Four Habits for a Happier Winter

As we enter the winter months in the midst of the pandemic, the less hours of daylight and colder weather on top of social distancing and mask wearing could take a serious toll on your happiness and wellbeing. As a life coach helping my clients and social media followers reach their goals, I’m committed to providing as many resources as possible to help you cultivate more happiness and wellbeing in your life. Given the conditions we’re living in for these next few months I’d like to offer 5 habits for you to develop so you stay happy and well this winter.

I write a lot about the power of habits and why they are so important in your life. Researchers have found that on any given day 45-90% of our thoughts and actions are habitual, and these habits could be helping you be happy or could be hurting your levels of happiness and wellbeing. The key is to be intentional with building new habits in your life that help your wellbeing and happiness and over time break bad habits that hinder your progress and happiness. Here are my top 5 recommended habits to have in your life during these tough winter months.

One Habit to Supercharge Your Happiness

I’ve spent some time writing about the power of habits and the step-by-step process in going from an aspirational goal to behavior change that helps you reach your goals. Now I’d like to recommend one habit that will supercharge your happiness that only takes 5 minutes a day to do. That habit is Keep a Gratitude Journal.

By now you probably have heard of the concept of a gratitude journal. It is simply a record of the things that you’re thankful for, from people in your life, your health, clean water, soft sheets, and the like. It can be big things, like getting a promotion at work or the birth of a child, to tiny things, like your favorite mug. There are various methods on how to keep a gratitude journal, such as the idea to never repeat anything on your list so you mind is always searching for new things/people/experiences to be grateful for, or to always write down things that you’re grateful for that occurred in the past 24 hours.

From aspiration to tiny habit: The steps to get you to reach your goal

I’ve spent some time writing about the power of tiny habits and why they are so crucial to help you reach your goals. Now I’d like to outline a step-by-step framework for going from an aspirational goal to selecting and creating a tiny habit to help you reach your goal. These steps are from one of my favorite books on habit formation, Tiny Habits by Stanford University researcher BJ Fogg.

Fogg writes that the first step in creating a habit is to Clarify the Aspiration. For instance, if you have a goal to lose weight, first create a SMART goal by getting crystal clear on what you hope to achieve.

The 3 Step Method to Create a Habit

I have spent the last few blog posts making the case to take an inventory on your current habits and recognize the power habits have in determining whether or not you reach your goals. I’ve also shared my personal transformation with my health thanks to a series of habit changes I’ve made.

Now that I (hopefully) have convinced you that habits are a game changer to reaching your goals, I want to provide you a simple to understand 3-step formula for creating a new habit. I learned this formula from the book Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg and encourage you to read it if you want a deep dive into habit formation.

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What a Difference a Year Makes

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What a difference a year makes. I came across this April 2019 professional headshot and forgot how much different I look today. I’ve lost weight before, but I always ended up gaining it back.

In April 2019 I was the heaviest I had ever been, and while other areas of my life were going well, I knew I had to start a health journey and find a way to lose the weight and keep it off for good.

Why Tiny Habits Make All the Difference

In my last article I shared with you how to take an inventory on your habits and identify which ones were hurting you and which ones were helping you reach your goals. Self-awareness of our automatic behavior is the first step for getting back on the path to success, but the next step is just as important. You must now intentionally create new habits that will further your progress and help you reach your goals. Don’t worry about breaking the bad habits yet, just first work on creating new ones.

Are your habits helping you or hurting you?

Did you know that research by neurobiologists and psychologists, indicate that from 40 to 95 percent of human behavior (what we think, say, and do) falls into the habit category? "You are what you repeated do," as Aristotle said, so in order to really make change in your life and reach your goals, you gotta take stock of your habits and assess if they're working for you or against you.

A New Leadership Equation

Picture this: You're a promising entry-level employee who just was promoted and asked to lead your peers in a new project management assignment that would be guaranteed to challenge anyone - especially one new to the role. As an "accidental project manager," naturally, you're nervous, questioning whether you're ready to take on this new opportunity. You're desperate for guidance, but your Project Sponsor is the hands-off type who trusts you'll just get the job done and meet her expectations. You know you need someone in your corner, and some key leadership principles to guide you throughout the process. Google is great, but it's hard to know what's relevant, realistic and reliable. You are feeling lost on where to go next.

Top 5 Tips to Always Lead with Strengths

One of the three parts of The Equation, or formula to live your best life and reach your full potential, is to Lead with Strengths. With an understanding that Leadership = Conviction x Action and Strengths = Investment x Talent, Leading with Strengths can sometimes be easier said than done. Often times challenges (whether project-based or people-based) prevent us from utilizing our strengths or put our passions into motion. This can leave us frustrated and deflated. To prevent these feelings and put you in a positive direction on a straight and narrow path to reach your full potential, here are my top 5 tips for leading with strengths.

Building a Strengths-based Partnership

I recently had a great coaching session with a client, during which I introduced him to The Equation, my philosophy and approach to  reaching your full potential, and debriefed his CliftonStrengths report. Many insights were gleaned from that conversation, and one of them was that it would be very beneficial for his fiancee and business partner to take the CliftonStrengths assessment as well. With an understanding of her unique talents, my client could understand how to apply The Equation to that cherished relationship. After his fiancee took the assessment and sent me her finding we had a coaching call together and three key things became evident.