We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle
How can we make excellence or anything else for that matter into a habit that will carry with us our entire life?
The answer is not as simple as do something for 21 days and it will become habit as self help books and blogs may lead you to believe .If this were the case then we would all be athletic, sober and smoke-free.
Any one who has tried to start exercising, stop smoking or eat healthier can tell you just how strong our habits can be. Breaking or starting habits is going to take a lot more
than performing an activity for a few weeks and expecting a habit to form. We need the want to change, the willpower to engrain a new habit into us and resist temptation to fall back
to our old ways. Lastly we have to understand that forming habits is a life-long commitment.
Habits are a part of us and our everyday lives. For instance, Every morning I wake up make breakfast for my kids and have a cup of coffee. This happens everyday, I don't even think about this this pattern has been well etched into the synaptic pathways in my brain. Every thing we do is the result of these synaptic pathways being fired. The more they get used, the easier it is for these impulses to travel across the pathways. To my brain, wake, breakfast, coffee is now habitual with each action leading to the next.
Now that we see that habits are routines that are deeply engrained into our brains we can see that twenty-one days is not a magical number in forming habits. Our first step in forming a habit is to recognize that we want to change something in our lives. Knowing change is necessary is often not enough. For the longest time I knew that exercise and healthy eating habits was something that I should be doing. I never made these actions into habits because I never felt like it. A turning point came when I wanted to start these habits, your inspiration may come from a point of self enlightenment or life changing event prompts you to change. For me, it was wanting to be able to play with my kids and not be exhausted within five minutes. If you have no desire to change then you never will.
Once we want to form or change our habit we need to make that we promote our action in such a way that it turns into a life long habit. Self help books and blogs will tell you that after twenty-one or thirty days you will have changed your habits and that they are permanent. If this were the case then alcoholics would never relapse, gyms would be packed, and everyone would stop buying processed food. We will need willpower to form our new habits, knowing that it will take some time before our habits become second nature. Forming habits is not unlike learning a new instrument or sport. In the beginning mastering our instrument or sport may seem like a daunting task. through practice and learning small parts at a time we can progress and become masters of our hobby. Repetition and building upon our habits is what will lead to a successful synaptic pathway being etched into your brain.
Lastly to ensure that our habit stays with us for the rest of our life we have to remind our selves that habit forming is a life long process. Since we know that our habits are etched into our brains that means our old undesirable habits are still present. If we let our habits languish and atrophy, it will be easy for our old habits to resurface. If we were to stop going to the gym our old habit of sitting in front of the television would likely come back.
Through finding the motivating factor to want to change, the willpower to form a new habit and the understand that habits are life-long commitment we have the ability to turn our actions into habits and our habits into our excellence.
Habits are a part of us and our everyday lives. For instance, Every morning I wake up make breakfast for my kids and have a cup of coffee. This happens everyday, I don't even think about this this pattern has been well etched into the synaptic pathways in my brain. Every thing we do is the result of these synaptic pathways being fired. The more they get used, the easier it is for these impulses to travel across the pathways. To my brain, wake, breakfast, coffee is now habitual with each action leading to the next.
Now that we see that habits are routines that are deeply engrained into our brains we can see that twenty-one days is not a magical number in forming habits. Our first step in forming a habit is to recognize that we want to change something in our lives. Knowing change is necessary is often not enough. For the longest time I knew that exercise and healthy eating habits was something that I should be doing. I never made these actions into habits because I never felt like it. A turning point came when I wanted to start these habits, your inspiration may come from a point of self enlightenment or life changing event prompts you to change. For me, it was wanting to be able to play with my kids and not be exhausted within five minutes. If you have no desire to change then you never will.
Once we want to form or change our habit we need to make that we promote our action in such a way that it turns into a life long habit. Self help books and blogs will tell you that after twenty-one or thirty days you will have changed your habits and that they are permanent. If this were the case then alcoholics would never relapse, gyms would be packed, and everyone would stop buying processed food. We will need willpower to form our new habits, knowing that it will take some time before our habits become second nature. Forming habits is not unlike learning a new instrument or sport. In the beginning mastering our instrument or sport may seem like a daunting task. through practice and learning small parts at a time we can progress and become masters of our hobby. Repetition and building upon our habits is what will lead to a successful synaptic pathway being etched into your brain.
- Take small steps; If your goal is to exercise five times a week, start by exercising three times a week building your habit up to five times a week. Large, sudden changes to your habit almost guarantees failure.
- Change one habit at a time; Much like making starting your habit too big, too much change is just as destructive to your habit. Plus when your start by changing one habit, you will find the willpower to change your other habits to be much stronger.
- Writing down the habit you want to change and specifics can help engrain your habit. Instead of "I will go to the gym" write down "Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I will go to the gym after work."
- Repeat the action you want to be come habit as much and as often as you can. Your habit is like a muscle, it will get stronger the more it is used. This will make sure that your habit becomes instinct.
- Recognize that a small bump in the road does not equate to failure. If you miss a day at the gym or you eat a greasy hamburger for supper, realize that you haven't broken your progress to form a habit. Just like your muscles don't wither away immediately you don't have to start your habit forming process from square one. Acknowledge what happened, learn from it and move on.
Lastly to ensure that our habit stays with us for the rest of our life we have to remind our selves that habit forming is a life long process. Since we know that our habits are etched into our brains that means our old undesirable habits are still present. If we let our habits languish and atrophy, it will be easy for our old habits to resurface. If we were to stop going to the gym our old habit of sitting in front of the television would likely come back.
Through finding the motivating factor to want to change, the willpower to form a new habit and the understand that habits are life-long commitment we have the ability to turn our actions into habits and our habits into our excellence.
No comments:
Post a Comment