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[thrive_text_block color=”light” headline=”Chapter Summary”]This chapter is all about habits – the specific daily activities – that you’ll need to develop if you want to be the best husband you can be. We’ll talk about bad habits to cut out of your life and good habits to replace them with.[/thrive_text_block]
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Part 2:
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This is it. We’re finally into the last part of the course.
In these last seven chapters, we’re going to move past the theory and start talking about specific steps to master husbandly leadership. If your marriage is on the rocks, if your wife is separated, even if you’re headed for divorce, this is also where you’ll learn the best actions you can take to maximize your chances of getting her back.
First, let’s get a couple things straight:
Being a Good Husband isn’t a Checklist; It’s a Lifestyle
As you read through these next chapters, I’ll be giving you a specific list of actions – a checklist, if you will – of things you need to do to be a good husband.
However!
Before we dive in, I want to make it clear that ticking off a checklist doesn’t make you a good husband. It’s not that easy.
- Being a good husband and leading your marriage requires a change of mindset.
- Being a good husband is a lifestyle.
- Loving and genuine husbandhood is something that you live and breathe.
That being said, there are some habits you need to fix, and that’s what this chapter is all about.
This Chapter is Meant to Be a Roadmap, Not a Measuring Stick
What do I mean by that?
Some of you are going to start reading through these lists of optimal habits and say to yourself, “Wow, I’m doing a lot of the bad habits and not very many of the good ones… I must be a bad husband.”
That’s not what this chapter is about. The purpose of this chapter isn’t for you to measure yourself as a husband or man.
This chapter isn’t saying that you’re a bad husband if you have any of the bad habits in your life right now. Nor is it saying that the only way to be a good husband is if you have all of the good habits in your life right now.
Instead, this chapter is about making your job as a husband as easy to accomplish as possible.
In Chapter 4, we talked about understanding the enemy. One of the things we didn’t mention there is that your own habits can either be your worst enemy or your greatest ally. This chapter helps you identify which habits will work against you and make it harder to lead your marriage, and which habits will work for you and make it easier to be a true husband.
In other words, this chapter is meant to make it as easy as possible for you to have the marriage of your dreams. It’s meant to be a roadmap that guides you back to a happy marriage. Because making change is much easier when you know the change that must be made.
When the bad habits listed below are in your life, my own experience and the experiences of men I’ve worked with have shown me that a happy marriage is harder to achieve and maintain. On the other hand, when the good habits listed here are in your life, the exact opposite is true… It becomes easier to be a good husband because you’re doing all the things that good husbands do.
So, with all that being said, let’s start with the bad habits:
Bad Habits to Stop
Each of the habits listed in this section have the power to prevent you from being the man of your wife’s dreams. Over time, each of these habits will fuel the distance growing between you and your wife and make it harder to be the kind of husband you want to be.
Bad Habit 1. Seriously, Quit Looking at Porn
This habit might not be one you expected to see at the top of the bad habit list, but I’ve gotta say it…
Statistics say that 3 out of 4 men reading this look at porn at least once a month. This is a huge problem, because porn has the power to single-handedly ruin your marriage.
Did you know that excessive porn use is cited as a primary cause in 56% of divorce cases in the US?
That makes looking at porn the most common reason for divorce besides “irreconcilable differences”.
Let me ask you this:
Is looking at porn worth losing your wife?
Even without the moral implications of porn, science tells us that when you look at porn, you become less attracted to your wife both physiologically and psychologically. In other words, after looking at porn, you see your wife as physically less attractive AND less enjoyable to be around.
This is why studies have shown that men who look at porn have lower overall contentment with their partner.
Need more convincing?
Did you know that porn is addictive? Yep, it’s extremely addictive. Scientists have found that porn creates neurological dependencies inside your brain in the exact same way as heroin and cocaine. Brain scans of heroin and crack addicts look nearly identical to long-time regular porn users.
If you want to read more about the science behind porn addiction, I’ve written an in-depth post about it that goes into more detail.
