Developing Successful Habits

Habits are in such a way that after a period, they become part of your reflexes. I remember picking up some habits during my university days. Unfortunately, one was a bad habit; the habit of being sarcastic when communicating with friends. On returning home, I realized that I could not limit the sarcasm to just friends. It was gradually creeping into my conversations with everybody. I had to prompt myself quickly and put in a lot of effort to stop the sarcasm. It was as if the habit had become automated, with me having very little control over it. Well, that is why we call it a habit. I am glad I was able to turn it around into a good and successful habit.

Just like my bad habit became automated, my good habit also become automated with consistency. Developing good and successful habit is a priority for everyone. However, it is not as simple as it sounds. Some comments I usually receive prompts me on the knowledge base of my audiences. Most understand the topics I write about. Unfortunately, they do complain about their inability to implement what they know. Truthfully, implementation is difficult for everyone. It requires extra effort. Hence, developing successful habits requires some extra effort. Just as I said earlier, I had to become extra conscious of my bad habit to change. You can also be extra conscious about that successful habit you want to develop, and you will see it manifesting.

When your health is compromised you cannot chase after your goals. Your career, education and businesses might be at a standstill for a while. You might also invest financially through hospital visits, medications among others to regain your health.

In the previous post on Habits, a basic introduction and foundation was laid. Here, I will expatiate a little. I will also give few tips for cultivating successful habits. Successful habits are habits that make you productive and help yield positive results. For instance, visiting the gym regularly, eating healthy, saving at least 10% of your earnings every month. These are all habits that are key to your health and financial freedom. When your health is compromised you cannot chase after your goals. Your career, education and businesses might be at a standstill for a while. You might also invest financially through hospital visits, medications among others to regain your health.

Incorporating these successful healthy and financial habits will go a long way to save you all the stress. You would have at least taken a step in securing your health and your financial freedom. Moreover, the benefits surpass the consequences, and it takes little time and effort to do. Remember that your habits will determine the quality of your life and quality is not an act but a habit. It is therefore wise and prudent to develop successful habits. In the previous post Habits, I emphasized some keywords for habit formation. These are behavioral patterns and consistency. In this post, my major emphasis is on change.

Change is the only constant in life. Right from the beginning of this writeup, I have mentioned change a few times. Every day decisions involve changing from one thing to the other. At times, we adjust our daily routines and habits. This emphasis reveals the extreme importance of change. Furthermore, in developing a successful habit, you are changing your unsuccessful habits.

Now let’s try to outline some ways of implementing this change.

There is a saying that the first step to solving a problem is identifying the problem. In this context, we know our solution is developing successful habits. Therein, our problem will be unproductive and unsuccessful habits. Firstly, in developing successful habits, we need to identify old, unproductive and unsuccessful habits. As a person, you are quite knowledgeable about things that you indulged in that are not beneficial. Habits like ignoring family and friends, not returning phone calls, absenteeism, unpunctuality, skipping meals, eating at irregular hours, procrastination, overspending, indiscipline, inconsistency among many others comes at a detrimental cost to health, wealth, family and social relationships and education. It is thus very necessary to identify your bad and unproductive habits to start the journey of change.

After identifying these unsuccessful habits, the next step is to adopt the habit of changing unproductive habits into productive and successful habits. Change is also a habit that needs to be developed. Like my acquaintance and colleagues said, they know these things I write about, but implementation is the problem. It means they have not developed the habit of changing unproductive habits. You can successfully identify your bad and unproductive habits, but if you don’t change them to successful habits, you knowing about them become less of value. Your willingness and eagerness to know about them is because you will put in the work to change them.

In addition to identifying and adopting the habit of change, the next step will be to develop a habit of saying no. No to self, things and sometimes people. If you know there are certain things and people that encourage your negative habits, you need to stay away from them. If you are your own worst enemy My greatest enemy that is impeding your growth and success by encouraging your bad habits, you need to develop the habit of saying no to self. Then your journey to developing successful habits will be worthwhile.

In addition to identifying and adopting the habit of change, the next step will be to develop a habit of saying no. No to self, things and sometimes people. If you know there are certain things and people that encourage your negative habits, you need to stay away from them. If you are your own worst enemy My greatest enemy that is impeding your growth and success by encouraging your bad habits, you need to develop the habit of saying no to self. Then your journey to developing successful habits will be worthwhile.

The last part of fully establishing your successful habit is to put in extra effort to get it grounded. One of the things I learned is that if you can do something consistently for 21 days, it become a habit. Well, I partially agree to this statement. Exhibiting the consistency of going at something for 21 days is quite amazing. Unfortunately, habits don’t get grounded and fully established within 21 days.

You know life is not always so simple. There are several altercations and challenges you encounter on a daily. This makes our moods to fluctuate quite often. Sometimes you are in the best of mental health and sometimes you are anxious and depressed. All these factors have great impact on the quality of your daily life and the kind of attitudes we exhibit. And as mentioned earlier, our habits determine the quality of our daily life. So, imagine days that you are at your lowest. Are you sure a 21-day established habit will be able to withstand those moments?

The truth is your old and unproductive habits have been with you the longest. Thereby, it is extremely easy to fall back to these unproductive habits during you lowest moments than maintaining your newly established successful habit. This is why you must make sure to get that successful habit full grounded before you relax on your efforts.

The goal is not just about developing a successful habit but maintaining a successful habit.

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“When your health is compromised you cannot chase after your goals. Your career, education and businesses might be at a standstill for a while. You might also invest financially through hospital visits, medications among others to regain your health.”