True, in their present form, some of your habits may be royally screwing up your life, but here’s an interesting little question for you… who says a habit has to stay in its present form? This little question uncovers the edge of a huge, huge secret. Here it is: you can actually keep your present “bad” habits, but simply adjust them slightly, build on them a bit, and as you retune them, they could become some of your strongest “good” habits.

What Habits Really Are

But first a word about habits in general. You’ve probably already realized that habits and skills are basically the same animal. Each one is an action (or a thought) which you’ve repeated so many times that you’ve gotten very good at it. In fact it’s become automatic.

So….

Let’s say you don’t believe you can become a fast-starter or a high-achiever because you have a conflicting habit standing in your way. You truly would like to be a get-it-done kind of person, but you’ve been a procrastinator all your life. Okay, relax. That’s no problem.

Remember, every habit is a skill, something you’ve practiced for so long that you’re really, really good at it.

Now, once you have that procrastinating habit (that skill), you are never going to erase it from your brain – no way that’s ever going to happen. If you’re a carpenter, are you likely to forget what to do with a hammer and a saw?

Skills and Habits Never Die

Many decades ago, I had a small painting contracting business. And even after all these years, I still know how to paint a house or wallpaper a room. I can still walk in and immediately see exactly how to set up a job and do it.

Of course, my hands would not be as skillful at cutting in around windows or painting trim, but I can guarantee I’d be better at it, right now, than I was when I first started. I still have the embedded know-how and muscle memories, and barring amnesia, they’ll stay with me till I depart this world.

So let’s say you have a bit of a procrastination habit. You’re not going to delete that skill, no matter what. However, what you CAN do is alter it, add onto it, modify it, repurpose it, and re-shape it to better support your current goals.

Erase it? No way. But you can recruit that habit to your side, and then expand it by adding on a few new refinements.

My painting skills don’t include bicycle frames, space shuttles, cars nor stage sets. But with my existing background, it’d be fairly simple to retrain me.

Unrecognized Assets

And if you’ve got a seemingly “bad” habit, then don’t fret because that’s actually no barrier at all. In fact, it could be a huge head start for you.

Any lifelong procrastinator is already highly skilled in self motivation. And persistence. And unswerving aim. You doubt this? Consider… if you’re in an elevator and you accidentally step on someone’s toes, they ask you to kindly get the **** off their foot, and you do. Furthermore, from that time on, you probably become more aware of where you’re stepping. You’re able to change this behavior because it’s accidental. But habits are different.

As a procrastinator, when you’re late keeping a promise or handing in an assignment, you’re literally stepping on the toes of someone’s schedule… or at the very least you’re walking on their feelings. And as a procrastinator, you already know, from long experience, how others are going to react.

But you keep on stepping on their toes. And their schedules. And their feelings.

Now, please understand, I’m not guilt-tripping you here. Instead, I want you to realize just how highly motivated you have to be to face others’ anger, resentment and disappointment. And yet you persist. Year after year, again and again you put things off. Nobody around you likes it. YOU don’t even like it.

You are highly trained in motivation, persistence and singleness of purpose. Those are powerful skills – when used in a slightly different way.

So then, the sixty-four dollar question is, “How do I do that? How do I change the way I’m using my motivation, persistence and singleness of purpose?”

What if it Were Easy?

If there’s a new skill you want, here’s a novel suggestion – simply start doing it – and add it in on top of some other, more-or-less related habit. Or even a habit that’s seemingly the opposite of what you want.

Let’s take procrastination for example. How the heck do we add anything on to a habit of not doing anything? Well, it’s basically impossible… as long as we insist on looking at it from that angle.

But what if we shifted our view just a bit? What if we looked at another side of procrastination? We could choose to see it as the powerful persistence we maintain in the face of opposition from friends, family, employer – basically everybody – and yet we persist in this behavior.

So let’s say you have a project you’ve agreed to do. A lawn to mow, a car to wash and wax, a big party to plan for, whatever. But after a bit you realize you’re procrastinating. Putting things off.

First, we already know that you’ve tried to “motivate” yourself in the past and it hasn’t worked very well. So it won’t hurt if we try something different for a change, will it?

Let’s try this: deliberately and consciously congratulate yourself for your determination and persistence. Praise yourself lavishly. (Isn’t this the exact opposite of what you usually do to yourself?) Pour on the self approval. What we want to do is create a new emotional meaning for our behavior. This de-couples the old emotional meaning, and immediately begins turning this habit into something slightly different and new. This opens the door for still more small changes. Right away, we’re breaking the old pattern and making way to reshape it.

Next, let’s say something like, “And to help make my persistence even stronger, I’m going to do (some tiny little beginning piece of the task you’ve been avoiding).” You might even add additional explanation to yourself, such as, “And with this act, I’m making my persistence and determination even tougher and more unconquerable.”

One Small Step Forward – That’s All

And then do that one tiny little piece. Nothing more – at least not for a few minutes. Stand and bask in the fact that you have the power to shape and strengthen your power of persistence and achievement. Now you’re treating this habit as a positive, desirable part of yourself.

Now, is this going to transform you overnight into a whirling dynamo of activity? Maybe not. Not overnight, anyway. But it’s the first step of a journey in the right direction.

Fact is, it doesn’t even matter how well you do this at first. Building up to a high level of skill and control – that comes later. The first days are for building the habit of starting and doing.

So start. Do. No matter how clumsily, just begin doing it.

Or maybe you’d sort of like to be that fast-starting high achiever, but something inside you drags its feet at the mere thought. Instead of grappling and struggling against that feeling, let’s do something else.

One of the markers of a fast-starting high-achieving personality is to know in advance exactly what you’re going to do first thing in the morning, then upon arising, to do it.

Paper Adds Power

The thing to do then, is to start doing your own list every evening. Not as a high-achiever would do it (not at first), but in your usual, easygoing manner. You don’t have to shoot out of bed in the morning and leap into feverish, hyper-activity. Drag your feet if you’d like – even make a bit of a game out of it – but just do the things on your list. Do them as nearly first in your day as possible. Yes, I know you need to caffeine up and go tinkle first, but then…

And don’t make the items on your list too heavy. Maybe only one or two things. Maybe not even big things. What we’re doing here is forming a pattern to build on – we’re not making you a high achiever overnight. First comes the slightest little shift in self image and confidence. Later comes the bigger stuff. Doing things step by step is the realistic, real-world way.

I want you to become acutely aware of this one thing – the early days of skill-building are not for high skill, they’re for building the basic foundation, the pattern of behavior. Later you’ll polish that basic skill till you become as good as you’re dreaming of. You can’t polish anything that’s not yet in existence, so start at the beginning. What a concept, huh?

If your goal is to hit bullseyes – to aim at objectives and achieve them consistently – then start aiming and trying.

Will your aiming ability be lousy when you first start? Well yeah, probably. But keep on and it WILL get better.

The only way your aim won’t get better is not to start, not to try. Only after you’ve built the basic skill will you be able to start refining it. The world is chock full of bullseyes, just waiting for your aim and your achievement.

Considering how small this tiny little shift is, would there be ANYTHING keeping you from starting today, right now?

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

P.S. If you agree, or if you disagree, I’d love to hear your comments on this.

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Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles