If you change your habits you can change your life
Breaking habits can be extremely hard. Switching your habits is an easier and more effective way to go about getting rid of bad habits.
I have found that habits run our life, and if we don’t slow down to take inventory of our life, we can go down a path that was not intended.
I believe that it is the small micro habits that make us into who we become. As people, we are so powerful and so intelligent. We are always evolving and moving forward and backwards. It’s the game called life.
But, what if there was a way that we could control most of the things that take place in our lives?
When life hits, we think it’s some outside force. Sometimes it is, but more often, its not. It’s the small micro habits that we have allowed to become our norm. These small little habits that we allow to just slide by slowly, start to take form in our lives. They start to mold us as a person and they also start to mold our results. Our outcomes.
To answer the aforementioned question — Yes. It is possible to control most of the things that take place in our life.
We are each in this game. It is our job and responsibility to level up. We hold the power within us to become whoever we choose to be.
Think about that…
If we want to go from a perfectly healthy human being who is functioning well in society, and then just let the steering wheel go and become homeless on the side of the road, we can.
On a more positive note, we can also take a situation from ground zero and build it into a master piece.
The question then becomes: How do we do this? How do we go from one point to the other, and how do we stay on track?
Take Inventory
You need to face yourself. This is going to require you to take inventory on every aspect of your life.
The important ones, right off the bat are: your health, finances, mental health, happiness, family, spirituality, education. Again, these are just a few to start with, but should hold the most weight in your life.
Look at these areas and break them down to the smallest facets. Grab some paper and a pen and just start putting pen to paper. Identify the areas in your life that are going well for you, and do the same for the areas that suck.
This creates a starting point and you can build and work from there.
Create a Morning Routine
The morning is such a crucial point in our day. It’s the moment where you open your eyes, take a deep breathe and give thanks to God for another day.
The morning is where you get to start your day and dictate what direction you want to take it. By incorporating a solid morning routine, you create a system that is meant for you to boost your productivity and mainly help you move in the right direction.
That’s its purpose. It’s a system that moves you forward and creates momentum for you.
If you don’t have this down packed to the point where you custom built it with purpose, then you don’t have a solid morning routine. You just have habits that have built up unconciously over time.
Create an Evening Routine
The evening routine is key because it wraps up the end of your day. This becomes a perfect time for you to not just prepare for tomorrow, but to also go over your successes and failures.
We all fail. In fact, we fail daily. The key is to learn from those scenarios and see what held us back from accomplishing our mission. Identifying these things helps us to create a plan to move forward.
Often times, what is holding us back are small micro habits that have been in place for years on end. Little details that we didn’t bother to change within our day-to-day, simply because we didn’t think they are that big of a deal.
Micro Habit Plugins
Once you have your routines picked out and set in place for your next day, now you can start to plug in habits that will gradually move you towards your biggest dreams. The keyword there, is gradually.
These can include habits like:
- Exercise
- Meditation
- Reading
- Journaling
- Planning
- Increasing water intake
- Meal Prepping
Incorporating these types of habits and executing them consistently can help you to move in a positive direction. Executing these types of habits come with a high reward and very little down side.
Replace your current bad habits with these or any other habits that you feel you would like to incorporate for yourself.
Journaling
Journaling is a great way to reflect and really see what has been working for you and what has not.
When you are on the mission to replace and break habits, you need to understand that this stuff is not easy. If you don’t have an effective way to check-in with yourself, I hate to break it to you but you are going to be spinning wheels for a long time. This is generally where people quit.
The power of journaling is real. You just have to give it the time of day. It can’t be something you do just to do it. There needs to be purpose behind it.
To really change the smallest of habits, and be able to stay the course without revert, relies heavily on reflection. Journaling gives you the space to do just that.
Self-Discipline
Self – Discipline is the ability to do what you need to do, regardless of whether you feel like doing it or not.
Certain habits are going to be easier than others to break or replace. Those that are extremely difficult are typically the ones that hold most value to change or break. This will require an insane amount of self-discipline on your end.
Know that if you are trying to change course, you are going to have to do a bunch of things that are going to come off as uncomfortable.
Consistency
If you are going to become successful at getting rid of old worthless habits and replacing them with new habits that are going to push you in the right direction, then you must stay consistent.
This is why journaling is so important and can be highly valuable to anyone. Journaling, is going to help keep you consistent. Without consistency you will have zero results.
Doing some thing half of the time and then trying to reflect on it’s value, is not effective. You need to do something consistently over time in order to see the fruits of your labor.
Accountability
Holding yourself accountable plays a big role in making any types of changes. You need to hold yourself to a standard. That standard, should be a high one and it should mean something to you if you break it.
Purchasing a planner or notebook that you can chart your growth is a great way to hold yourself accountable. If you live with someone, you can share with them your mission and ask them to help you.
Don’t be scared to believe in help.
Patience
Changing your habits is a slow process. Don’t expect to make quick changes in areas of your life that have been sitting there for years.
Change requires time and patience.
Feel the Small Wins
Changing habits and micro habits requires immense amount of focus, drive and determination. It is going to demand a lot of energy out of you.
Think about it — you have been doing something for years, day in and day out. You think that the brain wants to happily forget and move to something that most likely will require more effort?
🤔 No.
With this in mind, you gotta stop and feel the small wins. Be proud of yourself for accomplishing your habits and your routine. Feel the difference that they provide, and envision the future results that those habits will provide if you stay consistent over time.
Real Results Come in YEARS
True results come in span of years. Although there will be some habits that will generate immediate results, the real results come with time.
The goal here, is not to just make changes and hold them over a week or a month, the goal is to keep these micro habits going for years and years to come.