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Recommended Reading: Porn Addiction Symptoms – How Porn Morphs Your Brain
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You’ll learn all about dopamine, Delta FosB and supernormal stimuli, plus a step-by-step walkthrough of the addiction process.
Still not swayed? How about this:
Looking at porn makes real-life sex less enjoyable. You actually get less enjoyment out of sex after looking at porn.
Did you know that regular porn-use is one of the most common causes of erectile dysfunction? In fact, many young 20-something guys quit looking at porn for this exact reason. Normally, erectile dysfunction is something that should only happen in older men, and yet it’s become extremely common for even college-aged guys to develop ED.
Honestly, these are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to porn statistics. It doesn’t take much research at all to see that porn has extremely negative effects on individuals and on society itself. That’s a subject for another course, but for right now, know this:
[thrive_text_block color=”blue” headline=””]Looking at porn makes your marriage worse. Looking at porn makes your marriage less enjoyable. Looking at porn simultaneously makes your wife less attractive to you and makes you less attractive to her. If you continue to look at porn, it will become an escape and cause you to de-prioritize husbandly leadership. [/thrive_text_block]
If that’s not enough to make you want to stop looking at porn, then I’m not really sure how you made it through 14 chapters.
One final thing before we move onto the next habit…
If you do look at porn and you want to stop, expect it to be a challenge. I actually wrote a 12-week porn withdrawal walkthrough to help you set accurate expectations. Very few men can quit cold turkey. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, but the important thing is that you’re committed to stopping. That’s the change that needs to happen right now.
Bad Habit 2. Stop Escape Mechanisms
In that blue box up there, we emphasized that looking at porn is an escape that will make it easy for you to ignore your current situation. This actually brings us to another important habit that we need to address…
Escape mechanisms.
Many of you reading this are in an extremely difficult time of your life right now.
You’re facing challenges that you’ve never faced before. You’re probably coping with pain and emotional chaos that you’ve never dealt with before.
In times like this, it’s easy to seek an escape. Many men before you have turned to alcohol, or work, or drugs, or porn or video games, all as ways to escape from the reality of their crumbling marriage. I’ve had men email me who got into heroin and morphine as a way to deal with the stress caused by their wife leaving.
You MUST be strong. You MUST face reality.
When life gives you lemons, don’t try to make lemonade. Don’t try to make bad circumstances into something they’re not. Eat your lemons. Savor the taste. Endure the discomfort. It’s only for a season; better times will come. And you’ll be stronger for your sacrifice and endurance.
Running from your marriage won’t get your wife back. Fleeing from the pain that you’re feeling right now won’t make it go away.
You need to stand up straight, think clearly, face facts and implement change. To do each of those things, you need to be rooted in real-life.
What does that mean?
It means you need to be mentally and emotionally present in every moment.
Lots of men in your situation try to escape. Like I said, they may turn to alcohol, drugs and other vices as a way to not think about their marriage.
Your escape might be more mundane… Maybe you escape to Facebook. Or to porn, like we discussed above. Or even to your job.
When I was younger, I had a bad habit of escaping into video games. When I was really stressed, I’d immerse myself in a game for hours at a time, just so I wouldn’t have to think about reality.
This is a bad habit. Whatever your escape mechanism is, keep it under control. I’m not saying you can’t have an escape of some sort… In fact, I encourage you to stay busy. But avoid activities that numb your mind. What this means for each guy reading this will be different, but here are a few starting points:
- No drugs and minimal alcohol (I highly recommend no alcohol)
- No more than 15 minutes a day on Facebook, Twitter or whatever your preferred social network may be.
- No porn.
- No more than two optional late nights at work per week. (in other words, nights where you choose to work late of your own accord)
- No more than two hours per day of video games or TV (although getting down to one hour is better)
Instead, if you need activities to fill your time, go out and try new things. Go socialize. Write in your journal. Read a book. Do anything that stimulates your mind.
