What are your highly effective habits?
Do you have any highly effective habits to keep yourself and business moving in the right direction? Everyone one of us has bad habits or non-supporting habits. The key to effectiveness is developing many habits to support your intentions.
Stephen R. Covey states, a “habit is the intersection of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do it), and desire (want to do)”. Let’s break this down. Your Business’s Performance is counting on you really understanding how this applies to you and how you can simply apply it!
Make no qualms about it, highly effective habits are consistent. Your consistency is what brings the results you seek.
Doing something once or twice, or even sporadically may provide some improvement; however, it is not sustainable. Consistency is the difference maker. This is a common topic in our blog because it is essential to master this.
Covey states a habit has three elements to it: knowledge, skill, and desire. Let’s explore power of each element in reverse order of the quote.
YOUR DESIRE of highly effective habits
I’m pretty sure most of us have heard “thoughts become things” by now. Desires are thoughts. New habits begin with an emotional and mental desire to bring about something different than what is currently being experienced.
If you’re like most people, you have many different thoughts and desires (wants) throughout any given day. This is normal.
The undeniable difference is when you take action to activate one of your thoughts into reality. Since habit implies repeated action, it’s not a habit yet.
If you choose to continue behaving in saids manner, it becomes your routine. In other words, a habit.
TIP: All those thoughts you have in a shower may or may not become a desire. They could just be fleeting or random thoughts. If they become a true desire, the next step is committing to activating them by applying the other two elements.
YOUR SKILL of highly effective habits
Skill is the how to of something. Another name for this is doing. Since humans are addicted to busy, we understand this doing element of habit.
Where’s the snag in the doing? We don’t naturally perform the consistent actions required to achieve the desire we seek.
Typically we struggle to take consistent right actions to secure a new reality for ourselves.
To overcome the shift in habits from (old) hampering to (new) helpful, our desire to achieve our intention must be greater than a desire to stay in the current conditions.
Learning new skills to support a new way of being and doing is usually required to creating new and favorable actions. If we had the skills to already perform this new habit, most likely we’d be doing it.
NOTE: If we do have the skills and aren’t doing it, than the desire for change isn’t strong enough. Example: If you know how to work-out and you’re watching TV instead, the desire to not move your body is greater than the desire to work-out and become _______. This reveals which result has a higher value in your mind: healthier life or watching TV. It’s just simple math of your values.
Usually a conversation about habits has words like dedication, commitment, or discipline discussed. The reason for this is new habits require training. This is the practical application of Right Thoughts and Right Actions. These are topics and terms you’ll commonly find in our 1,000 blog posts here.
FYI: Your skill comes from consistently applying knowledge (right thoughts) to support your doing (right action). If you aren’t doing something properly, you won’t get the results you seek.
YOUR KNOWLEDGE of highly effective habits
Knowledge, according to Covey, is what to do. This fascinates me. It assumes we don’t know what to do. I don’t necessarily agree. This isn’t always the case.
Let’s assume you desire to create a new habit. You either know how to do it correctly (skill) and aren’t applying your knowledge, or you don’t know how to do it effectively. If you do know how and aren’t doing it, one may say you’re being lazy.
If you want to create a new habit because you have a strong desire, but don’t have the skills, you need to attain knowledge to understand (right thoughts) which right actions to take.
WARNING: There’s many actions you can take to achieve a desire. The best results usually are created when you acquire the knowledge of a practicing expert (someone who specializes in what you seek to achieve). Why? The practicing (consistent) expert knows the correct actions AND the correct sequence to do them. Sequence does matter.
New knowledge will create an intrigue and desire to want to try out new things. Experimenting is an important part of shifting from a habit to creating highly effective habits – one which will deliver and sustain your desire.
Here are four books which can support you through creating new habits. I’ve read them all and it’s no wonder each is a bestseller!
“High Performance Habits” by Brendon Burchard
“Maximum Achievement” by Brian Tracy
“The Compound Effect” by Darren Hardy
“The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg
REMEMBER: Don’t just read the knowledge. Apply the right actions to gain a new habit.
Not sure where to begin? Take advantage of our No-cost Consultation to get you on the right track!
What step are you going to take next to secure a stronger you and business? Feel free to share your plans here in the comment section.
THANKS FOR ALLOWING ME TO HELP YOU IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS!
Brilliant Breakthroughs, Inc.
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Maggie Mongan, #1 Bestselling Author
Master Business Coach & Trainer for Small Businesses
Brilliant Breakthroughs, Inc.
Direct Dial: 262-716-7750
LinkedIn: MaggieMongan
p.s.: Create brilliant outcomes through making better decisions in real-time.
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