When thinking about your life goals, they may seem overwhelming or even impossible to achieve. But achieving any dream, no matter how lofty, begins with forming good habits. Over time, they will become lasting life changes that bring you closer to your goals.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be difficult to establish these habits. To help you, we asked the members of Forbes Coaches Council to share their favorite “hacks” for forming new good habits. Their best answers are below.
Forbes Coaches Council share ways to form good habits that last.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.1. Be Accountable
One of the best habits you can form for goal achievement is accountability. That means holding yourself accountable and including others. Who are your trusted advisors and how you can involve them? Schedule regular check-ins and ask to be held accountable on a regular basis. Your goals will be achieved more regularly when you master accountability. - Dr. Teresa Ray, PCC, Dr. Teresa Ray
2. Keep Inching Forward
Forming new habits is intentionally creating changes to disrupt ourselves and as we can expect, changes are tough. One of my previous superiors taught me to keep moving every day and it's one great hack. Make one change. If you can manage a big one, what about a small one? If you can move a meter, do that and if not, how about an inch? If that’s too much of a change, how about a millimeter? - Chuen Chuen Yeo, ACESENCE
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3. Be Mindful With Your Time
Set each day and each week with a mindful intention. Decide how you will spend your time to achieve not only what's important to get done, but also to accomplish what matters most to you. Post daily reminders and motivational quotes for yourself where you can see them throughout the day to help maintain the purposefulness and intent you set for yourself and to form good new habits that are sustainable. - Jacqueline Ashley, WorkLifeHealth.design
4. Create Bite-Sized Goals
Scale down goals into bite-size habits that are easy to do. Set a two-minute rule where you take a habit and scale it down to a two-minute investment. For example, go to the gym every day becomes prepare my gym bag. The real goal is not simply to get your clothes ready, but establishing this habit first gives you something to build on and may even get you to the gym more often. - Palena Neale, Ph.D, unabridged
5. Repeat The Same New Action For 30 Days
Take one new action every 30 days and repeat until it becomes second nature. A busy professional can get caught up with shiny object syndrome or a new book recommendation. All it takes is one new action and repeating it for 30 days before you take another new action. - Sameer Khan, Inspiring Insights LLC
6. Get Enough Sleep
Become a champion sleeper. Without great rest, it's hard to be a great performer. Dr. Michael Breus wrote several books on this subject that helped me when I wasn't sleeping well. Get your hormones and cortisol checked. These two things will help you do everything better and when your hormones are on, habits are easier. - Mike Koenigs, The Superpower Accelerator
7. Focus On The Now
Improve your thinking. Reinvention starts in the mind and you will not be able to reinvent yourself if you get stuck in the old thought patterns. Surely you already have some good ways of thinking, but you can certainly improve some aspects to support your journey to the new you. Think of the new you in a positive emotional picture now and that way you will make sure that you are on the right track. - Cristian Hofmann, Empowering Executives | SUPERGROUP LTD
8. Identify What Is Getting In The Way
Ask yourself, "What needs to happen for me to take the first step toward experiencing a positive and lasting impact?" Interrupt the pattern of habit or the conditioned reactive response. Become aware of your belief system and bring the whole decision-making process into the present state of the conscious realm. Start with one habit, master it and then move on to the next. - Lori Harris, Harris Whitesell Consulting
9. Visualize A New Habit
Visualize yourself performing the habit. How does this habit act out? What would you be doing, thinking and feeling? When does this habit come into play or with whom? Invest a few minutes in playing the scene(s) out in your mind. Make sure the scene is clear so that you are consciously seeing its manifestation. You're ready when you are confident you've got it programmed into your consciousness. - Lin Tan, Collective Change Institute Pte Ltd
10. Schedule Your Calendar
The best hack for a busy professional is to engineer success through deliberate calendar scheduling. The old adage "time is money" is true and every hour needs to have a purpose. Set goals for the week ahead and block out time to take care of your health and all business requirements to reach your goals. Get disciplined while allowing for personal time to be blocked, too. Try this for two weeks. - Dana Manciagli, Job Search Master Class
11. Track Your Progress
When the doctor told me I had high blood pressure, I made some changes to my diet and lifestyle. I thought all was going well until my check-up showed little change. So I bought a blood pressure meter and measured it every day. It took many weeks to drop to my target goal, but I did it! Whatever your goal is, find an app and track your progress. Don't stop until you get there. - Gabriella Goddard, Brainsparker Leadership Academy
12. Stack Your Habits
Connect the new behavior to an existing habit, such as part of a morning, nighttime, driving or exercise routine. For example, if you want to learn a little bit of a new language, engage in the app lessons while brushing your teeth each day. Over time, the behavior is anchored and you can even effectively modify the time and place of the new habit. - Holly R. Pendleton, HCL Technologies
13. Build A Routine Around Your New Habit
When you're busy, you're used to working on autopilot and as a result, you're not thinking about what you're doing, you're just doing it. To form a new good habit, you'll need to create an uncompromising routine around it. Over time you won't have to think about the new habit you're trying to form, it will naturally become a part of your daily life and routine. - Carol Parker Walsh, Carol Parker Walsh Consulting, LLC
14. Consider Your Energy Levels
When integrating a new habit, look at its effect on your energy levels rather than the effect it has on your time schedule. When starting new and untrained actions, they will always feel somehow awkward and inefficient in the beginning. Make sure to stick to it and expect a time-delayed, but exponential payoff, especially when it comes to your health. - Ruben Crawford, Empowertale Ltd
15. Be Honest With Yourself
Be honest with yourself. Is this goal anchored in becoming the person you long to be or is this something you feel you should do because it's time to lose weight, save money or start a blog? Spend time getting at the deepest "why" of what you want. It's harder to lose weight to fit into a favorite pair of jeans than to do it to live long enough to welcome your first grandchild. - Lisa Schmidt, Worksphere