Honestly, I personally recommend deactivating Facebook (and all other social networks) until your life has settled down again. It’s not worth the distraction, and you’ll be tempted to use it to spy on your wife. Social networks are just one more thing to worry about that you don’t need on your plate right now. You don’t need to worry about why she changed her status from ‘Married’ to ‘It’s complicated’.
That brings us to…
Bad Habit 3. Limit Screen Time
Recommended: One “No Screens Day” per week (not including work)
The most common escape method isn’t alcohol or drugs; it’s TV and Facebook.
It’s so, so easy to pour hours of your time into a screen.
Did you know that there’s a scientific explanation for why looking at a screen sucks you in? It’s because staring at moving objects and lights on a screen triggers the same focused vision reflex that cats use when stalking their prey.
No matter how little time you think you spend on the computer or watching TV, I recommend taking a “no screens day” at least once per week after you’re done working through this course. For one full day every week, don’t allow yourself to do anything on a screen outside of work.
Instead, make yourself live in the moment.
- Live your life
- Read a book
- Think
- Go for a walk
- Write in your journal (more on this below)
- Remember who you are and what you care about
You’ll get a better feel for what I mean by that last point after you’ve done a few of these “no screen days”.
The first couple days you do this will be really, really hard. You’ll think, “Why am I doing this?” Tough it out. Make it through the day. Then the next. And before you know it, you’ll start looking forward to these days without screens!
I’m willing to bet that after you take a few of these “no screen days”, you’ll have a much clearer picture of your marriage and what needs to happen for you to live up to your potential as a husbandly leader.
Bad Habit 4. Stop Procrastinating
Do you have a bad habit of procrastinating hard stuff?
I know I do. Procrastination is one of my worst habits, and every time I think I’ve beat it, it seems to come right back again.
For me, I tend to procrastinate boring and time-consuming tasks. For example, I drove around with expired license plates for a full month last year because I couldn’t bear the thought of going to the DMV.
For you, maybe you tend to procrastinate family matters, or difficult conversations with your wife.
The best way to beat procrastination is to put a higher value on your own time.
Procrastination makes things take longer than they should. When you procrastinate doing something, you’re actually losing time… Ironic, since we often tell ourselves that we procrastinate because we don’t have ENOUGH time.
To be a good husband, you must be the master of your time.
Your time is one of the few things that is totally under your control… If you can’t muster the effort to manage your own time effectively, how can you expect your wife to trust you to manage hers?
After all, even if you’re not directly managing your wife’s time, being married means that your wife is giving you her life. She’s not just giving you some of her time; she’s giving you all of it.
This is why procrastination is such a huge turnoff. Your wife hates seeing you procrastinate because it shows her you lack discipline. Conversely, she loves seeing you knock out those tasks that she knows you don’t want to do because it builds trust.
A leader does things he doesn’t want to do without hesitation for the greater good of the people he serves.
Whatever you tend to procrastinate – whether it’s mundane stuff, money stuff or marriage stuff – now is the time to make a change.
Which brings us to our next bad habit… This is something we talked about in previous chapters, but I’m saying it again here.
Bad Habit 5. Get Over Your Fear of Confrontation
[pullquote align=”normal”]We’ve already mentioned bad habits #5 and #6 earlier. I’m including them again here for two reasons:
- This chapter is all about taking action, so I want to make sure you don’t forget the actions I told you to take earlier in the course.
- I want to re-state their importance, especially for you as the husbandly leader.
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Confrontation is a natural part of marriage. Even in the healthiest, happiest marriages, there will be confrontation.
The difference between a healthy marriage and a broken one is that in the healthy marriage, both spouses have clear expectations for how conflicts are resolved.
As the husband, it’s your job to set those expectations by leading in times of confrontation.
Yes, I know it’s challenging, but you have to continue being a good and open-minded leader even when you and your wife disagree. In fact, it’s especially in those times that your leadership cannot waver.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I hate confrontation. I’m bad at it. Most men are. But if you care about your marriage, you’ll get over that fear and learn how to communicate with your wife.
