HABIT- MOST IMPORTANT TOPIC OF SELF DEVELOPMENT

Habit is one of the most important topic of self development, most powerful thing structured in our brain. We all know our brain plays vital role in every activity that we do.

What Are Habits?

Let’s define habits. Habits are the small decisions you make and actions you perform every day. According to researchers at Duke University, habits account for about 40 percent of our behaviors on any given day.

Your life today is essentially the sum of your habits. How in shape or out of shape you are? A result of your habits. How happy or unhappy you are? A result of your habits. How successful or unsuccessful you are? A result of your habits.

What you repeatedly do (i.e. what you spend time thinking about and doing each day) ultimately forms the person you are, the things you believe, and the personality that you portray.

When you learn to transform your habits, you can transform your life.

The Power of Healthy Habits and Having a Routine

Creating a routine for yourself and changing your bad habits into good ones will allow you to be more productive and successful. In the past, I would never set a schedule or routine for myself. My mind was all over the place, and I could never plan for things or get anything done. After committing to a routine and encouraging healthy habits, I am now able to accomplish goals and maintain productivity throughout my day.

There are tons of benefits to having regular habits and staying on a schedule. Many successful people have a routine that they stick to — they go to sleep at the same time, wake up at the same time, and even eat their meals and do their other activities at the same time each day. They have a consistent schedule that they set and then continue to follow.

When you do things on a daily basis, you will become better at them and also more efficient as well.

Regularly doing your set tasks will become natural and allow you to get them done faster. The upside to this is, you will have more time to focus on the things that matter. When you have a plan, you are conserving your brainpower by not overthinking each little task that you do. It may sound silly, but spending time and energy on making small decisions about what to eat or what to wear can start to take away from your available energy.

In the book THE POWER OF HABIT, Duhigg refers to the three steps of forming habits as:

1. Cue (or reminder) — The trigger that initiates the behavior

2. Routine — The actual behavior itself and the action you take

3. Reward — The benefit you receive from the action you take

HOW TO DEVELOP GOOD HABITS

6 Tricks to Automate a Good Habit

If you decide that a behavior is in your best interests, how can you automate it? How can you deepen a good habit so that it becomes second nature? Here are 6 tricks to automate good habits:

#1: Engage in the Habit Regularly for a Long Time

Some people get frustrated because when they try to implement a new behavior, it feels difficult at first. It doesn’t feel like second nature. This is actually perfectly normal. Any time you try to change anything in your life, it is difficult at first. One research study found that it took between 2-3 months (not 21 days as we were taught) of regularly engaging in behavior before it felt more natural. The take-home point is that you have to be disciplined about behavior for a long time before it feels automatic. That’s just the way it is.

#2: Schedule It In

It can be helpful to schedule in the behavior like you would an appointment on your calendar. Why do we write down our appointments or put them on our phones? Because we can’t remember everything! We write things down and check our schedule for the day because that’s what we need to do to remember. It’s the same way as trying to develop a positive habit. Schedule it in at first.

#3: Do It at the Same Time Each Day

Habits work best when we develop rhythms where we do the same thing at the same time each day. When you are trying to develop a positive habit, do it at the same time each day. This will allow your body and muscle memory to work for you to help develop your habit.

#4: Set a Reminder

Don’t rely on your memory to put your habit into practice. Set a reminder on your phone. When trying to implement a new habit, we need nudges or triggers from our environment to remind us of our goal and keep us on track. Set a daily reminder on your iPhone to jog your memory and keep your attention focused.

#5: Reward Each Victory

Behaviors that are reinforced are more likely to occur in the future. Find something small to reward yourself each time you engage in the positive habit. There’s a reason we give our children a gold star when they do something correctly. Find the adult version of a gold star and reward yourself consistently. Just make sure your reward is healthy (e.g., no candy).

#6: Involve Your Community

Don’t try to build a positive habit alone. Share your goal with your friends and family, and let them in on your process. Let your community encourage you, cheer you on, and keep you accountable. Making your goal public can give you some added energy to keep your commitment because you don’t want to be embarrassed or let your community down.

Power of Automation — Habits

Habit is one of the powerful things structured in our brain. We all know our brain plays a vital role in every activity that we do. It controls almost every activity by giving proper instruction to the other parts of our body. Take a simple example when we brush in the morning, first, it instructs our hands to take a brush and paste and instruct our eye to see and coordinate with our handle to align the proper position and apply the paste in the brush, and so on. This is how we complete the activity. Now think if all such activity has to be controlled by the brain, think about the load. There is 2 problem that arises, 1. it can spend time only on limited or one activity at a time. 2. If it’s functioning continuously as we continue to do other activities like take batch, dress up, cook, drive to the office it will get tired easily.

So how our brain handles this load? The answer is Automation. Yes. It actually automates our routine activities and delegates them to a different part of the brain its called “Basal ganglia”. The activity does not necessarily have to be simple, it could be as complex as taking out your car from your parking area or cooking. The power of our brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort to improve efficiency. By doing the delegation it can either do the other activities in parallel or it can simply take rest so that it can serve better.

That is why we are able to have a conversation while we are driving or we can listen to music at the same time we are walking.

 Driving for the first few times is a fairly complex activity. Just imaging the set of tasks involved when we take out the car from the parking area.

1. Check the gear is in neutral

2. Start the car

3. Engage the clutch (If not AT)

4. Shift to reverse gear

5. Release the handbrake

6. Mentally Calculate the distance, between the road and parking exit

7. Slowly drive out and then move on.

That’s why it is said if you can drive you can do anything in life. (no jokes)

When we perform this activity for the first time we do it very consciously, but over the period we do it subconsciously we do it in an automated manner. The brain always tries to automate every task that is routine in nature to save effort. This effort-saving mechanism is a huge advantage. An efficient brain also allows us to stop thinking constantly about basic behaviors.

Habit is one of the most important topic of self development, read this article again to get a deeper understanding.

Some of the good habits you must try to incorporate into your daily Routine:

• Getting up at 5 am
• Walking
• Eating healthy
• Gratitude writing
• Manifestation
• Meditation
• Reading Books
• Digital Detoxification
• Self Care