“First we make our habits, then our habits make us.”
Charles C. Noble
It is the beginning of the year. Everyone is talking about resolutions. We often decide to leave the bad habits that degrade the quality of our life. In addition, we want to form new habits that can lead us to a better life.
Importance of Making New Habits:
Forming a new habit is always a new beginning to self-improvement. The more you experiment with life, the better your life will be. However, mostly our new habit last only for few days or weeks. This is funny but sometimes we do not even start.
“Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.”
Benjamin Franklin
It is good to try again and never quitting something because of failure. We must to learn from past mistakes and do it better next time.
Each time you make a resolution or habit, you are reminding yourself a goal. You cannot make progress without having these goals. Therefore, always keep striving for a better self. If you make yourself better, the world around your look better automatically.
Why Habit Fails:
Every year I set up New Year resolutions and decide to form new habits. Sometimes I succeed while I fail at few things. If I compare those failed and successful resolutions, I can see the difference.
Success primarily connected with your desires and interest. If you truly want to do something and it make you happy, you will do it at any cost.
Forming a new habit also requires an consistent effort. Often we expect instant result. When we do not get it, we lost enthusiasm. We tend to procrastinate. We make excuse such as we are not getting enough time.
It is important to see at the big picture while making a new habit. It may take some time initially but the result could change the rest of your life. You have to get ready for making extra effort to get something extra in life.
“Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.”
Aristotle
How to Form a Habit Successfully:
Our thinking and belief has huge impact on the success of forming a new habit. You may have doubt on some, on which you failed in the past.
Once you finalize your New Year resolutions or any habit, sit silent for few minutes. Then, if you think rationally, you already know which of them is going to succeed.
Therefore, think twice before working on the same habit as last year. First, check why you want to do this. Then see, what you will do differently this time to make it successful.
“Successful people are simply those with successful habits.”
Brian Tracy
Here are some points that help us to Form a New Habit Successfully:
- Do only if you want to do: The real and lasting motivation comes from within. Suppose you are impressed with someone and decided to do similar this year. It could be “quick found and easy lost” motivation. Check if you really want to do it for yourself or you want to show the world. Your habit will last if you have more focus on Internal Rewards rather than External Rewards.
- Believe that you can do it: If you are starting something with doubt, it will lead you to failure. First, give yourself enough reasons to justify why you can do it. Then start it. Your passion of success should be higher than your fear of failure. Believe in yourself and you are halfway there.
- Take responsibility of failure: We often try new things told by someone famous or master. Sometimes, we do it because mentioned in a book. If we succeed, we give credit to ourselves. However, we believe that if we fail, it is their failure. No.Take responsibility of your failure if it is not working for you. You know there are many who got success using same formulas. Once you understand this, you will throw your best effort and there will be stunning results.
- Never quit in the Middle: I always experienced that when you want to start something, unknown and uncertain situations comes to stop you. On the other hand, when you are doing well with your new habit or resolution, something comes to break the pattern. Remember:
“Winners never quit and quitters never win.” ~ Vince Lombardi
It is all right if you could not do it for few days. Never let this distractions/gap work as an excuse to stops you in the middle of your journey. Keep going.
- Have patience: Most of the time the impact of our habits are not instant. For example, you have given up anger but it does not seem too much impact on your relationship. May be you have learned a new skill, but you are not able to use it anywhere yet.Have patience. Your effort will make a difference at the right time. As Paulo Coelho said, “Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”
Today, we care our family so much. We work hard for our career. We make an effort to make ourselves financially strong. However, we forget to take care of inner self. We are living in the pain every day because of our habits. Are you ready to make a change?
Let us promise to work on ourselves this year. Let us check what habits conflicting with your happiness. Let us take care of our body and mind. Let us live a healthy, peaceful and happy life.
“Not managing your time and making excuses are two bad habits. Don’t put them both together by claiming you ‘don’t have the time’.”
Bo Bennett
