The power of habit

in discipline •  7 years ago 

If people realized the power of habit, they wouldn't live the way they do. I'd like to start with quote from Aristotle:

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit

Things we do define us. Our actions, that is.
Actually, humans are biologicaly wired to do stuff. We are not wired to just eat and sleep 15 hours, like some animals are. Work, if done properly and honestly, imbues our being with sense of meaning and satisfaction. Anyone who has done anything worth remembering and/or worth appreciation knows that. But getting to that point takes discipline, which gets us to our main topic- habit. This post is mainly targeted to help chronic procrastrinators, me included.

Some scientific research I can't recall at the moment concluded that it takes just couple of weeks to form a habit. After that, resistance of laziness starts to fade out steadily.
It doesn't have to be a big flashy start. Couple of 15- minute habits ought to do the trick. But what should your habits be?

Well, to set things straight, actions you do should depend on the goals you have.
A well defined goal should be something you strive for, something you are willing to sacrifice for, something that motivates you and something you want to build your life around, at least for a time being.
When you have a goal, habit is supposed to be building stone of concretization of your goal.

I'll share my example- one of my current goals is to become more competent musician. This goal could branch out in thousand ways but I've decided to currently work on my guitar and piano skills.
So my habits could look like:

  1. 20 mins of practicing guitar- scales and solos I love
  2. 20 mins of working on piano lectures on youtube

If this post inspired you to work out your new daily habits, you can share them in comments!

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