal they write whatever order, I choose to be a little bit, mix it up a little bit because there's a creative side of my brain that says oh I want to do this and then I want to do that, but I do the six things every morning before 8am and their habit for me, and I feel good when I do them I feel complete when I do them, but also I think about what I shared a moment ago I don't think about just doing this habit today so I have a good day. I think about this habit.

Over time, articulated executed, day after day after day is going to bring me a powerful result. And I want the result. I want the book written, I want the toned arms. I want the tighter ads, you bet I do. I want the mind that's been filled with the Word of God, those are things that I want, so I put in a little bit every day. So the first thing I want you to think about is define what goal you want, and then what habit you need to create, to help you get there, focus on and commit Let's just do one new habit. So you're going to focus and commit to one new habit this month, let's say you're going to choose this, then you would practice that habit for 30 days, whether it's taking vitamins, drinking this mix, doing whatever 10 Push Ups a day whatever it is, practice it for 30 days, set your alarm, and make sure that you do it. And another powerful tip then is to anchor this habit to another existing habit. So if you can do this habit. For example, brushing our teeth is something we don't think about we just do it every morning it's part of our morning routine. So what if, while I'm brushing my teeth. I also do 20 squats, that's kind of silly, but I actually do do that. And sometimes I switch hands and brush my teeth with the other hand, because I understand that that can really help with your brain, but I'm anchoring one habit to another, or maybe it is my habit to read the morning newspaper every morning, and I'm going to anchor that to taking this vitamin that I want to decide to take every morning I want it to become a habit, or maybe the habit that I want to have now is reading the Bible. I want to do that every morning or I want to read a book every morning. Let me anchor that to my cup of coffee that I have every morning. So anchor one habit to add an existing habit, so that your brain so those neurons are firing together. I remember this one time, I was singing a song I was down on my hands and knees washing the floor and I was singing a song as I was washing the floor, and I don't remember what song it is. I would have to go back and wash the floor but what I remember is the very next week, I was down on my hands and knees washing the floor, and that song came back to me, and I started singing it again. And then I started laughing, because I had the total flashback in memory and I said, Wow, I anchored this memory or this habit to this existing habit of washing the floor, even though it only happened once it was already there. So anchor it and then the fourth thing I want you to do is give yourself a reward. So your brain starts to really say, oh I want to do that because I want the reward, whether it's giving yourself a little gold star on your mirror or writing yourself a thank you note, or if it's a treat that is not self defeating, or if it's just something you get to purchase if I get if I save so many gold stars I get to get a new pair of shoes, whatever it is, but give yourself a reward. And then when you do that you're also this your brain is learning this is something pleasant. This is something I want to do. I'm excited about it. I look forward to it. And then you get all of those wonderful beautiful hormones that start, you know, all that dopamine that starts going into your brain that supports that habit. So that's what I have for you today, I want you to have powerful habits, now I can also share with you in another podcast, how to break the negative habits, remember these things have to go hand in hand, we can't just break an old habit without replacing it with a more powerful habit. So if you want to learn more about that. Stay tuned for my next podcast where we'll talk about how to break negative habits. Until then, this is done Damon your Braveheart mentor saying, uncover your brain and live your vision.