Often, we think that habit and routine is something that makes our life less attractive, more boring and predictable. Especially, when we are teenagers phrases like “the less routine, the more life”, “if you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it is lethal” etc….
While this is partially true, it is also true that at a certain age, especially after 30, habits and regular routines become very valuable. More than valuable, they become precious. Because in that habit and routine you find some free time to dedicate to yourself. For example, you can think about your life and talk to yourself if you make a habit of drinking a cup of coffee alone at home each morning, in the terrace. You can know better your children if you decide to dedicate 10 minutes a day to talk with them without being distracted by the TV, smartphones, games and more. You can reinforce the relationship with your spouse or boyfriend if you make the habit to hang out at least once per week, outside the house, only the two of us. You can increase your sales performance at work if you decide to do 2 meeting per day with new or existing clients. Dedicating ourselves to ourselves, to family and friends becomes even more important if you have a full time job and the spare time left in your disposal is at minimum levels. By the way, I have tried to incorporate habits in my life so many times and have failed a lot of those many times. But once, I succeeded.
What did I do differently this time? Let me share it with you.
First, I made a promise to myself that I needed to introduce this new habit in my life if I wanted to change something or do something differently than before in my life. Like when you bet something to someone. Take it very seriously, so much, that if you don’t do it, you feel bad. And if you do it, celebrate by doing or having something as a treat.
Second, I wrote the new habit down in a diary, explicitly, in a short sentence. For example: “I will wake up every day from now, at 6.30 am in the morning”. I didn’t write it down one time, but 100 times (joking), filling all the page of the diary with this sentence. This works on the subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind influences most of our decisions, choices and of course our thoughts. According to lifehack.org it regulates and controls at least 95% of the choices that we make every day.
Third, visualize the habit clearly in your mind when you take the decision. For example if you want to exercise daily, visualize yourself exercising on Monday, Tuesday, etc….Our subconscious mind has the ability to process thoughts as reality, and react to them like if there were reality. In this way you can reprogram your mind with positive thoughts of how good you feel after exercising so that your subconscious mind will tell your conscious mind to continue to feel good by exercising each day. It’s like a vicious cycle, if you don’t change your thoughts about things you will always remain within the cycle.
Another little secret is to begin with very little steps in creating habits, like 1 minute per day and after the first week increase to 5 min per day and so on. Smooth changes tend to persist more and to become a routine quicker than sharp changes. After all, humans don’t like to change so we must find a way out to fool our human lazy mind
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