An Attempt at Habits

We all want to build habits right? Sometimes these could be good habits like waking up early or brushing twice or even exercising daily. For some of us it could also be “Un”building habits like smoking or staying up late. But somehow, somewhere, we fail at it. God knows all those New Year resolution lists are laughing at us 3 months into the New Year (or is it one month).

I too am a victim of this phenomenon and feel the helplessness in my inability to get myself up and going and form a habit that I can be proud of – or even something that’s taking me a step in the right direction.

What I understood is (and this is not me but several reams of research – internet of course!), man is a creature of repetition. It’s quite insulting, come to think of it, but unfortunately true. We thrive on routine. Mundane fills our life. Creatures of the loop. We get set in some routines – be it sipping coffee while reading the paper, or checking mails as soon as we get up – without realizing we are actually forming HABITS!

So I figured, this routine is something that could be used in our favour to form these oh-so-elusive habits. We just need to make them part of our routine (yeah so simple right!).

Given the technology overload that we face these days, it wouldn’t help to ACTUALLY use it to help in this most honourable endeavour!

So what I did is to sit down and think (yeah – THAT) about what all habits I need to “inculcate” (love that word! Reminds me of domesticated). Given my fear of commitment, I try to keep this limited to 1 or 2 at max but I’m sure the general populace can do much better! I also tried to think of appropriate times in the day when I can squeeze these in (between video games and mindless surfing). This part is important – don’t make it too long that you KNOW you are trying to form a habit – got to trick the mind there!

For my technology angle, what I then did is to setup reminders on my phone (yes it does something other than whatsapp and FB!) – really loud embarrassing ones – to goad me into repetition. Once this is done, you are set – NOT!

The next step is where our “love of the loop” comes in. Two words for you – “Show up”. Irrespective of the situation, since this is something YOU signed up for out of your OWN free will – you just need to be clinically ruthless about it and actually do whatever you are supposed to be doing at that particular time. No excuses!! JUST. SHOW. UP.

This can be very tough for the first week or so but you know what they say – man is a creature of habit!! In about 2 weeks you should be sufficiently ensconced in the “routine” that you don’t realize you just formed a HABIT!! CONGRATULATIONS!! You can buy me a coffee when we meet next!

This is just my theory on the subject and I welcome any opinions that you can throw at me J