Breaking Bad Habits All at Once

Image of a broken chain with the blog post title: Breaking Bad Habits All At Once

Break bad habits all at once. It flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which says you break bad habits one at a time. Is all-at-once a better way?

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September is the new January. So we discuss habits – good and bad – on The BIGG Success Show. Here’s a summary of that discussion…

We all can capitalize on this opportunity to give our goals a fall reboot. Toward that end – on a recent show, we talked about 360-degree goal-setting.

In this show, we shift our focus to habits. We were inspired by an excellent post about breaking bad habits by one of our favorite authors, Darius Foroux. We pick some highlights here. It’s well worth your time to read the whole post.

What is a bad habit?

Darius says you can judge habits by their returns. Ask:

Does the habit yield positive or negative returns?

What do they return? Good habits pay off with good health, better relationships, personal growth, and prosperity. In a bigger sense, they yield fulfillment, freedom, inner peace.

Bad habits return the opposite. Poor health. Lousy relationships. No personal growth. Money woes.

How do you break bad habits?

Conventional advice says you should focus on one habit at a time. Darius says that doesn’t work. Instead, he suggests:

You have to break all your bad habits all at once!

The two of us must confess we can be all-or-nothing people. For example, we naturally eat healthier when we exercise. So intuitively, we find this “all at once” approach appealing.

Some bad habits go together. For these habits, an all-at-once strategy seems appropriate. In other cases, the bad habits are not related. Or the real bad habit is masked by a symptom. In these cases, focusing on one at a time may yield better results. For example, if you’re not saving enough – it pays to focus first on lowering costs, then on increasing income.

It also seems the level of difficulty may suggest whether to approach your bad habits with an all-at-once or one-at-a-time mindset. For example, it’s hard to quit smoking. Break that bad habit. Then move on.

The point is – when striving to break bad habits, you have options. If it works for you, it works! If at first you don’t succeed, try something else.


This Podcast Episode is Sponsored by: FinancialFreedomTool.com

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How do you develop good habits?

So, thanks to Darius’ observation, we have more options to break bad habits. What about good habits? How do you develop them?

One at a time.

However, you aren’t a one-dimensional creature. Live holistically. Focus on developing one good habit in each of the three facets of life: personal, professional, and financial.

Free 360-Degree Goal-Setting Cheat Sheet

We created this cheat sheet to help you form the habits that will bring you BIGG success. Our 1-page cheat sheet helps you set goals in all three facets of life: personal, professional, and financial. Get your 360-degree goal-setting cheat sheet now!

360 degree goal setting cheat sheet image

Here’s to your BIGG success!

George “The Professor” & Mary-Lynn
signatures: George & Mary-Lynn
Co-Founders, BIGG Success

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00991-091719.mp3