Success achieved in your life is purely based on your daily habits, may be good or bad. Good habits will lead you to the success, however, all bad habit will become an obstacle in your path. So, to achieve success in your field we have to simply copy the habits of those who are on the top. However, most of the time we tried to form a new good habit mostly a New Year resolution, but after few days we simply gave up doing. Right!
Most of you may have tried to follow a Healthy lifestyle by deciding to go to the gym but can't stick to the plan or tried to read books every day but ends of giving an excuse of not having enough time.
So, what is that one thing which we are missing? Why some of our friends manage successfully to form a good habit? Here is your answer; follow these steps one by one and you will easily learn to master any habit.
1. Decide a specific habit
Deciding your habit is an important step. To decide it first you can think about what is your life goal? To achieve this goal, which habit you need to form? List down all those habits. Now among all these, you have to select the only one which is most important to form right now.
I will suggest you focus on only one habit at a time. If you select more than one habit then it will become difficult to follow the schedule continuously as you may lose your motivation. According to James Clear, willpower is like a muscle it gets fatigues as you use it throughout the day. So, Follow the formula, one habit at a time. Once you decide that habit for you go to the next step.
2. Commit yourself for next 90 days
We are interested in forming a good habit for the rest of our life. But, how many days it requires to form a new habit? There is a common belief that it will take 21 days to form a habit, however, according to recent research results the duration may vary from person to person and habit to habit. It also depends on the reason why you want to form this habit? If a doctor warns you that you may die the earlier if you don't work out and follow a Healthy lifestyle or your colleagues or friends make fun of you in that case it takes less time period to form a habit.
According to research, the duration varies from 20 days to 265 days. Some say it requires 66 days on an average; so, I will recommend you to commit yourself to follow the schedule for the next 90 days or 3 months.
During this 3 months period, you should not give any excuse not to follow your schedule. Whether you like it or not or how hard it may feel, you will do it anyhow.
3. Take baby steps
The most common mistake we do is we expect too much from ourselves in the beginning. During the initial stage, we have to focus purely on forming a new habit only. Do not try to achieve something extraordinary.
For example, if you decide to form a habit of a meditation, then, in the beginning, do it only for 2 minutes per day or if you want to form a habit of reading then decide to read only one page per day. The idea is simple; keep it so easy that you don't need the motivation to do it. This will help you to put all your energy on building a habit.
Over the time your willpower and energy will go on increasing then you can increase the time period slowly but, I recommend you to follow your plan for the first 30 days.
4. Anchor your new habit into your daily schedule.
According to Judson Brewer, the habit-forming process can be explained in simple words as ‘Trigger-Behavior-Reward’. Till now we know what to be done for how many days and what will be the duration, now we will focus on triggering. We have to develop a trigger for our habit so that when we will complete our daily tasks, every time our trigger gets activated.
For example, when you feel hungry you will eat something, here hunger acts as a trigger or while riding a bike, if you see an obstacle in your path you will apply brake so, that obstacle is your trigger and over the time you have formed a habit of applying a break.
Similarly, you have to identify a trigger for your new habit. This trigger will be your existing habit so that, as you complete this task you will get an automatic reminder to go for our new habit.
For example, if you want to form a habit of meditation you can anchor it with bathing so, as soon as you take shower your mind will remind you to meditate are you can anchor a habit of exercise to brushing. As soon as you brush your teeth your mind will remind you to start exercise. During the 90 days period, we have to follow this so that it will become so automatic that after 90 days you will start feeling uncomfortable.
5. Overcoming obstacles
Sometimes it is possible that you can't stick to your plan due to some reason. We have to identify all these obstacles may come your way and prepare a plan to overcome them. We should try our best to follow a schedule but due to any reason if we can't follow, use this alternative solution.
Always remember, top performers may commit mistakes and get off track, however, what makes them different is they quickly get back on track as soon as possible.
6. Let others know about your goal.
Tell everybody that you are going to form this new habit over the coming 3 months. As soon as you socialize your goal your mind will not allow you not to follow the schedule, as everyone is watching you whether you have that willpower to continue it or not. This fear will help you to be on track.
Some of them will motivate you to follow your schedule. Some will help you just like, if your goal is to wake up early in the morning and your mom or spouse already have that habit of waking early in the morning, simply tell them about your goal then they will wake you up if you miss some day and help you to be on track.
7. Create positive affirmation.
Affirmations have the amazing power of creating a future as we desire. Always remember, What You Think Is What You Become so, we have to think positive and in line with our dreams. A simple way to think positive and creating our future is with the help of affirmations.
For example, if your target is to form a habit of doing exercise then create affirmation as ‘I like to do exercise everyday’ or for reading ‘I love reading every day’. Now repeat this affirmations number of times in a day so that it will reach to your subconscious mind and update the programming of your inner soul. Once you achieve this then you don't need to put any efforts in forming a new habit.
8. Use of visualization technique.
A supplementary tool used for reprogramming the subconscious mind is visualizing yourself doing the things which you want. Suppose you want to form a habit of writing, then before going to bed, you should visualize yourself sitting on your table writing a book. Same as affirmations, you have to repeat this as many times as possible.
9. Reward yourself after achieving a milestone.
Our mind loves receiving rewards. Our brain is programmed such that if you get rewards for something then it likes to continue it with more energy.
When your boss appreciates your efforts or you get an appraisal for the hard work you put, then your mind will force you to continue the same.
So, decide what you like the most and if you achieve certain milestones then just celebrate this victory. Make sure that this reward should not break your continuity.
Repeat these steps. Once you master any habit and when you feel you have successfully formed a habit then go for the next one.
So, what are you waiting for? Pick a pen and paper and start planning for your new habit. Comment below your views or any problem in forming a habit and how you overcome it. Share this with your friends, always remember To Get More You Have To Give More.
I will recommend you to form few common habits of ultra-successful people. These will always help you irrespective of your field.
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