Don't Break the Chain. How the 'Seinfeld Strategy' Can Help You Stop Procrastinating. Reader Resource Join Entrepreneur's The Goal Standard Challenge and make 2017 yours. Learn more » Jerry Seinfeld is one of the most successful comedians of all-time. He is regarded as one of the "Top 100 Comedians of All-Time" by Comedy Central. He was also the co-creator and co-writer of Seinfeld, the long-running sitcom which has received numerous awards and was claimed to have the "Top TV Episode of All-Time" as rated by TV Guide.
Seinfeld reached his peak in earnings when he made $267 million dollars in 1998. By almost any measure of wealth, popularity, and critical acclaim, Jerry Seinfeld is among the most successful comedians, writers, and actors of his generation. However, what is most impressive about Seinfeld's career isn't the awards, the earnings, or the special moments -- it's the remarkable consistency of it all. Compare his results to where you and I often find ourselves. What's the difference? Related: Forget Setting Goals. The "Seinfeld Strategy" How to Stop Procrastinating. 5 Triggers That Make New Habits Stick. In his best-selling book, The Power of Habit (audiobook), author Charles Duhigg explains a simple three-step process that all habits follow.
This cycle, known as The Habit Loop, says that each habit consists of… The Trigger: the event that starts the habit.The Routine: the behavior that you perform, the habit itself.The Reward: the benefit that is associated with the behavior. The image below shows how these three factors work together to build new habits. [1] Each phase of the loop is important for building new habits, but today I’d like to discuss the first factor: habit triggers. There are five primary ways that a new habit can be triggered. If you understand each of them, then you can select the right one for the particular habit that you are working on.
Here’s what you need to know about each trigger… Trigger 1: Time Time is perhaps the most common way to trigger a new habit. There are also less commonly recognized ways that time triggers our behavior. Trigger 2: Location. Six Things You Should Stop Doing Immediately. Get Out of Your Head and Start Something. Okay, quiet time… Time for work… Working shall commence now… One hour later… This is what happens at least thirty times a day. I’ll begin to focus on work and then immediately my internal dialogue will get in the way. The more I have to do, the more unhelpful it seems to be. For many, our inner dialogue goes beyond just being disruptive. If you ever made your toys talk as a child or spoke to yourself aloud as you completed a task, that was you developing internal speech. Internal speech gives us psychological autonomy—our ability to self-regulate.
The more difficult a task the more we utilize our internal speech to navigate it. Internal speech is dictated by two areas of the brain. The problem is not that we have internal speech but rather it’s the kind of internal speech our mind chooses to engage in. When our inner dialogue turns disruptive and unhelpful, this is called a cognitive distortion. All or Nothing This kind of thinking happens when we see something as black and white. Healthy Ways to Navigate Negative Thoughts. I’ll never be able to do that. Nothing ever works. I can’t do anything. No one cares. Everything is terrible. These are examples of the negative thoughts that can bombard us on a regular basis, according to Tamar Chansky, Ph.D, a clinical psychologist who helps children, teens and adults overcome anxiety.
Negative thoughts are “automatic thoughts in response to uncertainty, anxiety, disappointment or other challenges.” We often interpret our negative thoughts as cold, hard facts. Yet they’re not. “[Negative thoughts] say more about [how] the brain is wired than about our particular situation.” That’s because our brain naturally tends toward negative thinking. Negative thoughts can sink our mood and perpetuate a sense of helplessness and hopelessness, she said. Consequently, the first step in navigating negative thoughts is to realize that they’re not accurate assessments of a situation. The second step is to pay attention to your thoughts. Name your source. Pinpoint the problem.