Breaking Your Habit Responses

Our habits, our automatic reactions to what we need to do each day are the creation point of the world we see around us.

Every action that we take has an outcome, whether that be instantaneous or built up over time.

Tightly interwoven, our actions equal our outcomes and subsequently create our world.

So what you see around you now physically, and the things that are going on in your life will be a direct result of previous actions.

Now yes, there are variables beyond our control of situations or occurrences created by others or nature taking it’s course bringing things to us that are way beyond our control.

And there is the word, control. Because while we definitely don’t have any control over the above happening, we can control our responses to what comes our way.

Our habitual response, automatic and instantaneous reactions that we have stored deep inside our minds neurons that guide how we react to what we see in front of us.

It is only when we create a true awareness of what is going on around us and note when our reaction state kicks in, that we can start to gain mastery over what we do next and how we react.

Alongside creating an awareness of when we are about to make a choice or react, there are two tools that we can bring in to play at this point.

One that ensures you are in the right mindset for the reaction, and then also the questioning required to pull apart your proposed response.

Here’s how:

Mindset

How we think about ourselves is like wearing a pair of tinted glasses when looking at something.

The visual we will see in front of us is influenced by this tint.

Simply put, If we are not feeling our best, or feeling low in confidence, and an opportunity comes along, we probably may not see that we could easily do it and say yes.

If on the other hand we are pumped and feeling good about ourselves , then the answer is more likely to be YES!

The same can be said for when we swing back and forwards in our moods throughout the day from a win in a meeting to a call with an unhappy family member or whatever the swings may be, they are there. And these then impact the actions that we take afterwards, be them good or bad.

Sounds obvious…..however how many of us just roll through their day or week without ensuring that they are in the correct mindset?

Or when something impacts us that we just carry on rather than stopping, shaking it off and refocussing.

In my earlier career as an NLP practitioner I had the pleasure of writing a training course for Traders in the city.

I was brought in specifically to help provide a toolkit for the Traders to be able to use as their ‘go to’ survival kit for when they needed to get their head back in to the game quickly after dealing with a big loss.

One of the main take aways was the ability to stop and zero back in to your ‘success state’ when needed.

So how can you do that?

To tap in to this try to think back to a time when you really nailed something, that job interview and then got the job, or when you passed that exam or secured funding.

How were you standing?

What can you see?

Think back to that time and really re imagine yourself there.

How were you holding your arms?

Your head?

How did you feel? Where did you feel?

The more you practice this the more you are able to tap in to it and bring this state up at the needed times.

Pre response questioning

So we have the choice to take an action, what questioning should we bring in to play to align our selves before reacting?

The initial question is linked to the above: ‘Am I in the best mindset to make the right reaction to this?’

Followed by:

Is my reaction an emotional instance one? Do I therefore need to wait to respond?

What would I like the outcome to be of this?

Is my reaction going to take me further towards this or away from?

Does this situation require a response at all?

Summary

Utilising the tools above will allow you to start to have a conscious awareness of the right reactions to make based on what is in front of you rather than habitual responses that may no longer serve you.

Consciously utilising these methods and as such taking logical and well thought of reactions, will give you the opportunity to build in habits that will in time alter the very path that you are on and the life you see around you.