What was the last time that you did something that you know you shouldn’t have been doing, but you still did it anyway?
If you are a human being, then you probably did this thing recently and the crazy thing is that there’s a good chance that you didn’t even realize that you were doing it until you were done. Or maybe you kind of feel like it just kind of happened.
Destroy your bad habits
What you’re going to learn in this article is how to completely destroy your bad habits and replace them with ones that have the potential to make you a millionaire or allow you to succeed in pretty much any area of your life.
First thing that you have to understand is how habits actually forms.
A habit is nothing more than a behavior that you do and the habit forms when you do something so many times, so often that you begin to do it without even thinking about it.
Confess bad habits
And guys I have something to confess to you.
For the past 2 years, I have been under the control of a bad habit myself. This habit involves driving every single day to the local coffee shop to buy a caramel frappe.
This habit, started with just going every week or so and then every few days and then every other day and now I pretty much go to the coffee stand every single day.
The reason why this is a bad habit is that it cost me about $3,000 per year, which when you think about it is an extremely large amount of money to be paying for a daily drink.
But it just feels so right when I’m drinking it and you probably feel the same exact way about your bad habits.
Develop good habits
The most successful and wealthiest men in the world don’t have some secret that nobody on the planet has ever heard of, instead, they have simply developed habits that got them too where they are over time.
A famous quote once said:
we are what we repeatedly do
So if all that you do is eat then you’re probably overweight and all that you do is repeatedly spend money then you’re probably broke.
Whether you realize it or not, right now your entire life is being controlled by your habits.
Our brains are designed to get the most done with the least amount of energy. And the brain does this by causing us to form automated habits for the things that we do every single day.
But habits are actually really simple to understand, so destroying your bad ones and replacing them with new ones is actually pretty easy.
But you have to know what you are doing. So what you have to understand is that all bad habits usually have a really strong reward component, which is why we do it.
For example, the reward for my frappe habit consists of two things, which are fat and sugar and pretty much all humans on the planet love fat and sugar.
So the moment the whipped cream and caramel syrup hit the taste buds I received my reward. And this reward is strong enough to make me want to do the habit again the next day and the next day and over and over and over again until the end of time.
Habits consist of 3 things
All habits consist of a cue, a routine, and a reward. The cue is like the trigger for the habit, the routine is the next step or what you actually do to get the reward. And the reward is obviously something that makes the brain feel good.
And what I found from personal experience is that the best way to destroy a bad habit is to simply remove the cue.
For example, when I first purchased my Porsche I found that I would costly neglect my work just to go out and drive it.
And the queue or trigger that caused me to do this, other than the fact that the Porsche is a 600 horsepower freak. Was simply looking out the window and seeing it sitting there looking back up at me.
So the easiest way for me to remove the cue was simply close the blinds because if I couldn’t see it then the habit of driving it wouldn’t be triggered.
This was a really bad habit for me I might have gone a step further and just had someone take my keys from me when I left the house. So that I literally couldn’t drive it, even if I wanted to.
Destroy habit with this
The most effective way to destroy bad habit for me has always been to remove the cue or trigger. And when combined with a little bit of willpower this strategy can be extremely effective.
Smart triggers
Big companies have always been very smart when it comes to knowing about triggers and peoples bad habits. Which is why they have an entire section of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups right in front of your face at the checkout stands in pretty much every grocery store in America, these guys really know me too well.
Create good habits
Now that you know the most effective way to eliminate bad habits. The real question is how do you create new better ones that will move you closer to achieving your goals.
The answer is simple but it’s actually doing it that’s the hardest part. Everything that you do every second of the day is gradually forming into a habit and like learning, habits are formed out of repetition.
There’s a good reason why you shower every morning without even thinking about it. The more than we do something, the more that it becomes a habit over time.
For example, you want to make $1000000 within a few years, all you have to do is plan it out and create a few daily habits that move you closer to that goal every single day.
The same exact strategy works for improving your social skills or anything else that you want to accomplish.
If you want to take it a step further simply give yourself a small reward after every single time that you complete your habit.
But the number one key to destroying bad habits are forming new ones, is consistency.
You must try to stick to it every single day and the longer that you’re able to stick to it, the stronger the habit will become.
This process is extremely effective and with every day that passes by where you don’t do a bad habit the weaker and weaker, it becomes over time until you no longer have the habit at all.
A famous quote once said:
if we are what we repeatedly do excellence then is not an act but a habit
Conclusion
Becoming a millionaire or anything else that you want to become in life is accomplished with a handful of daily habits that all move you closer to your goal and this is true for mastering anything in life.
