Habits – direct way to success

Habits are fine tools to accelerate your way to success. Also, getting a habit is easy, if it’s done using some important principles.

Visualize that we want to take exercise every morning. At the beginning we feel giant enthusiasm, so, we easily wake up and start taking exercise by power of our will. We have great results for several days or a couple of weeks. Later the enthusiasm vanishes. After it happens we start to lie for ourselves: “I’ll sleep today a bit longer, because I will need all my strength today. I will take double exercise tomorrow”. Finally, determination is gone and nothing is changed.

Now, let’s look to other example – many of us are so habituated to brush our teeth just before going to bed, that we can do it without any efforts despite of huge fatigue. It’s the difference between “doing everyday” and a habit. This article is about the power of habits and their development.

How to develop a habit
Below is a list of things, which are necessary to acquire habits.

  1. Write down advantages of having concrete habit. Have that list nearby. It allows to get a burst of motivation. Also, if the habit doesn’t have advantages why to bother developing it?
  2. Before starting a habit, decide what reward you are going to get if you succeed. The reward should be additional motivation for doing things. The reward cannot be directly connected with the habit. For example, a habit to wake up every day at the same hour. A reward – having more time is a wrong one. It’s not the reward, but a result of having developed the habit. It makes us think about it as a natural thing and natural things don’t motivate us.
  3. Specific time. It can be time, place or any other factor, which is specific. The most important part is that factor would happen only once throughout the day. For example, getting out of bed, 18:00 (specific time), dinner, having a bath and so on.
  4. Proceed at least for 30 days. Psychological literature states that biologically humans need 21 day to acquire a habit. Well, for me it’s too short period, that’s why I offer 30 days, which is mostly recommended in popular blogs of personal development.
  5. If you want to have a habit which occurs 3-6 times a week, than I suggest to make it everyday habit. It’s hard to do something every two or three days, because there isn’t permanence. But if you choose the right trigger, like the end or beginning of workday, than everything will work just fine.
  6. If you failed even for one day, you must start from 0. If you want to develop a habit, you must do it every time a trigger occurs without any breaks for 30 days.
  7. Temporality. A mind that we must do something every day for all our life takes away our motivation. For example, it’s hard to start getting up early everyday if you think, that it’s the way it is going to be for your whole life. A solution is very simple – have a habit for only 30 days. Later look at the results, if you like them than decide to proceed with it again for 30 days. After that you can evaluate results again and so on. Also, the longer you proceed with the habit, the harder it will be to break it. So, I doubt that staying with the habit for 90 days, you will want to stop.

It’s just 7 simples steps – everything is simple and effective. Don’t know where to start? Well, the next paragraph contains some ideas, how to use this weapon to change your life to the better side.

Habit examples

  1. Read for an hour every day;
  2. Quit smoking, drinking coffee, eat junk food or drop other addictions;
  3. Start taking exercise;
  4. Complete one task every day. Later you can use this habit for rare tasks. For example, writing blog entries twice a week. It’s an infrequent habit, that’s why it’s hard to develop. But using one task habit, you can assign to write an entry for any day of week. So, every time it can be a different day.
  5. Talk to stranger every day;
  6. Stop watching TV. If you are afraid of not seeing something important, than you can record them. If after 30 days you think that you’ve lost something, than you will have an opportunity to catch up.
  7. Write an article or a book chapter;
  8. Wake up every morning at the same hour;
  9. Learn 3 new words everyday;
  10. Stop reading forums;
  11. Massage your partner every evening;
  12. Write a diary entry;
  13. Make 20 sale calls.

How to retain habits
Let’s imagine, that we have a habit of taking exercise every day. It’s hard to retain habits on a vacation or business trip. Often we don’t have time or facilities. It’s nothing to worry about. After getting back to familiar environment, you’ll still have the habit. Knowing this fact makes clear why drug-addicts is suggested to change environment. New environment means new habits. Also, habits can be effective in several places at once. For example, I spend 3 days in one city and 4 in the other, but it hasn’t any impact on my habits. They are valid on both environments. You must develop a habit on every different environment.

The longer you retain a habit, the easier to stay with it. Image that you take exercise for 23 days. It’s hard to stop now, when you know how much is already done and that a reward is so near.

Conclusion
You can break your head to a stone, but drop by drop slashes the stone. It’s the same with habits – after developing them they always pull you to success.

Think up or choose from the list, what are you going to do every day, pick up the time, write down advantages, decide about a reward and start developing!

October 11, 2009 · Povilas Panavas · No Comments
Tags: , ,  · Posted in: Personal Development

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