Again, we’ve already talked extensively about communication, and that’s not what this is about. This is about recognizing that your fear of confrontation is under your control. It’s a bad habit that you need to change; no one else can change it for you.
Bad Habit 6. No More Negative Attitude
You know that saying, “Misery loves company”?
Well, it’s a saying for a reason. When you’re miserable inside your marriage, you’ll naturally want to project that negativity outwards. In fact, for some of you, I’m willing to bet you can see this truth being proven in your wife right now. If she’s miserable, she’s probably going to make you miserable too.
It’s extremely easy to be pessimistic when your marriage is on a downward path. When nothing is going the way you want it to, when you’re not getting the results you want, it’s so easy to be cynical and negative.
You cannot present yourself that way to your wife. She can’t see you as a man who has given up.
A negative attitude can be expressed in many forms. When you’re desperate to save your marriage, your negative attitude might look like…
- Anger or frustration
- Begging or desperation
- Constant sarcasm or cynicism
- Hopelessness
- Depression
- Lack of motivation
Again, I’m not saying you can’t be emotional in front of your wife. In a healthy marriage, husband and wife should share everything in both success and failure. But, if it feels like your marriage is teetering on a knife’s edge, then that negative attitude could be what pushes it out of your control.
We’ll talk more about having a positive attitude below, but for now, this one is a pretty easy habit to self-diagnose. For me, negativity always looks like cynical sarcasm. Anytime I find myself being constantly sarcastic, I have to consciously decide to adjust my attitude. If you ever find yourself doing any of the things listed above, take conscious action to fix your negative attitude.
Good Habits to Start
There are certain traits that all good husbandly leaders have in common. That’s what this section is about… It’s about making sure that you have the tools necessary to live up to your full potential inside your marriage.
Many of the good habits you’re about to read will mirror the bad habits listed above. This first good habit is a perfect example… If you’re not going to be negative, what should you be instead?
Good Habit 1. Be Unbreakably Positive & Optimistic
Positive thinking has become a bit of a cliché in recent years. If someone I met on the street told me that they believe in the power of positive thinking, I’d assume they meant something like The Secret… You know, stuff like, “Project positive thoughts and the universe will give you everything you want!”
That’s NOT the type of positive thinking and optimism I’m talking about here. This isn’t the law of attraction… This is pure practical advice. The reason that you must be optimistic is simply because it’ll make you a better husband.
There are three big reasons why:
- Positive thinking is contagious. In the same way that negativity has a tendency to rub off on the people around you, so does optimism. If you want your wife to think positively about the marriage, you need to lead the way.
- Positive thinking will keep you motivated. It will keep your focus on the big picture, and it will make all the little setbacks along the way seem less important. It’ll make you selfless.
- Positive thinking will teach you to master your own mind. It’s not always easy to think positively, especially when times are tough. It takes discipline to think positively in these situations, and that discipline will carry over into the rest of your life.
- Positive thinking will allow you to love more deeply. When you think positively about your wife and the marriage, it should come as no surprise that you enjoy those things more.
So, put a priority on positive thinking.
Think positively about yourself. Think positively about your wife; don’t allow yourself to complain or think of insults in the back of your mind. In all that you do, be grateful for what you have. Trust me, there are lots of people in the world who have a lot less than you do.
Positive thinking is especially important if you need to get your wife back. In every interaction she has with you, make it your top priority to stay positive, encouraging, optimistic and confident, even if the things that she’s saying are negative.
Do not allow yourself to give in to negativity!
Your wife needs to see you as a constant positive influence. She needs to see you as an unbreakable force of optimism. She needs to see that stable, peaceful happiness and contentment is waiting for her inside her marriage… She just has to come back and enjoy it.
Good Habit 2. Be Encouraging
What’s the difference between encouragement and optimism?
Optimism is a state of mind.
Glass half-full… All that good stuff. Basically, when you’re optimistic, you see the best in every situation. You don’t pay attention to the negative stuff because you know that simply by highlighting the positive stuff through your thoughts, words and actions, you’ll naturally make the negative stuff feel less important.
