Do you ever feel like you're just floating through life but not actually getting closerto the person that you want to be. It usually happens around New years, you imagine all the bad habits your'e going to break free from, and all the good habits you will begin.
Then you get down to business, and nothing really changes! It seems like that all too often, that is how I have been feeling this year, and even though there are many things I am trying to change, it just doesn’t seem to be working. But this time last year, I made a list of my goals, and they were short and sweet, and I had made plans to follow them.
“This time it will be different”you say to yourself. This time I AM going to do the things that I say I will. Only to end up back where you began shortly after and no closer to what you had envisaged.
A bit about me; I'm just a regular man with no special powers or anything atomic... but I have been able to make a difference in my life, and now I'm on a path to making a difference for others! If you've always wanted to find your purpose in life, keep reading! You see, I started in a small 'matchbox sized' office with no money to pay for the mortgage on my family home. I had a passion but I didn't know how to make it happen. Overtime, I now operate a multi million dollar digital agency that helps change lives of many small business owners. I have been featured on many tier 1 media vendors... yadi yadi ya...
So the big question is, how do you become the person you aspire of becoming? How do you let go of bad habits and make the habits you want easier to adapt? It takes time and dedication to transform yourself into the person you want to be. You can't just take a pill and be someone else.
Imagine a plane taking off and traveling from New York to Los Angeles.
Just before takeoff you adjust the plane just slightly by 3 degrees or around 80 inches. If you kept flying ina straight line...You would end up closer to Tijuana in Mexico than in yourintended destination of Los Angeles.
The same goes for our habits. Tiny changes in our habits can change the trajectory of our lives in ways that we can’t even notice until many years into the future looking back. In both good ways and bad. You are your habits.
The Power of Atomic Habits “A slight change in your daily habits can guide your life to a very different destination”.
Massive change Vs 1% improvements
In many cases, we find ourselves believing that massive success is only possible through massive action in any goal we are pursuing. We expect ourselves to make some quantum leap or momentous improvement that will gain others' attention. However, in many cases, it's the small changes that are not even noticeable at first, that create incredible change.
In the world of self-development, these are the little things that add up to make a difference. If you consider your small habits that you practice on a daily basis, the things that you do that are not necessarily noticed, but contribute to your overall life and work, you may be surprised how much a difference they make.
The concept of focusing on the little things to help you achieve big things has become extremely popular recently. While this approach is great for personal life, it’s also a great way to improve your job performance and get ahead in business.
The first thing I see is that, "You have to know what you don't know." The second thing is, "Don't let your experience dictate the outcome of your actions." The third thing is, "Everything you do and everything you say has an impact on others.
Let’s look deeper into the Math - 1% better every day for a year will compound to nearly 38 times better. 1% worse every day for over ayear will bring you close to zero!
Your habits can compound against you in the form of - stress, bad food intake or negative self-talk etc. Or they can compound for you in the form of things like knowledge, productivity, skills and relationships.
“Success is the product ofsmall things you do daily —not once-in a lifetime transformations”
The Truth About progress
When you start any endeavour in your life, we expect rapid growth but growth is often, if not always, slow. In the beginning, small changes in our progress are not even noticeable. James Clear refers to this part of thegraph as “the valley of disappointment” You’ve done so much! Put in so mucheffort and you can barely see any results!
This is where most people fail and slip back into their old routines. The most powerful outcomes of any compounding process are delayed so Patience & persistence is a must.
Goals Vs Systems
The conventional wisdom suggests that the best way to achieve anything we want in life is to set realistic, measurable goals. For example, it's much easier to lose weight than it is to build a startup, but if you don't have a goal, it's even harder to reach.
The problem with goals is that they’re not easy to define. There is no right or wrong way to define a goal. The most successful companies don't make their goals public. And sometimes, the best way to get there is to ignore them and focus on the real work.
Successful people and successful companies share one thing in common: they all want to win! Winners know that when they hit a wall, there is a better way to get over it. The key is to focus on finding a solution that is different enough to keep things interesting.
Habits are so automatic that we often aren’t aware of them. If you’re not aware of what you’re doing, it’s very difficult to change. You can use your Habit Scorecard to become aware of your habits. Then, you can change them.
Write down all your daily behaviours on a habits scorecard. From the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep, your scorecard may look something like this. Based on how it impacts your life, categorize each behaviour as positive (+), negative (-), or neutral (=).
Here we are just beginning to understand the full impact of these habits on our daily lives, record them and pay attention to what we should and should't be doing.
Then, we work on removing the ones we do not want.
Vagueness is a real problem when it comes to adopting a new habit or when your'e looking to get rid of one. Studies have shown that quite often the reason people fail to follow throughis not because of a lack of motivation, but because of a lack of clarity.
