Whenever I think about fine-tuning my life and becoming the best at business coaching I could possibly be, I usually think about adding more and more good things. Get up earlier, exercising daily, sticking to a budget, etc… However, this week the entire business coaching team read the book Rich Habits by Thomas Corley and one of the habits that really stuck out to me and that is that successful people both add good habits to their lives but they also are intentional about getting rid of bad habits, an idea that seems obvious I have never thought about in this way. The way it was phrased and how we talked about it in our coaches meeting really made this concept click for me. I need to write out the list of areas I can improve on and fix it! It is absolutely just as important to get rid of bad habits as it is to add new good habits.
This process takes a little introspection and a lot of brutal honesty. At the end of the day, no one wants to focus on the parts of their day that they screwed up yet it is vital. There are two ways one could go about this process. The first one is laid out in the book. You simply make a list of all the bad habits you need to change and write out a plan of good habits to overcome the bad. You have to break it down to daily habits and specifics good daily habits would counteract. The other way was not listed in the book but based off something Clay said. One of our coaches said the next habit he was attacking was creating a regular workout schedule so that physical fitness was not forgotten. Clay responded, “Well something will have to go”. I was thinking about that all day. There are only so many hours in a day and to best optimize them you need to prioritize each and every hour because something is going to have to go. If I want to accomplish all my goals and still make sure to see my husband at the end of the day something in my life will have to go. So I made a list of things that would need to go.
Successful people both add good habits to their lives, but they also are intentional about getting rid of bad habits.
For example, my husband (who is also on the business coaching team) and I have been on, what feels like a perpetual house hunt, it’s always been a goal of mine but the intensity at which I want to reach that goal was just kicked up a notch. So in order to get a house, I need more time to search for houses online, tour the ones we like, budget out down payments and both make and set aside money for furniture and any needed renovations. With our full schedules it has been a challenge to find time, I realized something had to go, and that something was TV, not that we watch a lot of TV, just one short episode of a show each night, but that 45 mins a day gives me the extra time I need to research and budge and allows us to go tour homes on the weekend. To be successful you have to be able to identify your own personal strengths and weaknesses and take action.
