Build New Habits and Your Self-Esteem

Do you brush your teeth every day? How does that go for you? Do you have to think about it and give yourself a pep talk to get yourself into that bathroom and do it?

While you’re pondering these questions, let me throw in one more. Did you make any resolutions this past January? If so, how many of them have you kept? If you're like many of us you have made and repeatedly broke them. This really erodes your self-esteem. It's not keeping your word to yourself and that makes you feel bad about yourself. Perhaps, with the change of seasons, you’re thinking again about changes you’d like to make.

Now I hope you’re wondering what brushing your teeth and resolutions have in common. The short answer is that self-discipline does not work, change is hard and it’s possible, but self-discipline is not the route. Studies have shown that we are all born with a finite amount of self-discipline that does not change over the course of our lives, so there is just about nothing you can do to get more.

Let’s take a simple example of a business related New Year’s resolution. You resolved to grow your business by doing more follow up. Monday, January 4, 2010, rolled around and you made follow-up calls to five potential clients with whom you’ve had conversations. You did it again on the 5th and the 6th. On the 7th you got busy with a new project and you just made 3 calls. On the 8th you had a meeting that took up your entire morning and you just didn’t have the energy to pick up that phone. The weekend rolled around, then it’s Monday the 11th and you just had a ton of paperwork to get through. You didn’t give much thought to follow up calls. The calls got sporadic, you’re not really sure how many you did, and one more resolution and your self-esteem went down the drain.

Now how come you brush your teeth everyday without struggle, without really using any energy thinking about it, without becoming distracting from it? The reason is that brushing your teeth is a well-established ritual. No effort, no thought, you just do it. You were not born with a brushing you teeth as ritual gene. You developed it as a ritual. Given the benefit derived from brushing your teeth over your lifetime, the effort and time that it took to establish it as a ritual is minimal.

If you would like to make a change, focus on creating a ritual, and forget using self-discipline. Not to say that it starts off with no effort but if you focus on creating a ritual for a relatively short amount of time, it quickly becomes effortless and you’ve got a new ritual that is moving you towards your goal.

Building rituals requires defining very precise behavior and performing those behaviors at very specific times. It also helps to be clear on your motivation for the behavior. Most of us don’t brush our teeth when we think of it. Some people do it as soon as they get out of bed, other after breakfast, but whenever it is, the time is the same every day, and you are doing the same thing every time. Your Mom, or whoever got you doing it, was highly motivated by wanting you to be healthy (and maybe saving on those dental bills).

Back to your business. You decide that to grow your business you need to do follow-up calls. Don’t wait until the New Year, do it today. You will do five a day, at 9AM every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This is an unbreakable appointment that you put in my calendar. Now it’s an effort, you have to force yourself to keep that appointment sometimes, but you really want to grow your business, so you do it. It’s easier in next month and in couple of months it’s nearly effortless.

This applies to any change that you want to introduce into your life, and can be done at any time of the year. It works; however, it works best if you limit yourself to one or two at a time. So do it know, think of one or two rituals that you would like to introduce into your life and commit to regular time to practice them. Soon they will be as easy as brushing your teeth!