If you want to create lasting change to reach your goals, take a look at this short video by Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit and read on.

What habit do you want to change?

You’ve enjoyed the indulgences of Christmas and New Year celebrations and now you’ve resolved to ring the changes to move closer to your dreams. So what are your resolutions and how do you plan to make them happen?

Whether they are around health, fitness, family & friends, business or hobbies, the only way you are going to succeed with them is to make them part of your daily routine, replacing rituals that don’t serve your goals. Know why you want to make the changes, know what you want the end result to be and write them down! You would never start a journey without knowing your destination…

To improve your fitness then make sure the exercise is one you enjoy that you can fit in every day. The more you do it, the more you get out of it and the more effective you’ll be in the other areas of your life. Why not try something you’ve always thought looked interesting and do it for 10-15 minutes every morning?

To improve your knowledge you need to learn a little every day, so every day you get a bit better. Make time to learn from experts in their fields via webinars, YouTube, podcasts and read or listen to a book a week. Fit it into your daily routine, the commute is always a good time for this.

To improve on the roles you play in your life whether boss, parent, spouse, child. Define them, decide what’s important to be better at them. Make a daily, weekly and monthly plan to succeed in these roles. Make sure you put dedicated time in your routine to see and share experiences with the people who are important.

To improve in your business know what the end goal is – have the vision and make the plan of how you are going to get there. Goals for the year, for the quarter. Make planning a daily routine, a ritual, 15 minutes to wrap up every day and make a plan for the next day, prioritising the one or two things that will move you to your goals. At the end of the week, take an hour to make a plan for the week ahead. Last day of the month, take half a day to make a plan for the following month, half day every quarter and so on. Know what you need to do to reach your dreams and goals. Allocate the tasks, their time frame, figure out what you need to learn and get the actions done!

When I’m working with business owners I always look to help them to recognise their bad business habits and commit to replacing them with good habits to increase their knowledge, time leverage, effectiveness, influence, profitability and work life balance.

Making good habits your daily rituals will help the consistency of your performance and lead to success. It’s the magical power of compound…small improvements, consistently done, over a long period of time, will create big impacts.

There are some great books to get you started, why not get into the reading or listening habit and learn how to become the master of your habits? The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg); 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey); The Miracle Morning (Hal Elrod).

What old habits will you be replacing with good ones in 2018? Welcome your thoughts.