Daily Habit Hacks

empreender

• Publisher: Bibliomundi
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781526026224
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Self Improvement

Are you annoyed that you just can't seem to get a handle on habits? That you don't know why you are unhappy all the time? Ever wondered why you can't stick to a diet or fulfill a simple goal?These fears and failures happen to everyone.The problem is not merely lack of information. It is lack of dedicated and disciplined application using the right information.Nothing matters more than understanding yourself and directing your energies where they are needed most - to make you happy and fulfilled.This guide can teach you how to overcome your fears and really rise to the heights of personal mastery over the mind.

How to Form Good Habits

Before you start on the journey of breaking your bad habits, you have to know what some of your bad habits are and have found an excellent alternative habit to fill the void.

This is because you can't break a bad habit without finding a replacement. When you have a good habit in mind that you want to replace your bad habit with, follow the below steps to get you started on forming new, good habits.

Step #1 – Start Small

The slightest adjustments in your daily routine can dramatically alter the outcome of your life. When you want to form good habits to replace the bad ones, you need to start small and find a manageable habit that you will be able to continue for life. You don't want to start with overly ambitious, unrealistic habits because you are just setting yourself up for failure. Don't try to reinvent yourself all at once.

For example, if your goal is to get and stay fit through regular exercise, you don't want to vow to do an hour of cardiovascular training, four times a week if you’re overweight, out-of-shape, or sedentary. Instead, start with a habit that you know you can do and don’t mind doing, and build upon the habit over time.

Step #2 – Decide When

If you want to be successful in forming good habits, then you need to decide when you will perform the new habit. You want to try to link this new habit to the end of a routine that you have already established. Typically, you want to try and plan your new habit in the morning when you have the energy.

Willpower fatigue is a real issue, making it increasingly harder to resist the temptation to forego your planned routine. Give the morning routine a try, even if you don't consider yourself a morning person.

Step #3 – Use a Trigger

Just like triggers can cause you to develop a bad habit, you can also use them to help you form a new habit. For example, your trigger might be something that you do habitually, like brush your teeth, or it might be something that happens regularly every day,

like commercials interrupting a TV show. Here’s an example of how you can use a trigger to form a new habit.

- After I brush my teeth, then I'll do ten minutes of yoga.

- When a commercial comes on, then I'll do five pushups at the kitchen counter.

Step #4 – Change Your Environment

Making changes to your environment will make it much easier to follow your new habit. For example, if you want to create a habit of working out first thing in the morning, keep your shoes and exercise clothes near the bed.

If you're going to drink more water, fill up a pitcher with the amount of water you want to drink daily and place it in the refrigerator the night before. Seeing your exercise clothes or water in the fridge is a visual cue that will help you practice your new habit.

Step #5 – Visualize

Spend time picturing your daily routine, not just your wished-for results. Visualizing your anticipated results can be incredibly motivating. A study conducted by UCLA found that visualizing yourself achieving your goal can help in forming a new habit, but only if you also imagine how you will meet your goal. You need to picture yourself actually doing the daily routine that will ultimately help you achieve your goal.

Step #6 – Use the “If: Then” Strategy

Nothing ever goes as planned, which means you need to develop

an “if: then” strategy to determine what you will do if your habit routine gets interrupted. First, you need to think about the situations that are likely to pop up to interfere with your schedule.

Then you need to figure out what you will do for each scenario.

For example: “If it rains and I am unable to go for my daily jog, then I will put on an exercise video and workout for 20 minutes.

Step #7 – Reward Yourself

Every day that you successfully practice your new habit give yourself a reward. Use positive self-talk or give yourself a pat on the back.

Actions have to be repeated if you want to form new habits, and you will want to repeat actions that make you feel good. Giving yourself rewards when you successfully practice your new habit will help you better enjoy creating and sticking to the new habit.

Don't Be Too Hard on Yourself

If you have a lapse in your habit-forming plan, don’t give up. Most habits can be formed in about 21 days. However, don’t be so tied up in this “magic 21 days” that you feel lost if you end up slipping up.

A study completed by the University College of London in 2009 found that missing one opportunity to perform the behavior did not materially affect the habit formation process. This means that you can occasionally mess up and fail to practice your new habit without it changing the overall result.

 

Conclusion

In most cases, bad habits are formed in our childhood, while others are created as a result of abuse, peer pressure, or imitation. All of these habits have a singular goal to suppress your stressful situation and create the illusion that everything looks alright.

Fortunately, you aren’t alone in your desire to break your bad habits. Just about everyone in the world has an undesirable habit that they would like to break. What matters most is what you do with your bad habit.

The biggest problem is not in having a bad habit but allowing it to take control of your life while you sit back and do nothing.

All you need to do to break your bad habits and form new ones is to start small.

It may take you a month or longer before you are ready to embark on the journey to break your bad habits.

What’s important is that you don’t take too long to start on the journey so that you don’t continue to find comfortable living in your status quo.

Table of contents

• Introduction
• What Are Habits?
• How Habits Work
• Impact of Habits on Your Quality of Life
• How to Break Bad Habits
• How to Form Good Habits
• Conclusion