4 months without a car

I will spend the next 4 months without a car. Come take this journey with me as I discover what my identity is without a luxury car.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Change your Behavior, Change your Life

I just finished the book Influencers. It was a great book that teaches you how to be an influencer in your life. How to make positive change occur. Now the book was one of those books that you don't just read through and put down. It was one that you read a chapter, take notes, go back to your notes and then reread - so I will not be doing it justice in today's post by any means.

What I do want to discuss today is a little nugget I took from it about behavior. The book states that if you want to change something (for example, your eating habits or work environment) first you have to make a behavior change. Behavior changes are those little things we do that can impact us in a big way. Here is an example - if you want to lose weight - a behavior change for you could be to immediately brush your teeth after a meal. This helps with snacking after you are already full. See - by adding the behavior to brush your teeth after you eat, you lower your risk of unnecessary calories therefore taking in less calories resulting in weight loss. I am not saying that is all it takes to lose weight, but it is a simple and effective behavior that will help.

I write about this today because as I was preparing to take my walk with the dogs this morning I had forgotten to bring a bag to pick up trash along the route the last several times I took the walk. It wasn't that I didn't care about helping make my neighborhood beautiful and trash free, it was that I just kept forgetting to bring a bag with me when I went. So today I used the nugget from the Influencer book and decided to make a behavior change. My behavior change was to keep a pile of bags for trash pickup next to the dogs leashes. Now, when I go to get their leashes I will now be reminded to grab a bag - therefore being able to pick up trash on the walk - resulting in less trash in the neighborhood. See how easy that is?

What is one behavior you could do to make a change for something you have in your heart to change? I would love to hear about it.

2 comments:

  1. I have had to develop a few 'habits' pre-travel to make sure I have the resources I need to exercise while traveling and that I don't forget any 'stuff'. So, I have created suitcase and briefcase 'checklists' to review on Saturday night to prepare my travel kit. So far, so good in the first few months. Now, I need the continuous improvement piece like what is a good set of earphones that are 'small'? My Bose headphones take up too much room in the briefcase!

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  2. Good stuff John. Thanks for sharing.

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