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Hey my friend, we need to talk…
About your habits. About my habits. All our habits.
About the ways in which we sabotage our basic health, relationships, and abundance by simply NOT DOING THE THINGS. The simple things that we know will work for us.
Why is that?
Let’s take these topics of health, relationships and abundance in reverse order, and examine some resources that I think will really help you to create amazing, positive and even life-changing habits… quickly and easily.
First, let me come clean. I am no great habit queen.
I love variety. I love breaking rules. I hate feeling like my life is filled with the same things every day. Rinse, repeat, ugh. No thank you.
Some people love having elements of predictability every day. I don’t. I’ve always struggled with the ‘regular habits’ thing. Always. So in talking about this, I’m coaching myself as much as you.
I’m no super habit queen yet, but I have made a lot of progress. One of my strengths is that I love to look for hacks – ways to get the same result easier, faster, and with less effort. When I feel like I’ve hacked something, I’m more likely to be enthused about it. AND… if I can make it feel fun too, then my habits have a much better chance of sticking.
I’m aware of the importance of cornerstone habits too – like drinking more water, meditating to calm my nervous system, doing some deep breathing, moving my body every day, avoiding sugar and getting enough sleep. The basics are foundational. To everything. I see that now.
After years of struggle, and lots of positive transformation in my own life, I think I’ve got some good hacks to share with you about this stuff.
I now live in a body I love, my life is filled with amazing friendships, I have a wonderful loving life partner and I’ve achieved financial freedom. I’m so grateful for my life and all of my blessings.
If that’s not where you find yourself right now, read on. Because I want to help.
Abundance
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while then you’ll know that the bedrock of everything I talk about is BELIEFS.
It’s SUPER important to check in on your subconscious beliefs and make sure that they are in alignment with, and not contradictory to, your goals. I cannot stress enough how important this piece is.
Like, if your goal is to have a life of ease and abundance where you have the freedom to work a lot less and still have an amazing lifestyle… then a belief that “you have to work hard for your money” is going to be a sabotaging belief for that particular goal. You just won’t get to the goal if that belief remains in place.
The good news is, you can change that belief (and many other common sabotaging beliefs about money) quite easily. That’s the main thing I talk about in my book The Abundance Code – How to Bust the 7 Money Myths for a Rich Life Now.
But having beliefs that support, and do not thwart, your goals is only part of the story. You’re also going to need to establish some supportive HABITS to get you where you want to go.
(I talk about how to use the Golden Rule of Habit Change to your advantage to replace negative, unhelpful habits with positive ones… quickly and easily, in The Abundance Code).
The truth about creating abundance in your life, once you have your subconscious belief code on board and in alignment with your goals, is to do the little things that will boost your abundance. Every day. Over and over.
If you’re in sales, for example: make the connections, have the conversations, close the deals. If you’re working in a job: actively work on getting that next promotion or pay rise. Go through your credit card statement regularly to eliminate any automated payments on there for things you may not actually need. (Really work on paying off your credit card too. That’s not a good kind of debt.) And, once you get that under control, start directing some money into automated payments to a separate savings or retirement account. Even just a little bit to start with. It adds up.
Good financial habits make a difference.
Start investing your savings too, no matter who you are or what you do – put some money aside every week and invest it wisely. You don’t have to be wealthy to invest, but you do have to invest to be wealthy. Remember that.
Don’t try to be too tricky and clever with this either, because that’s not investing. That’s gambling. Boring is beautiful when it comes to investing, as my friend Ann Wilson says, who is the best-selling author of the book The Wealth Chef – Recipes to Make Your Money Work Hard, So You Don’t Have To.
Check that book out for loads of tips on the how-to’s of growing your wealth, bit by bit, step by step. You’ll find she talks a lot about wealth-creating habits and she demystifies the whole investing process.
Relationships
This is a big area of life where I personally have found positive habits to make a huge difference.
The way we move through the world – the way we interact with both loved ones and strangers – is somewhat a matter of habit. Your heart is a muscle. Kindness is a choice. Gentleness, a discipline.
A great resource on this topic is the book 1000+ Little Habits of Happy, Successful Relationships by Marc & Angel Chernoff. This book is packed full of actionable habits, stories and reflections to help you deepen and enrich all the relationships in your life.
When it comes to maintaining connections, if there are two, three or more people involved I find it just has to be scheduled in, or it won’t happen. Like sharing regular meals, games nights, and scheduled times that I do things with the people I love. Even via Zoom if we can’t be together in person.
I’m always amazed at how much I enjoy these get-togethers. The key, for me, is to keep it real simple and have it on a regular, recurring schedule. I don’t try to make complicated plans. Just simple stuff.
I have people that I regularly meet for coffee or brunch at the local weekend food markets. I have a crew that I sometimes meet up with to do yoga classes together. I have a couple of friends that I go on walks with. I host a morning tea of scones, jam and cream – usually once every month or so – at my house. I make a batch of scones, people will often bring some snacks too, and I put the kettle on to make tea. Simple and fun.
I have a friend who comes over every Saturday night for a meal. Sometimes I have the energy to plan and make a two or three course meal, and I love doing that. But sometimes we just have takeaway. Sometimes we invite others to join us, and sometimes it’s just us. Unless one of us is out of town, we do this every week. Without fail. I love what this consistency and commitment has done for our friendship.
Health
On this topic I’m going to refer you to my friend Oonagh Duncan who has written an amazing book on healthy habits called Healthy As F*ck – The Habits You Need to Get Lean, Stay Healthy and Kick Ass at Life.
(If you’re in the US, this book has been re-released by the publisher, Hay House, under the title Ditch the Diet… because it seems Americans don’t love this swearing trend as much as the rest of the world does.)
I was super skeptical about this book – I thought it would have nothing new to say because I’ve already read so many books on diet, fitness and exercise before. I was wrong. This book shook me up with a much needed dose of no BS straight talk.
I mean, I know what I should do. Eat healthier, and move my body more. To my utter shock, Oonagh called me out on that right away in her book. She basically says ‘Yeah, you totally know what you should be doing sister. Of course you do. So girlfriend… let’s talk about why the f*ck you’re not doing it, okay?’
Wow. I was not expecting that. It was so refreshing!
Oonagh totally pegged all my patterns, all my fave excuses, all the stories I tell myself so that I end up sabotaging the outcome and just NOT doing what I know is best for my body.
The ironic part is that I’m a mindset expert! And yet, Oonagh still called me out on a lot of my sabotaging beliefs and behaviors when it comes to my health and fitness. She broke it down for me in a way that is both funny (she swears like a trooper – I love it!) and insightful.
I finally feel that I have the guidebook I’ve been missing all this time to really get my health on track. Especially the “7 Keystone Habits of Highly Effective Motherf*ckers” that she shares in Chapter 5.
This book is hilarious, excellent, practical and right on target.
I hope you find some, or all, of these resources useful. All of the books I’ve mentioned are available on Amazon and other online book sellers.
To YOUR Abundance,
Julie Ann Cairns
