To often we bully ourselves to get things done or to do things that need to get done.
Let me know in the comments if you’ve ever created a crazy to do list in the past month and got less than half done.
You are setting yourself up for failure.
You must strive, yes, but not wear yourself out, no. Heavy doses of stress will destroy your health.
You do good work. Your productive and get things done, only to look at your list and wonder why you didn’t get more done.
You can alway get more done.
The thing is that you’ve got to be sensible about habits.
Define your habit, understand why you want to build it, and what would be the best way to go about doing it.
Essential Habit Building
You’ve got to hack your habits, so they are more likely to stick.
Not just picking a habit to add to your life, but a habit that will make you happier and healthier. Or more productive and more focused. Or patient and smarter.
You can’t just pick a habit like eating healthy and just see what sticks.
The smartest people, who have strong self discipline, know that they have to create a habit that meets their needs on multiple levels.
Essential habit building is vital to actually adding habits that help you vs adding habits because it sounds good.
You probably have 5 habits that you would like to improve.
My 5 habits I would like to improve:
- Daily meditation.
- Stop work earlier to relax at night.
- Practice Yoga for longer periods of time.
- Be more present when I play with my kids.
- Be a better listener.
Focus On One Habit at a Time
If I try to do them all at once I’ll fail. It’s just too hard. So instead I focus on the most important one to me right now and create a 1, 3 or 6 month plan. If I can improve 4 of my habits each year then that’s a great year. Some habits like drinking more water in the morning don’t require 6 months of practice.
It was easy for me to fill up a glass of water first thing in the morning and drink it.
You have to ask yourself:
What is most important to you?
Then decide to turn this into a habit. I suggest scheduling it. You can make a game out of it too. I want to bring more calm and deeper breathing into my life, so I schedule meditation every single day. If I don’t do it in the morning then I do it at night, after the kids go to bed, and before I watch my favorite shows.
I wake up thinking about about meditation. And now it’s become a part of my life that if I don’t do I miss it. When you miss something you know it’s become a habit.
If you can build a habit that will improve your career and your health you will have a strong motivation to make sure it sticks with you. Now go and try it out.
