Habit…. a bit…….it…..rain success

 5 am, the alarm starts ringing loudly...……. hand from the bed creeps out and bangs the snooze button; again he falls asleep………….every day the same habit continues.

Oh God!!! how many times should I tell you not to carry newspaper to wash room….yells his wife…..mummy,  daddy takes  newspaper to read it  in the toilet (on commode), else he will constipate, chuckles his son and runs to get his school bag.

Son bites his nail while watching TV, mother rebukes him, spanks gently on his knuckles and yells…….it’s a BAD HABIT. 

He smokes a lot of cigarettes; he is a chain smoker…. She frowns upon him and shouts it’s a BAD HABIT.

This guy reads at least an hour before he goes to bed…….GOOD HABIT.

Old man donates money to poor people for education……NICE HABIT.

She never gossips, empathizes with everyone, and insists that we should understand the situation before we form an opinion…very GOOD HABIT

All of us have formed habits, may be good or bad, each habit has its own effect on behavior and action.

 “Any act preformed repetitively over a sustained period of time” becomes a habit.

HABIT has been powerfully explained below.

Remove H….A BIT will remain…..remove A…..BIT will remain…..remove B…..IT will remain.

Good habits propel you to move forward in life and the bad habits pull you down and stagnates you. Cultivating good habits is the most important thing in life.

 “Everything that you are today, and everything you will ever accomplish, is determined by quality of the habit that you have”---Brain Tracy

Children need to develop good habits from early on. Couple of examples come to my mind ..... we have been witnessing traffic violations, and other unlawful activities, like signal jumping, footpath driving, over speeding etc…. If these kids are educated from early on, and taught a sense of what's right and what's wrong, they're likely to form right habits and become law abiding citizens. In some countries, it is a part of curriculum, to educate kids on habit of obeying rules, and to make a visual impact, a video is played and shown how violating rules can cause problems to oneself and others.

We have seen, some guys struggle to develop good habits, whereas, others effortlessly do it and succeed in life. Reason could be, not being self-disciplined, lack of motivation, lack of commitment, lack of a clear goal, complacency, lack of consistency and a habit of procrastination and giving in to endless distraction and not making the most of our time.

Seldom do we make effort towards developing a habit, till we're jolted down by some incidence.

It is true that tons of books, articles and information are available on cultivating good habits, but we skim through the information and rarely internalize the concept.

Cultivating and internalizing the right habits will become easy and effortless, if we follow and implement the points given below in the right spirit.

1. Set your intentions:

It has the power to change your life. Intention is a focus on what you want to experience in the future and it enables you to carve a path to achieve the desired result. 

You need to fortify your intention by,

a.       Writing  your intentions

b.      Create images of your intentions.

c.       Look for thoughts, feelings and experiences that support the intentions.

d.      Each day contemplate on your intentions.

             Once you set your intentions firmly, rest becomes easy.

2. Discipline:  At the heart of success is self-discipline

It's a bridge between the goal and accomplishment.  Do small things on a daily basis to move ahead, never stop or give up…Initially you may find it a bit hard but with self-discipline  you can achieve the impossible.

Ex: Sports personalities, through self-discipline are able to achieve success. (Sachin Tendulkar, Tiger woods……..). 

”Success by inches is a cinch, by yards too hard”

Disciplined approach slowly inch you towards your goal.

3. Focus on Routine than Reward:

            Example:   if you have decided to lose 20 kilos in three months.

             You have to focus on the routine which is very critical to get to your reward. i.e…….get up                early in the morning, regularly hit the gym and do grinding exercises and follow proper diet.

4. Be Patient and persistent :

One tends to get distracted for various reasons, like inertia, change in priorities and procrastination. Adhering to the routine and practicing it with tenacity is important.

21 days of continuous practice has psychological implications, our brain registers the activity and it becomes a habit. Next continuous practice for 90 days seems to have a lasting impression and it gets embedded with your routine and you unconsciously start practicing with ease.

Note:  Forming good habits in all walks of life makes life like a breeze.

If you want to discuss/ understand more on habits, please mail me, I will be very happy to answer all queries.