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