The Unusual Ways To Break Any Habit

Sow a thought; reap an action.
Sow an action; reap a habit.
Sow a habit; reap a character.
Sow a character; reap a destiny.

I like this quote. It shows up throughout history in a few different forms. Where does it come from? I don't know (and neither does anyone else, apparently). I don't care, to be honest.

Why do I like it? Because it carves a clear path from your thoughts to your destiny. It's no sure thing - it takes a lot of work to move down the chain. But that's a given. Destinies aren't prophecies - they're what happen when you rise to meet your potential.

And thoughts are simple, little things. You can control them. Again, this takes discipline. But something tells me you have plenty of that, when you want something enough.

I'm going to start in the obvious place: the middle. After all, the middle has leverage over the entire chain. Getting that right means getting your thoughts right. It opens up your character and destiny. So start with thoughts if you want (just don't run out of steam halfway). I'll stick to the profitable middle.

Habits. What can we say about them?

What are habits?

You can probably define habits. They're those things you've learned to do, to the point where they're automatic. You can certainly give examples. Turning on the TV when you get home, brushing your teeth, getting dressed in the morning...

(Thank goodness for habits. Without them, I think I'm more likely to show up to work naked than not.)

But what's a habit made of?

I like Charles Duhigg's model of a habit. He describes it as having three parts:

1) The Trigger - this is what activates your habit. It could be a time (like having a coffee each morning), place (like heading for the weights when you get to the gym), event (shaking a hand when someone offers theirs) or thought (raiding the fridge when you think of your ex).

2) The Behaviour - this is the action that follows the Trigger. It could be helpful or harmful, or neither.

3) The Reward - this is what you get out of the habit. The morning coffee offers a reliable energy hit. The weights at the gym provide a sense of control. The handshake promises a smooth (read: unembarrassing) social exchange. The fridge offers comfort and distraction.

How can you break a habit?

Duhigg's model offers an elegant approach. To change a habit, you could brute force it using willpower. Simply don't do the thing ever again for the rest of your life...

Yeah. Willpower fails for a reason.

You could also remove the Trigger from your life. If that's an option, go for it. But chances are it's not.

The easier approach is to keep the Trigger and Reward... but change the Behaviour.

Let's say you want to cut down on coffee, for example. The Trigger might be a specific time and the Reward is alertness. How else could you feel more refreshed? Maybe going for a walk or talking to a friend will do the trick.

Want to stop emptying the fridge? Then find a new way to stop thinking of your ex. What else will create the Reward of distraction without involving food? Maybe a good book?

How does hypnosis break a habit?

The above approach takes planning and discipline. It slowly rewrites the Trigger-Behaviour-Reward chain within the habit.

Hypnosis does the same thing, only faster and more thoroughly. It can diffuse the habit on all fronts.

Let's say that you drink to relax and it's starting to be a problem. Well, then the Trigger is stress, the Behaviour is drinking and the Reward is relaxation:

Hypnosis can easily provide healthier ways to relax. This takes care of the Reward. It also messes with the Trigger - if your own mind can relax you, when would you ever be tense? The hypnotist can then isolate the Behaviour from this sequence, so you no longer think that drinking is relaxing.

It's not always this simple. But it often is.

This is why hypnosis sometimes creates such quick and lasting changes. It warps the habit out of shape until it no longer fits in your mind. You can't run the same old patterns anymore. Instead of slowly replacing it with a new habit, it pulls it apart and leaves the pieces on the floor.

If this was all hypnosis could do, it would still be worthwhile. Breaking habits this quickly and easily is a superpower. Learn the psychology of your unconscious. Or, at least, find someone who has.

A great way to learn how your unconscious mind works is through self-hypnosis. I doubt anything is both this effective and this fun. Let your mind surprise you. It's wiser than you think.

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Break Your Bad Habits || TONY ROBBINS (MUST WATCH)

HOW TO BREAK THE BAD HABITS - Try it and You'll See The Results

What bad habit would you like to break? Would be great to know what habits you want to break or will work on breaking, please leave comments below :) and encourage others that may need the inspiration! :)

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg: Powerful Women Are Stopped By Internal Barriers

I just finished reading Sheryl Sandberg's new book, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead. It was so fascinating I could hardly put it down. Sandberg pulls back the curtain on life at the top for women in corporate America. And while she is rigorous about appreciating the many gains women have made, she is frank about data that shows how under-represented women are at the top of the corporate ladder.

Rather than blame, Sandberg takes an unflinching look at the ways that women continue to sabotage their own success by making choices based on their own fears and false beliefs. She shares the persistent feelings of self-doubt that she encountered in college and how she has continued to face down these doubts as she has seen them surface. She shares fascinating stories of other women executives who have faced doubt and a lack of self-confidence in the course of building their careers.

She offers a very honest look at the choices she made when her first child was born and she was an executive at Google. While she intended to take maternity leave when her son was born, her fears of losing influence caused her to work from home during her entire leave. By the time her second child was born, she was more secure and confident, and was able to take a full maternity leave without checking in with her office at all, and no negative consequences to her position.

While there a consistent emphasis on research studies and data to back up every assertion in the book, what I found most fascinating is Sandberg's willingness to share stories of women executives, her own as well as others, that demonstrate how often a women's main barrier to corporate success is her own belief system.

Our culture, beginning in our earliest childhood experiences, moulds women for care-taking roles and invisibility. Often successful women have become adept at "making it in a man's world" by developing masculine energy: the energy of competition, analysis, linear thinking, goal attainment, and left-brained perception of circumstances. The price paid is often a lack of development of feminine energies: creative, intuitive, collaborative and relational energies. This leads eventually to burn out and a lack of fulfillment. The "is that all there is" experience becomes pervasive.

I believe we are facing challenges in the world that reflect this imbalance. Technology has given us every advantage in terms of business development, but at the price of polluted air, fouled water, the breakdown of our global financial systems, burned out adults, troubled children, and broken homes.

As a culture we need to move more into balance now. I believe that women leaders have a key role to play in this transition. By honouring their own needs for achievement in the workplace and finding ways to bring the strength and creativity of their feminine energies into contemporary problem-solving, they will forge new pathways to greatness for themselves and the corporations for which they work.

With the help and support of their husbands (who have accessed their own feminine energies) they will raise children who have seen both masculine and feminine energies modelled in their mother and their father. These children will grow up to create a more balanced, harmonious world.

As new more balanced business structures evolve to meet the needs of the marketplace, culture itself will evolve. While this will surely take many generations, we as women can start right here, right now, to see the deeper truth of who we are and access our feminine energies. As we do so we break through the barriers of false beliefs that act as a glass ceiling to our ability to achieve our highest potential.

One decision at a time we can restore balance to our lives and take a stand for greater harmony in our world. It is time for us to own the power that comes from the realization of our true being and allow that power to inform our choices. I stand with Ms. Sandberg in calling on women to embrace their heart's desires, go for their dreams, and consistently Lean In.

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How to Become the Person You've Always Wanted to Be