Five Rules of Successful Habit Formation for Coaches

You’ve decided to change your life, and David Munro Jones has written about successful habit formation. With your goal in mind, what steps can you take to ensure your success? It’s essential to adopt certain habits that will lead to achievement. The following guidelines will help you successfully form these habits.

First, remember that progress is difficult to achieve alone, and nothing will happen without commitment. As the saying goes, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and each step needs to be taken one at a time.

Success habits don’t just happen by accident. They are created by design. Creating a plan will increase your chances of successfully creating a new habit. Think of the plan as a road map. Include your starting point, the final goal and all the steps along the way. Don’t forget to note down potential obstacles and how you will overcome them (including who can support you).

Many people include a vision board in their planning. This is a great way to visualise your goal, and when placed somewhere that you will see it regularly, it can reinforce the goal you want to achieve.

It would be best if you were committed to your goal of creating a new habit. If you aren’t committed, your chances of succeeding in attaining it are reduced dramatically. How many people have made resolutions only to break them soon afterwards?

It is vital to believe that you will create your new habit and to be able to see yourself doing it. The journey is not the destination, but it is a movement!

One technique that some people use is to write down a positive statement that affirms you have created your new habit.

For example, if you want to be more effective at work (this would need to be broken down into chunks by asking what being more effective looks like and then prioritising the changes required), you may begin by stating, ‘Before I start my work, I make sure that I plan my day and make sure that I know which tasks are important for helping me to achieve my goal.’

Self-knowledge is crucial to creating new habits and eliminating old ones.

You need to understand your strengths and development areas. It is essential to know where you are right now, where you want to be and what needs to change.

By knowing yourself, you can create a growth mindset. This ensures that you understand that action is essential, as by acting, you make change, which leads to success.

One of the best ways to know yourself is to ask for feedback. You can also complete an assessment or profile. Having a holistic view of yourself gives you a much stronger foundation on which to build. 

Sidebar: Learning to receive feedback is a habit in itself!

Habits take 21 days to become routine, or thereabouts (the longer you do it, the more it becomes a habit. Sadly, this is true for bad habits, too!). This means that you need to ensure that you build time into every day to practice your new habit.

To ensure that you complete the full 21 days, you need to plan and identify any potential stumbling points that may cause you to want to skip a day. Knowing what might interfere with your daily habit practice ensures that you can put in place plans to overcome it.

A positive mindset and commitment are key. If you are committed to creating the new success habit and understand why it is important to your overall plans and goals, you will be more able to overcome stumbling points and ensure that you practice your new habit every day until it becomes a routine part of your daily life.

When you set out to create a new success habit, you have a plan for how you will achieve it and what your life will look like once that happens. Don’t forget to build in a reward. Make it something that you want and value. It doesn’t have to be big, but it does have to be important to you. I would also add that it must have a positive impact. By planning a reward when you have created your new habit, you will be more emotionally invested in creating the habit.

Write down your reward, get a picture, and put it somewhere where you will see it daily. This will reinforce your desire to succeed and strengthen your motivation to achieve your goal.

Using the five rules above, you will develop a positive attitude toward creating a new success habit. Don’t try to create too many new habits at once. Creating one new habit at a time is more straightforward and more realistic.

And finally, I want to remind you never to be afraid or embarrassed to ask for help and support. This could be a family member, friend, partner, coach, mentor, doctor, therapist, counsellor, psychotherapist, psychologist or spiritual adviser.

It does not matter who helps you as long as you get the results you seek.

Meet David Monro-Jones, reality specialist, coach, IAPC&M COO and Head of Accreditation.

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