I hope your New Year is off to a good start. Regardless of where you are in terms of resolutions and new habits, I hope you enjoy January’s Belief Building.
Earlier this month, I read a newsletter called do5ive. Page Grossman, the author, questioned the need for New Year goals. She outlined what I thought was a very compassionate approach to 2023 resolutions.
Her goals are adjustable!
She intends reviewing them every month and making changes as she sees fit. I liked her quote “Your goals aren’t meant to fix you. You’re not broken”. Her advice is to focus on discovering who you are rather than fixing who you are.
If you do want to initiate some new behaviours that you want to be able to maintain, read on for advice from Steven Bartlett on how to ensure your new habits stick.
Best wishes for 2023!
Sinead
Steven Bartlett is a 30 year old entrepreneur. He was born in Botswana and moved to England when he was 2 years old.
He dropped out of university after just 1 lecture but has gone on to have many business interests, particularly in the field of technology and social media.
The podcast he created, “Diary of a CEO”, is one of Europe’s most listened to podcasts. He published a book ‘Happy Sexy Millionaire: Unexpected Truths about Fulfillment, Love, and Success’, in 2021.
It’s reported that he watched the BBC’s business investment TV programme, Dragon’s Den, from its first launch, when he was just 12 years old. When he was about 20, he tried unsuccessfully to be a contestant as he looked for investment for his own business. Now, he is one of the investors on the TV show, becoming the youngest ever Dragon in 2021.
There was a time when he was delighted after he found £13 in loose change as it allowed him to buy himself food when he was broke. His fortunes have changed dramatically in the last 10 years and his net worth is currently estimated at £300 million.
Steven continues to invest in people and projects that are at the cutting edge of digital progress and human advancement.
Steven Bartlett offered the following 5 insights about habit forming on the podcast “Diary of a CEO” earlier this month (podcast #208).
1.Stress/Sleep – it’s almost impossible to maintain new habits if we are stressed or not getting enough sleep. Steven advises not introducing an ambitious new habit unless we are managing our sleep and stress.
2.Cue – Many of our habits are things we do on autopilot. We have cues which induce us to behave a certain way. We associate certain places or environments with certain habits. James Clear, author of ‘Atomic Habits’ has advice which overlaps with Steven’s. They advise to do things like have your sports clothes laid out in your bedroom so that when you get up, you automatically put them on and then this acts as your cue to exercise.
3.Replace not remove – Steven tells an interesting story about how his father gave up smoking. Steven’s father always reached for his cigarettes as soon as he sat into his car. He only smoked in the car and kept his nicotine of choice in the pocket of his car door. He broke his smoking addiction by replacing the cigarettes with lollipops. When he got into the car and opened his usual box, he found the lollipops that he had put there himself the day before. So he sucked on a lollipop instead of a cigarette and never went back to smoking.
4.Have a big enough reason – This will motivate us to keep going, whether we are doing something for our health or our family or our future self. Steven mentions his own fitness here explaining that he used to get fit to look good on summer holidays and then return to his poor exercise and eating habits for the remainder of the year. Whereas now, he maintains better habits year round as his motivation is to live a long and healthy life which he believes is a bigger and better reason than his previous reasons which were purely based on image and vanity.
5.Willpower is not enough – Steven reports on studies which demonstrate that we have limited supplies of willpower. We need to keep our goals realistic and attainable to avoid getting exhausted. It might be more sustainable and successful to have a series of smaller incremental goals rather than go all out after a challenging objective.
Steven finished the podcast episode with a bonus suggestion. He describes the secret power of posing a question. For example asking yourself do you want to be able to run 5km? reminds us of who we are becoming and may help us stay on track with our habit when we are lacking in motivation.
“One person can change your life, that person is you”. Steven Bartlett
“Depending on what they are, our habits will either make us or break us. We become what we repeatedly do.” Sean Covey
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.” James Clear
Sinead Huskisson 