{"id":6359,"date":"2010-06-28T04:00:25","date_gmt":"2010-06-28T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhyatt.com\/2010\/06\/five-strategies-for-changing-bad-habits.html"},"modified":"2010-06-28T04:00:25","modified_gmt":"2010-06-28T09:00:25","slug":"five-strategies-for-changing-bad-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fullfocus.co\/five-strategies-for-changing-bad-habits\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Strategies for Building New Habits"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a confession to make. Until about eight years ago, I didn\u2019t floss. In fact, I hadn't been to the dentist in a decade. My last experience had been so negative, that I just kept finding excuses to procrastinate.<\/p>\n

\"Close<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of \u00a9iStockphoto.com\/apletfx<\/div>\n

Besides,<\/em> I thought, I brush my teeth twice a day and even gargle with mouth wash every night.<\/em> But that\u2019s not the same as flossing, as any dental hygienist will tell you.<\/p>\n

My wife Gail, on the other hand, has always been a flosser. Periodically, she would nag me about it. I would blow her off, and keep doing what I was doing, ignoring the obvious damage I was doing to my teeth.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Gail talked me into going to her dentist. I had simply run out of excuses and suspected she was right. The dentist examined my teeth and told me what I feared. I had gum disease. And, evidently, a pretty bad case.<\/p>\n

However, the dentist didn\u2019t shame me, which was huge. Instead, he said this was normal, given my lack of flossing. It could be easily remedied if I would commit to spending five minutes a day on it.<\/p>\n

Amazingly, I did. It took about a year and some heavy treatment on the front end. But now, I wouldn't think of going to bed without flossing, brushing with my Sonicare toothbrush, and rinsing with The Natural Dentist.<\/p>\n

From my experience in other areas of my life, I know that changing a habit is not easy. In fact, as Tony Schwartz has observed in The Way We Are Working Isn\u2019t Working<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n