“If you are not consciously building your habits, they are unconsciously building you.”
― Anika J. Green
Quora Question: What is one way to create good habits that stick?
I would like to begin by answering this question by saying, take an assessment of what you are doing right now. Pay attention to the types of activities you do right now because without knowing where you are, you won’t be able to know if you are heading in the right direction once you start.
There is a little tiny “GPS” in all of us that knows what we need and what we want, but for some reason, we turned the volume off or never even tried to turn it on in the first place.
My first bit of advice is to get still and listen for that small, tiny voice or start paying attention to what makes your heart sing. These are clues that your soul is sending to us, and we must start listening otherwise the activities we try to incorporate into our lives will not stick.
Depending where you are on your personal development journey, there are things we can implement that can help us become better listeners. I would like to offer a few suggestions here:
- Go for a daily walk. You can start off with a 5 or 10-minute walk around your neighborhood or at a local park. The point of starting is to make it simple and doable.
- Start a gratitude journal. When you write, you are making your thoughts visible. You can’t write something without first thinking about it. Again, start small with maybe 3-5 things you are grateful for each day or once a week.
- Meditate. Shut your devices off and sit quietly for 5-10 minutes.
These activities are great for helping to turn your personal, inner GPS system back on or helping you to adjust the volume back up.
What I have learned through my own personal journey is that what we do is influenced by what we believe is possible for ourselves. This is where the inner “GPS” practices I mentioned above can come in handy. By honestly assessing where we are mentally, emotionally, and physically, we can then determine what is working for us and what we need to change.
Here are some great questions to ask yourself that can help in your assessment:
- Who am I and who do I want to become?
- What do I believe about myself and is it true?
- What kind of activity will help me to become this kind of person?
- What kind of person do I want to be know for?
The bottom line is this… we are creatures of habits! We create all kinds of habits all of the time just by doing things, sometimes on purpose, and sometimes by accident. Habits become what we do without even having to think it. It takes a lot of energy to think and that is why our brains looks for ways to save energy. So, to create positive habits that stick, you must become intentional. That means we must get our brains to wake up and think again about what we are doing. Bad habits can be formed just as easily as good habits. The difference is the kind of person you want to be identified as because of that activity. Runners run. Readers read. Creators create.
Who do you want to be?
Thinking is the magic ingredient that helps habits stick. The key to implementing the kind of change to create the desired habits is to be intentional and make our activities small, simple, and doable until they become automatic.
Thank you for taking time out to read this post. I would love to learn more about who you are and what you do. Feel free to connect with me through a Meetup group.
Quote Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/intentional-living
- Confident Strides Women’s Empowerment Network https://bit.ly/CSWENMeetup
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- Confident Strides Entrepreneurs Network https://bit.ly/CSENMeetup
To connect with me: https:///confidentstrides
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