Thinking about your resolutions for 2018? What new habits do you want to develop? Alternatively, what do you wish you could stop doing?
How do you create a game plan and keep those resolutions? My usual strategy: Write down a list of resolutions and hope that willpower will do the trick. I’m often able to make a good effort until late January, when the wheels fall off the bus.
What’s a better way to make a new behavior stick? Try a disciplined strategy to convert a new practice into second nature.
FACET is Humanergy’s 5-step tool that enables the discipline-challenged.
Focus: Choose one thing you want to change; keep it simple.
Accountability: Make your change a team effort; tell people of your plans develop a plan and get regular feedback.
Compelling motivation: Understand and create the pain of the status quo and/or the benefits of improving.
Easier to do: Proactively eliminate barriers and set up for action.
Tracking: Monitor your actions and progress.
Consider Jack’s example. Jack asked his employees for feedback on his performance. They consistently responded, “You interrupt us when we talk with you.” Here’s how Jack used FACET to break this habit.
Focus: Jack added a reminder to his phone whenever he had a meeting – “Listen first, don’t interrupt.”
Accountability: He told everyone about his behavior goal and asked all his employees to give him feedback on interrupting.
Consequences: Jack took $40 in dimes from his savings account. Each time he interrupted an employee, he paid that person a dime. When he went a week without giving away a single dime, he rewarded himself with a round of golf.
Easier to do: Dimes were convenient to carry and count, and his co-workers were consistently around to hold him accountable.
Tracking: Jack counted his remaining dimes daily to track progress.
Setting and reaching goals requires a combination of the right targets, motivation, willpower and discipline. Here’s to the very best you in 2018!
Have a tried-and-true process for creating new habits? Message us or comment below.
Photo from Pexels