The Bad Habit Destroyer

Goodfinancialcents.com

By Kevin Hunsperger
@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter

My friend Jeff Rose writes a very successful blog on finances.  He's been featured on national (and local) television and has recently written and published a book called "Soldier of Finance."  Last year, he started a grassroots movement to make people more aware of the importance of life insurance.  It was a project I had a little fun with while helping get the word out.  Now Jeff is helping people break their bad habits or at least create some good ones.  I read his post and watched his video on the Bad Habit Destroyer and thought this is something I needed to be a part of too.

Over the course of 21 days, I plan to develop better habits.  Call it an early look into my New Year's Resolutions.  If you haven't already clicked the link to Jeff's site that I posted in the opening paragraph, do that now.  You'll find a downloadable chart to keep track of your progress for the next three weeks.

An apple a day....

I have plenty of bad habits that I'd like to break, but there are also things I think I can do in my life to implement positive change.  So instead of saying I'm going to cut out sweets cold turkey, instead one of my goals over the next 21 days is to reintroduce more fresh produce into my diet.  I used to eat a lot more fruits and vegetables throughout the course of a day.  Lately, I've stopped.  October through the end of December is a bad time for me in terms of letting my sweet tooth take over my life.  I go from eating Halloween candy to the pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving (along with all the other delicious foods) to Christmas cookies throughout the month of December.

So the first goal in my 21 Days is going to be to get at least the five daily recommended servings of produce every day, including the weekends.  Right now, you should be getting between 5 and 13 servings of fruits and vegetables every day.  In addition to eating all that extra produce, I want to be more consistent with my exercise schedule.  I do 60 push ups each weekday morning before going to work.  I'm going to bump that up to 75, and carry it over into the weekends too.

Doing some DDP Yoga

I recently accomplished my goal of running 500 miles in 2013.  My new goal for running is completing a half marathon, which is happening in February.  I've got some work to do to train for that, but in addition to the running, I am going to focus more on doing DDP Yoga as well.  I've started it twice now, but as they say the third time is the charm.

I hope by getting this habit destroying program in place now, I'll be better adjusted for the changes I typically try to make in the New Year.  What habits do you want to change?  Let's work together and share our progress in three weeks.  Don't forget to download the score card on the Good Financial Cents website.  Good luck!