Can changing your habits really make you rich? Our recent guest on Passion and Purpose Radio Thomas Corley author of Rich Habits says" Yes." Tom is a Certified Public Accountant, Certified Financial Planner and Wealth Manager who has studied his wealthy clients and believes he struck gold by learning their habits.
Let's look at what constitutes a Habit. The dictionary defines a Habit as a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition. It further defines a habit as an established disposition of the mind or character.
Accepting the definition is just the beginning, now that we know that most habits are unconscious, How do we know we are doing it? How much of our daily life is spent in "unconscious patterns of behavior?" Can you remember everything you did yesterday? Or even today for that matter. Have you ever driven somewhere and once you arrived, you can't remember most of the drive? It's a frightening thing to think about.
So if much of our life is spent purely by habit, it might be a good idea to figure out which ones work to help improve our lives and which ones don't. According to Tom, the habits we learn when we are young stay with us, maybe even haunt us. So what do you do when a "habit" no longer serves you? One way to change it is to "reinvent" the habit says Tom. In coaching we call this re framing. This is done by taking a behavior, thought, or habit and create a new version of the habit that is more supportive or basically just do the opposite of the habit you want to change. For instance, if Sally has a smoking habit and wants to quit, she would need to "reinvent" her habit so she can be smoke free. Then she needs to follow her new habit with an affirmation. The affirmation sounds something like this... Today I choose to breath clean air, I only feed my body with things that will support a healthy lifestyle. Sally would need to repeat this affirmation and action daily for at least 21 days to create a new habit, which is the widely accepted time frame for making new habits stick.
Now that you get the process of how to "reinvent" a habit, you have the option to start with any aspect of your life. If you desire more money, then you must start with some new habits and reinvent old ones. Tom says that his wealthy clients seemed to have the same type of habits. Those being reinvention, goal setting, engaging in self improvement and exercise just to name a few. These wealthy habits have withstood the test of time and seem to yield results for his clients.
Wealth may be first on the list of many, however there are many aspects of life where we could use a little reinvention. What about your relationships? Your health? Your peace of mind? Where does one start? My suggestion would be to start with a list of the areas in your life you would like to "reinvent." One by one go down the list and rate each item on a scale of 1-10 of importance. One being not so important to change right now and 10 being very important. This will give you a starting place to reinvent areas of your life. Once you have your priorities, take one or two at a time and start with defining what the "opposite" is of the habit you want to change. Make a commitment to yourself to follow this new habit for at least 21 days and make sure you write it down and speak your affirmations daily. That's it, simple yet effective.
What's interesting is that when one area of your life changes, other areas follow. Good luck to you and as they say in the Hunger Games... May the odds be ever in you favor!
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