Encouragement is a symptom of optimism.
You can only be encouraging when you have an optimistic mindset. You have to be happy and confident in yourself in order to extend encouragement out to others.
But what does encouragement actually mean?
Let’s look at the dictionary definition:
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- Give support, confidence or hope to someone.
- Give support and advice to someone so that they will do or continue to do something.
- Help or stimulate an activity, state or view to develop.
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For our purposes, we’re looking primarily at that first definition. As the leader, it’s your job to give support, confidence and hope to your wife and family, no matter what state your marriage is in right now. Not only do you personally need to be optimistic, you need to constantly seek opportunities to share that optimism with the people you love. And that’s called encouragement.
Encouragement doesn’t have to be complicated. And, you can still be encouraging even if you and your wife are separated. In fact, you SHOULD be encouraging in times like this. When your wife tells you about her new apartment or her new job or how much fun she’s been having reconnecting with her old friends, your response should be, “That’s awesome, honey, I’m glad to hear things are working out for you. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help!”
I know this is challenging.
I know that your natural instinct will be to object to anything your wife does that takes her further away from the marriage. But as we’ve said over and over again since the start of this course, no amount of objections will get your wife to stay in the marriage.
Your wife must trust that you truly value her happiness above your own.
To prove that, you need to be encouraging no matter what. This is why you have to encourage your wife in everything she does, even if she’s separated. Unless she’s having an affair. Obviously you don’t need to encourage that, but we’ll talk plenty about how to handle an affair in Chapter 18, so don’t worry about that right now.
Good Habit 3. Be Chivalrous
This habit is pretty straightforward. Be chivalrous. Be a gentleman. Not just to your wife, but to everyone.
- Be the guy that helps the old lady carry groceries to her car.
- Be the guy that offers to shovel your neighbor’s driveway for free.
- Be the guy that jumps forward to open the door for your wife.
Look for opportunities to show kindness to the people around you.
The only caution here is that chivalry can be double-edged sword.
How?
How can chivalry work against you?
If you’ve never been the chivalrous type before and suddenly, now that your wife wants out of the marriage, you start going around opening doors for her and being a perfect gentleman… Guess what? She’s going to know something’s up. She may perceive your chivalry as desperation, or as being rooted in an ulterior motive.
If this is you – if your wife has already said she wants out and you suspect that over-the-top chivalry will come off as desperate – then don’t be chivalrous to your wife. Or at least, not at first…
Start by being a gentleman to the people around you; show your wife that this is you being you; not you trying to win her back. When your wife sees you being chivalrous to other people first, she won’t be nearly as suspicious when you start being chivalrous to her.
Does that make sense?
If she asks why you’re suddenly being such a gentleman, simply tell her that you’re trying to be more aware of other people’s needs. You don’t need to offer any more explanation than that.
Good Habit 4. Journal Every Day for One Month
We briefly mentioned this good habit all the way back in Chapter 9, but I’m mentioning it again here just to make sure you didn’t forget about it.
Here’s the truth – almost all of the most successful people in the world keep a journal. I believe that journaling is an extremely powerful habit for three reasons:
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Writing is the best way to practice communication.
Think about what you have to do when you’re writing… You have to think of an idea you want to write, you have to articulate it into a sentence, then you put it on paper.
This is almost exactly the same process that you use when you think before you speak (see page 110), and it’s also why most great writers also make great public speakers.
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Journaling allows you to have an honest conversation with yourself. It’s perhaps the most powerful tool for self-evaluation and goal-setting, because journaling allows you to take a step back and see the big picture. It lets you remind yourself what your goals are and why you’re pursuing them.
For me, journaling is how I think through tough decisions. I sit down and write out my thoughts. This is effectively like having an honest conversation with myself. It’s actually very refreshing!
Journaling allows you to look in the proverbial mirror and honestly reflect on your progress as a leader. What things are you doing well? What things do you need to continue improving?
Keeping a daily journal will allow you to simultaneously encourage yourself and identify areas of improvement on a consistent basis.
