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Habits are a settled or regular tendency, practice, or routine, that’s especially hard to give up. I hope you read my initial explanation of routines before, as following routines is the prerequisite to developing a habit.
The author James Clear wrote an excellent guide in his book “Atomic Habits – tiny changes, remarkable results”. If you plan to develop new habits or change old ones, I recommend reading his book.
Building a new habit will reshape the way you think about yourself and your future as it significantly impacts your daily life. This means your life today is the sum of your current habits. So everything healthy or unhealthy that makes you happy or unhappy causes failure or winning is based on your current habits.
You repeatedly do everything without thinking about it keeps you from changing and becoming someone new, a better version of yourself. It was eye-opening for me when I began my journey to a healthier life.
Form better habits – now!
Every journey begins with one step, and it’s the same with habits. To start forming better habits now, consider taking small steps.
To give you a personal example: To improve my health condition and turn body fat into muscle mass, I had to step up the game and get used to drinking at least 3 liters of water every day. I wasn’t very good at that for many years. Drinking more than 1 – 1 1/2 liters a day was already challenging for me.
So what did I do to change this habit into a more positive habit? Over 3 – 4 weeks, I slowly increased my daily intake of water until I reached my goal of drinking three liters a day. Of course, I did have some setbacks in getting there. But after four weeks, I got used to drinking that “much” daily.
The more significant challenge is to stick to your new habit and turn it into a routine or ritual.
How to stick to your new habits
It’s easy to follow a habit for 3 – 4 weeks, but sticking to a new habit may be difficult. Creating a routine out of your habit means sticking to them. It’s about consistency and setbacks but also comebacks. You may even have to start over again and almost start from the beginning again.
Those setbacks are not bad; you have to conquer them, not get overwhelmed or disappointed, and get back on track.
How to design your life
There is a beautiful book that I recommend reading called “Design Your Life” written by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Having read this book, I can tell you that it’s not all about designing your life but also about “designing” and organizing your work.
I strongly believe in everyone being able to achieve their personal goals. And that’s what designing your life is all about. Life has so many paths laid out for you. You need to be the one who chooses the path you’d like to take.
Remove all distractions, and remove people and circumstances that keep you from getting closer to your goals. Take the required initial steps, commit to one path you’d like to start with and get going.
Improving your life by introducing better habits also means to get rid of some bad habits you will have.
Conclusion
As you can see, habits are an essential part of achieving your goals in life. Whether you start grinding or take it slow is up to you, and maybe it’s good for you to reach one big life goal instead of a few life goals.
For me, all my goals boil down to freedom and independence. Whenever I am working on my financial goals, it’s all about gaining the independence I want to have to live a better life. Also, talking about a better life is most likely different for everyone.
For me, it’s not about being super-rich; it’s not about stopping work because I have too much fun working. It’s about being happy and having time.
