Good habits are how motivation achieves results. Habits are how dreams become reality. Not forming good habits is how New Year’s Resolutions die. You get the idea.
You create the goal or vision. You create the plan or strategy. Then you develop the tactics. You have to engage in the tactics each day to fulfill the strategy. Tactics are small steps. They are like muscle fibers that join together to make a muscle stronger to reach the goal of lifting more weight.
My big goal is self-actualization. I picture this as reaching my potential and fulfilling my purpose. I want to bring everything I have to the playing field by developing everything I need with good habits. Several habits create my foundation for feeling good, having energy, and improving my skills.
I am always trying to improve my nutrition to manage my weight, build energy, and recover from exercise. I am always exercising to improve my energy, my brain, my cardiovascular system, my strength, stamina, and immunity.
I write every morning to improve my writing skills, develop my ideas, and improve my ability to share which I feel is my contribution. I meditate every morning to reach that sacred part of my subconscious that is the source of creativity.
Because creativity is my passion, I want to have my life support my creativity with several habits. In addition to what I have named, I need good sleep. I drink 100 oz of water a day. I live within my budget to reduce stress. I maintain good relationships because relationships can be the source of stress or great support.
As you can see, I am supporting my goals with as many good habits, which I call my tactics, as possible and I am always open to forming new good habits. Researchers have found that a key habit is often essential to forming a long string of good habits.
In studying students, researchers in one study taught them better methods for learning. What they found was that soon students were improving other habits such as alcohol consumption, spending, sleep, and nutrition. After forming a good key habit that shows us promise, we become motivated to support that effort with more good habits.
What is a goal you have in mind? What would be the first good step? What type of habits might be helpful to support your efforts in this goal? If the goal requires mental energy, then good habits of sleep, nutrition, drinking water, and exercise would all improve your brain’s ability to step to a new level.
If you want to run 5 miles, then all the above habits should also improve your body’s ability to undergo the stress of building capacity You start with walking ten minutes and build it to 30 minutes a day and then an hour. You start jogging when you are capable. The discipline of sticking with it and resisting the lazy days will be instrumental in your success. You must develop a habit of not giving in to laziness.
Back when I was a runner, I used to run 4 miles every day on a nice green median strip on a street near the beach. I often wanted to stop and walk. I knew if I stopped once, I would always give into stopping. I used to imagine I was in a race with one of my competitors and all my people and all his people were there to cheer us on at the finish line. How could I possibly not give it my every effort to beat him? Extreme, maybe. But our mind has the power to become disciplined.
Discipline is one of our most valuable tools. It is a key ingredient to a key habit. It means we know we have to engage in something to reach our goal and we will allow nothing to interfere. That is discipline. I used to run 40 stairs at the beach 20 times. Once after a day’s rest, my mind said I was too tired. I thought, I just had a day’s rest, my mind is trying to sabotage me. So, I ran the stairs 80 times, just to show my mind who is boss. I have used this tactic many times to show one mind that I have a second mind that doesn’t listen to the first one.
Every time you embark on a new challenge, your mind will try to sabotage your effort. Want to lose weight, get more fit, get up earlier, study technical material, stop spending, drink less alcohol or whatever it may be. Expect resistance from your mind. It can sabotage you achieving your goal and is something all the quitters face every time they set a goal. I know, I have been a health and fitness trainer. Getting started and not relapsing to old comfortable habits are the two main obstacles.
Your ability to form great habits to support your goals will determine how far you go.
Read More
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You Are in Charge of How Others See You
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