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You know that you need to be constantly optimistic, right? That’s something we already talked about.
And yet, you will face failure. You will face frustrations. If you try to bottle them up, then eventually you’ll explode.
Journaling allows you to vent all the frustrations – both with yourself and with your marriage – that you would never say to your wife. You can be brutally honest in your journal. Put the truth in your journal. Be yourself and let it all out.
I can remember a couple times in my own relationship where my wife and I got into a huge fight, and so I wrote her a letter in my journal. In these letters, I expressed every frustration I felt with my wife and with our relationship. I put everything on paper.
… Then I closed my journal and instantly felt better.
Why?
Because after writing these pseudo-letters, I was able to see the big picture and realize that my frustrations weren’t worth fighting over. Without my journal, these fights would have only escalated because I wouldn’t have been able to let go of my frustrations.
Many times when you’re frustrated, all you need to do is get it off your chest. It doesn’t actually matter whether you say it to the person you’re frustrated with; you just need to say it to someone… Even if that someone is yourself on paper.
I’m willing to bet that if you take 30 minutes to write a long letter to your wife (that you’ll never actually give her) venting your feelings about the marriage, you’ll feel much better afterwards, like a huge weight has been lifted off your chest.
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Even if you don’t do the letter, though… Even if you only journal for five minutes a day… Start journaling. Journal every day for a month. Commit to it; make it happen. Trust me, it will help.
Good Habit 5. Be Disciplined & Work Hard
Good leaders do the opposite of procrastinate – they work hard, right now, every day. They have the discipline to consistently do the things they don’t want to do. Nobody said being a leader would be easy. It’s not.
Whether you’re a stay-at-home dad or the primary breadwinner for your family, you need to be a workhorse. You need to take on more than your fair share of responsibilities at work, at home and in the marriage.
For some of you, I’m preaching to the choir. You’re already a really hard worker and your wife could never realistically think anything differently. Keep up the good work; just make sure that your work ethic carries over into the marriage too… I’ve seen a lot of guys who work extremely hard at their jobs, only to come home and neglect their wife and family. Make sure this isn’t you – put the same amount of effort and energy into your home life as you do your work life, if not more!
For others, myself included, we have a bad habit of procrastination that needs to be replaced with a strong, disciplined work ethic. There is no easy answer here; you just need to work harder and do more. Make sure you are using your time efficiently.
This habit is vital because laziness is a turnoff. Your wife NEEDS to perceive you as a hard worker in order to respect you as her leader. If she ever feels like she works harder than you do, you’re much more likely to run into problems.
To your wife, you’re work ethic is proof of priority – it’s how she knows what she’s worth to you. If you work hard for her and your family, she will feel highly valued. On the other hand, if you’re completely absent from domestic duties… If she only ever sees you sitting in front of the TV or computer even when there’s obvious work to be done… Then she will feel unloved, under-valued and frustrated. When you’re lazy, it makes her feel like you don’t really care about her needs.
Good Habit 6. Keep a Daily or Weekly To Do List
I don’t care who you are, where you work or what you do on a daily basis…
You need a To Do list.
I’ve never met a man who has so little on his plate that he doesn’t need a To Do list.
Some people choose to make a daily To Do list. At the start of every day, you write down everything you need to do for that day. Or, if you’re really organized, you do this at nighttime so that your task list is ready to use when you wake up in the morning.
Personally, I prefer the weekly To Do list. Every Sunday, I make a To Do list for the week ahead, grouped by who each task is for. Most weeks, my tasks are divided into 4 categories:
- Work Tasks – These are all my work-related tasks. If I have an abnormal amount of work tasks, I’ll create sub-groups for each client.
- Wife & Family Tasks – These are all the things that I need/want to do for my wife and kids each week. For example, if she’s asked me to go grocery shopping sometime during the week, then that goes under this category. If my daughter has a doctor’s appointment, that goes here too.