“One day, Iwill quit smoking” is easy to say to yourself but too vague to get any momentum.What you need is a time and a place. The most common cues—time andlocation—will help you achieve your goals. Clearly state your intention toact using the following formula:
I will 'behaviour' on 'time' at 'location'
Another good way is to link habits to events that already occur or are a part of your daily routine. Example, you can drink a glass of water right after you wake up. In this case, id leave a glass of water next to my bed over night.
You can also make it hard for you to access habits that you want to stop. If you want to quit smoking, start with buying smaller packs. Keep them in hard to reach places so its an inconvenience to access every time you feel like smoking.
Creating a habit requires you to redesign the space around you (home/work) to:
Recommended by LinkedIn
1 - Make it easier to see thecues for the desired habits and
2 - Avert bad habits by making them invisible.
Neurotranmitters and Habits
A neurotransmitter is a chemical that helps to regulate brain function. There are many different neurotransmitters, but one that plays an important role in regulating mood and motivation is dopamine. Dopamine levels change throughout the day.
It's hard to say whether people thought dopamine was just about pleasure once upon a time, or whether they thought it was just about pleasure all along. But in truth, it plays a crucial role in our lives, as it impacts our emotions, cognition and motivation.
“Gambling addicts have a dopamine spike rightbefore they place a bet, not after they win”.
Dopamine is released not only when we experience pleasure, but also when we anticipate it. High levels of the hormone dopamine are associated with pleasure, as well as other behaviours such as eating junk food and taking drugs. The same hormones also motivate us to take better care of ourselves.
The anticipation of a vacation is almost always more fun than the actual trip, even if it’s just one day. Drug addicts increase dopamine when they see the drugs, not after taking them. The craving is what causes us to take action in the first place. This causes users to seek more of it because they see it as more important than the effect it will have on them. Now that we know this fact, lets use it to our advantage;
We are influenced by the people closestto us, and the groups we belong to. If you are trying to build a new habit,one of the best ways to reinforce the habit is to find and become part of aculture where that habit is the norm. If you want to get into better shape,surround yourself with fit people. If you want to read more, join a book club.
Primal motivators : The source of cravings
In your normal everyday life youwouldn’t say something to yourself like “I want to eat this pizza because I need to consume this food to survive” Surface level cravings are merelymanifestations of our deeper underlying motives. And these underlying motives guide our behaviour.
Here are some examples of underlying motives:
Your brain did not evolve with a desire to smokecigarettes, check Instagram/TikTok every 5 seconds or to play video games all day long. Social Media platforms and productsdo not invent new motivations, but rather appealto the underlying motives of human naturethat we already have to gain our attention.
Reprogramming your brain to enjoy hard habits
“You can make hard habits more attractive if you can learn to associate themwith a positive experience.” By highlighting the benefits of ahabit rather than its downsides, you can quickly reprogram your mind andmake it seem more appealing. For example,
Fitness = health and wellbeing and not fatigue.
Cleaning the house = an environment conducive to peace of mind and not wasted time.
Saving money = future financial freedom and not sacrifice.
These subtle shifts in mindset aren't magic, but they can change your feelings towardsome habits or situations.
Using the Two-Minute Rule to Stop Procrastinating
Using the "2-minute rule" can help youestablish small habits that will leadto habit momentum and success in bigger goals. Find a simple, 2-minute version of your desired habit. You want to scale down your desiredoutcome. Running a marathon becomes putting on your shoes and stretching for 2 minutes.Reading an hour per day becomes reading one page. You need to get the routine anchored inplace and then slowly build up the difficulty.
After you have mastered the 2-minutehabit, you can progress to the next phase;
To make something more difficult, think about ways you can create barriers offriction between yourself and the bad habit.
The Mismatch between immediate and delayed returns
It is common for us to feel good aboutour immediate results, but bad about our long-term outcomes when we practice badhabits. It is the opposite with good habits: the immediate result is unpleasant,but the ultimate outcome is satisfying.
A certain amount of success injust about every field involves ignoring an immediate reward for a long-term one.
It is best to add a little immediate pleasureto the habits that will pay off in the long run and a little pain to those that won't.
How to recover quickly when your habits break down
In spite of your best efforts, it is inevitablethat life will interrupt you at some point. A bad day at work, a bad performance,or a bad workout can happen to anyone. When you're having a bad day, you don'trealize how valuable it is to just show up.
“Lost days hurt you more thansuccessful days help you.”
Don’t break the chain of continuity. Missing twiceis the start of a bad habit; never do it. On a bad day, it's better to do 10 sit ups (insteadof your normal 50) than not do them at all.
Most of all, believe in yourself and understand that you are an evolving human being and have every reason to make a positive change today and every day!
