Inspiration - Changing your habits

Inspiration – Changing your habits?

By Nikki Viljoen of N Viljoen Consulting (Pty) Ltd

It is said (am I am not sure who the author is, but it’s not me) that if you “change your habits you will change your life”.

I went on a T Harv Eker’s MMI (Millionaire Mind Intensive) seminar in March of 2014  and WOW, did I get a mind F&^$ or what!

It’s no secret that I challenge myself on a regular basis.  It’s no secret that I like to be challenged and have my mind stretched, and OMG was my mind stretched.  Not only was it stretched, it was buckled and bent and turned upside down, but in such a positive great way!

Turns out that all my life I have been “thinking” things wrong.  Now I am sure that I am not the only person who has gone through life like this.  Not that we are necessarily doing things wrong, but that we’re thinking things wrong!

Let me try and explain -  at the beginning of the 3 day seminar we were asked to write down whether we agreed with or not, a number of statements, all around how we think about money.  Now let me be clear on this, it wasn’t just a few statements, if memory serves me correctly there were around 80 or so of these statements.

Fast track to the end of the seminar, after many “Ah Ha” moments (as Oprah Winfrey calls them), we were given the instruction to go through another similar exercise to see if our answers and therefore out mindsets had changed in any way.

I diligently started going through the statements and logged my answers.  At around ¾ of the way through the exercise, I started getting the ‘déjà vu’ feeling that these were exactly the same statements that we had previously done. I went back to the beginning of the work book and wasn’t too surprised when I saw that the statements were, in fact the same.  What did surprise me however was that my answers were completely different.  What had changed was my mindset and it had actually changed without me being aware of the changes.

The challenge now of course is how to keep the momentum of what that mindset change has uncovered.  It’s about “how” you stop doing something the way you have always done it.

Well in the first instance, you have to make a decision to make the change and then you have to change the habit.

How do you change a habit?  Well how did you get into the habit in the first place? By consciously doing something repetitively until you did it without thinking.  So for me it’s about firstly being aware of what I am doing at all times and as I find myself performing the old habit, to stop immediately and then straight away perform the new habit!  A word of caution here – don’t beat yourself up when you find yourself performing the “old” habit – rather give yourself recognition for the fact that you have noticed that you were doing the wrong thing and “kudo’s” for changing it to the ‘new’ habit!

You see you need to understand and recognize the fact that that habit took time to establish itself and that no matter how greatly you desire instant gratification, the reality is that you are not going to change your habit overnight.

Understanding that and encouraging yourself in a positive way will be far more helpful than beating yourself up for occasionally slipping up.

Has my habit changed?  I’m pleased to say, Yes it has!  Do I still slip up – of course I do, I am after all human.

Has my life changed – absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt and all for the better.

So as your mindset changes, so too must your habits and as your habits change to accommodate your new mindset, so too your life will change.

You still have to take that first step though and that is to change your mindset and the next course then, is to change your habit – your life will then change all by itself!

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or http://www.viljoenconsulting.co.za