- Self Tasks – These are all the things I do purely for my own benefit each week. Put any self-improvement habits under this category. For me, this week’s To Do list has “Exercise 3x”, “Journal 5 mins. a day,” and “Read my Bible every day”.
- Other Tasks – This is anything else that I know I’ll need to do during the week. For example, if I need to mow the lawn or make a non-work-related phone call, that goes under “Other”
As the leader of your marriage, you cannot afford to waste time. You need to make the most of every minute… A simple To Do list makes that possible by (A) making it easy to keep track of all your responsibilities and (B) prevents you from wasting time trying to think of what you need to do next.
Important Things to Know About Habits
It Takes 21 Days to Create a Habit (sort of)
For a long time, psychologists and scientists all agreed that it takes approximately 21 days to build a new habit inside your brain.
Today, new research is showing that the old 21 days figure is better seen as a minimum, not a maximum. On average, new habits take approximately 66 days to feel automatic for most people.
But, there’s an important caveat here…
It is MUCH easier to replace a bad habit with a new good habit than it is to simply stop a bad habit.
In other words, if you need to quit looking at porn, it’ll be easier for you to replace looking at porn with going to the gym than it will be to simply quit looking at porn on its own.
Make sense? This is also why I tried to make the bad and good habits listed in this chapter mirror each other.
If after reading this chapter, you feel overwhelmed by the number of changes you need to make in your habits and your lifestyle, don’t be dismayed. Instead, pick one bad habit to get rid of and one good habit to replace it with. Make it your goal to consistently practice your new good habit for one month.
Then, next month you can start a new habit swap. In just a few months, all the bad habits in your life will be replaced with good ones!
For example, this month you might make it your goal to start journaling every day and to stop using Facebook as an escape mechanism. For the rest of the month, whenever you feel like hopping on Facebook, spend 10 minutes journaling instead. This forces you to keep your habits at the front of your mind throughout each day. By the end of the month, you won’t even have to think about it anymore… They’ll become a natural part of your lifestyle.
Want a more in-depth resource about forming new habits? Check out this article on Sparring Mind or this one by James Clear. Want even more? Read The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (not an affiliate link).
Habits Don’t Have to Be Perfect
Remember, your goal is NOT to be a perfect husband…
You don’t have to perfectly execute each of these habits every single day of your life to be a good husbandly leader. And, the habits listed in this chapter aren’t the only good and bad habits you’ll ever have to worry about… They’re just a starting point. You can draw more inspiration for your own habits from the visualization exercises we did in Chapter 7.
Remember the Leadership Cycle that we talked about so much at the beginning of this course?
Yeah, well, forgiveness is an important part of that cycle. As long as you’re becoming a better husbandly leader overall, you don’t have to get bogged down every time you make a mistake.
Does that make sense?
Setting yourself on a trajectory towards perfect husbandly leadership is more important than actually being a perfect husbandly leader.
Your marriage will be a lifelong quest towards becoming the best husband you can be. I’m not a perfect husband or a perfect leader, but I know what a perfect husbandly leader looks like and I know why leadership is important. Because of that, I have confidence in my ability to lead my marriage and to become a better and better husband and partner to my wife over time.
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As a husbandly leader, you need to be in control of yourself. Having good habits allows you to minimize the obstacles between you and a happy marriage.
These are some prime examples of bad habits to eliminate:
- Quit looking at porn
- Stop escape mechanisms
- Avoid too much screen-time
- Stop procrastinating
- Get over your fear of confrontation
- No more negative attitude
These are some great habits to integrate into your lifestyle:
- Be constantly positive and optimistic in thoughts, words and actions
- Be encouraging to the people around you
- Be chivalrous
- Start journaling
- Keep a daily or weekly To Do list
- Develop discipline
Start by swapping one bad habit for a good habit for one month. Lather, rinse, repeat.
[thrive_link color=’blue’ link=’https://inside.husbandhelphaven.com/chapter-15-forgiveness/’ target=’_self’ size=’big’ align=’aligncenter’]Go to Chapter 15. Forgiveness[/thrive_link]
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