Create Stability: Harness The Power Of Habits

In this talk, you will learn about the value of creating long-lasting habits. You will gain an in-depth understanding of the difference between good and bad habits. You will understand the dance between habits and freedom, and create discipline without becoming too rigid.

Transcript

You wake up,

You go to the toilet,

You make your drink,

You check your phone,

You shower,

You get dressed,

You have breakfast,

You go to work.

All of these actions you will not have to consciously choose to do.

They all happen automatically.

They are habits for the better and the worse.

But how can you use the power of habits to your advantage and make your personal development a whole lot easier?

So today we are talking about habits.

We will try to understand how much influence habits actually have on our day-to-day life.

Our goal is to learn how to create habits and even more so how to keep them.

We will also look at which of your existing habits really serve you and which ones don't.

Gandhi said,

Your beliefs become your thoughts,

Your thoughts become your words,

Your words become your actions,

Your actions become your habits,

Your habits become your values,

Your values become your destiny.

Let's use habits to create a great destiny.

First of all,

What is a habit?

Habit is an automatic behavioral response that is repeated regularly and occurs subconsciously through external and internal triggers.

It's basically you doing something automatically without having to think about it.

Let's have a look at a few different types of habits to gain some more clarity.

The first habits I want to mention are mental habits.

These are automatically generated thought processes that occur in response to particular cues.

For example,

When you sit down to meditate,

When you journal at night,

When you make your daily jokes with your colleagues,

These are all mental habits.

Social habits are triggered by anxiety,

Joy,

Fear,

Anger,

And so on.

An example would be the habit of eating ice cream when being sad.

Work habits are automatic responses at work,

Like sitting down at your desk,

Opening your computer,

Checking your emails,

Or getting up for your first break at a certain time.

Social habits are built around places you visit in your free time,

For example,

Going to the same bar every Friday.

Mental habits could also be that you automatically stand straight or make eye contact when in a conversation.

Preventative habits are things you do to avoid an imbalance,

Like taking vitamins,

Morning exercise,

Washing your hands,

Brushing your teeth,

Going to sleep,

And so on.

Nutrition habits are formed around your diet,

For example,

Automatically shopping for the same food in the supermarket or having a certain amount of food on your plate.

Lastly,

I want to mention negative habits,

Like smoking,

Drinking alcohol,

Scrolling the phone excessively,

And so on.

Now I wanted to take my time to list all these habits,

Because it is important to understand that your life is already filled with habits.

You create habits whether you want to or not,

And being aware of them empowers you to gain control of them.

This is so important because once truly established,

A habit is hard to break.

The strength of habits allows for consistency,

And consistency is one of the cornerstones to stabilize your life and further your growth.

Next,

I want to mention another benefit of understanding and creating habits.

Creating healthy habits makes more time and more energy available to you.

Behavior that is ignited by habit uses little cognitive load,

It does not use up your brain power.

So the more healthy habits you have,

The more mental capacity you have available.

So now that you know how amazing habits are,

Let's have a look at how to create them.

The very first thing to become aware of is your identity.

Who are you at the moment and who do you want to be?

Be very specific,

Extremely specific.

Don't just say,

I want to eat healthy or I want to read books.

Be as specific around your desired identity as you can and don't say,

I want to use,

I want to be a person who… For example,

I want to be a person who reads for 5 minutes every night.

This will make your goals palpable and it will anchor your habits around your identity.

Next,

Bring clarity as to why you want to become that person.

Why do you want to read 5 minutes every night?

Again,

Be as specific as you can for your reasoning.

The more specific you can be,

The more your goals will make sense to you subconsciously.

Why do you want to do certain things in your life?

The next step to take in order to create a habit is to commit to 2 or 3 months.

It takes a long time to create habits and it can be hard work at times.

This time frame is not made up by me,

It is scientifically proven.

It does take long.

But once formed,

Habits are not only automatic,

They are also very hard to break.

So consciously commit to creating a habit over several months.

The next step is to make your habit as small as possible.

It is not important to read 5 minutes every night.

It is important that picking up your book becomes automatic.

In our example,

Make it a habit to read 3 sentences of your book every night.

Of course,

Almost every night you will read more,

But that doesn't matter.

Your habit is to read 3 sentences,

Which makes it extremely achievable in your mind,

Which then makes it extremely achievable to create.

Now I want to mention how cues can help you create habits.

An external habit cues involved when there is an external environment triggering you.

Let me give you two examples.

When I go into a forest,

I want to start jogging.

And when I lie on a couch watching a movie,

I want to start snacking.

In both of these examples,

An external environment triggers me towards an action.

An internal cue is a feeling you have that makes you do something.

For example,

When you start feeling drowsy,

You will automatically go to bed.

So an internal feeling can also trigger you towards an action.

Now that you are aware of cues,

You can use them to your advantage.

You can use cues to consciously create new habits around them.

Especially the places you already go to regularly are great cues that are easy to attach habits to.

Now this brings me to my next point,

Which is to attach a habit to a behavior that exists already.

You want to learn a language?

Put your language course book next to the toilet and attach your morning toilet habit to the new habit of studying for two minutes.

Attaching makes creating new habits much easier.

By the way,

Talking about easy,

I want to encourage you to make your habits as convenient and easy as possible.

Don't see creating habits as something that needs to be a struggle.

People with good habits are often looked at as if they have supernatural willpower.

It is actually the opposite.

Their behavior is often effortless because their cues have been followed over years.

Another great method is to replace a bad habit.

Let us say you drink coffee every morning and you want to make it a habit to drink lukewarm water with turmeric instead.

Then you can put the hot water,

Kettle and turmeric in front of your coffee machine.

Your old and new habits are now extremely similar in terms of where they happen and how long they take.

Replacing is great because it makes it easier to form a good habit,

Plus it gets rid of a bad one.

Before we come to the practical part for today,

I want to invite you not to be too rigid in your life.

You need flexibility and breaking a habit is not something horrible,

It's part of life.

So don't be too rigid or judgmental with yourself,

But do become conscious of the power of good habits.

Habits constitute about 40% of your behavior during the day.

Make sure you make it the best 40% possible.