Your success is determined by your rituals. The little habits that you do every single day. Don’t believe me? Take an honest look at yourself and see why you do what you do. Do you tend to do the same/similar things day in and day out yet expect drastic change? Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same things over and over again yet expecting different results. We are all guilty of this at some point in our lives. The most important question is: ‘are we willing to change?’

If we want a better life, we need to do the things that the majority of people aren’t willing to do so that we may have a life the majority of people won’t have. If you adopt successful habits your chances of obtaining your goals are infinitely more likely than if you keep the same mundane routine you’ve got going on now.

When you wake up, do you have a moment of gratitude for one more day of life? Do you look at your partner/spouse and say “good morning,” or do you reach for your phone and check your email? How do you think that will impact the start of your day? Are you consistently getting outside and moving your body every single day? If so, you will create a strong, robust, and healthy body. Are you treating your body like the sacred temple it is and allowing quality food and drink in? If so, your energy levels are consistently through the roof and the term ‘disease’ rarely applies. Do you surround yourself with people, books, music, and ideas that push you to grow through what you go through and be the best version of yourself? Doing this makes your mind an impenetrable fortress of positivity. This is a prerequisite for success. Do you have fun surprises and complete presence with your spouse/partner? If so, then you have a relationship most people only dream of. Do you treat every day of the relationship as if it was the beginning? Do this and there will be no end. It isn’t time that destroys the “spark” at the beginning of a relationship, it’s the law of familiarity bringing us, if we’re not careful, to take the people and things in our life for granted, and making them feel like they’re no big deal. Passion, just like health, takes work and repetition to maintain. Can you see the pattern here? Once you decide to commit to the bettering of your life, the universe can’t help but get out of your way. Stop being a creature of circumstance and start becoming a creator of circumstance. You decide how your life will play out. Stop giving your power away to others and regain control.

Now for the fun part. How do you change bad habits and replace them with beneficial solutions? First of all, we have to understand that all habits have three parts to them. First, there’s the trigger. Second, there’s the habit itself, the routine that you go through. Finally, there’s the reward. The trigger is what you feel/are going through that makes you want to engage in the habit. The habit/routine is the behavior you want to change. Finally, there is the reward, which is how you feel/what you get after completing the routine.

STEP 1: Identify the Routine = What do you do?

STEP 2: Experiment with Rewards

You have a habit because you’re getting something beneficial from it whether you realize it or not. If you smoke, the reward is the way you feel as you smoke/after you smoke. If you eat too many cookies (is there such a thing?) your reward is the intense euphoria you feel with each and every bite. Believe me I knowJChange the routine and see what rewards you get. Have a banana instead of a cookie and see if you can get the same reward. Have the urge to smoke? Go for a run, play with your kids, meditate, etc and see if you can get the same satisfaction. Keep experimenting until you find something that gives you the same reward. The key here is to replace the habit with a better habit. Replacing smoking with nothing is a recipe for disaster. Replacing it with something that’s healthy, and gives you the same reward, makes the change quick and painless (because you’re not losing anything).

STEP 3: Identify the Trigger = what are you doing when the urge to engage in the habit occurs?

Once you discover that certain behaviors may be triggering your routine you can make meaningful change. Do you smoke whenever you get stressed out? If so, then implementing techniques to reduce stress will decrease the amount you smoke. Do you reach for that cookie because you’re hungry? Is your blood sugar too low? Or is it because you want to talk to your friends at the office and they tend to aggregate near the snack machine? If this is the case, your craving is for social stimulation, not sugar. It’s for connection; Talk with them someplace else.

STEP 4: Have A Plan = Now that you know why you do what you do, what are you going to do with this information?

If you know that every morning at 10:30am you go to the office vending machine because of low blood sugar, then you can plan for it and bring some fruit. If you know that getting worked up causes you to smoke, you can plan for it and catch yourself as you begin to get aggravated. You will be able to stop the escalation before the routine kicks in and change the habit. Is all of this simple? Yes. Is it easy? Hell no. However, having a plan or a structure in your mind similar to the one I’ve just laid out for you will increase the odds of you breaking the habit. You can’t change a habit if you don’t even recognize it. Always question the things you do, experiment through trial and error to find solutions, and see what works and what doesn’t work and be willing to change.

You have all of the strength you need within you. Realize that you can achieve anything you set your mind to. I know that sounds very cliché and you’ve heard it a million times. However, if you don’t believe it you will never achieve the life you truly desire. I challenge you: look at your life and find the things you want to change, write them down, as well as possible solutions, take massive action every day, and make the rest of your life the best of your life!