Good things take time. Change doesn’t happen overnight. If you are serious about personal development, manning up and becoming badass then you have to learn how to form good habits.
This post has taken a while, but I wanted this to be as honest as possible. So I made a point to form a new Habit of my own before I post it. One should always be honest to themselves.
It’s all good to read something and be inspired to make a big change in life, but if you don’t instal it as a habit the change won’t be permanent. The motivation wears out, the enthusiasm dies away and you will revert to your old ways.
Your current habits are ingrained more than you possibly realize and will be tough to break down and replace. If you have the habits of a pushover you will need some serious commitment to developing the habits of an achiever.
The best attitude to take here is that becoming badass is a journey, not a destination. You are in no hurry to get anywhere. But if you slowly and gradually change your ways you will eventually become a badass.
Commit For A Month
Experts say that it takes 21 days to form a habit. So to ensure you lock it in I find it best to aim for a month.
Commit to 30 days for the formation of a new habit. Consciously think about it at all times, write yourself reminders and notes. Do anything to ensure that you don’t forget and that you remember every day to implement this habit.
Commit for 30 days and don’t back off. If motivation dies or resistance pops up, power on through. Do it for the 30 days you said you would and then and only then reflect upon it.
After 30 days the new habit should be ingrained. By then you will have had long enough to decide whether or not this is something you want to keep doing or something that isn’t really worthwhile. This is a judgment you can safely make after 30 days, but not one that can be made after 3 days when it is so easy to give up.
Also after 30 days if you decide to maintain your new habit you should be able to do it pretty much automatically now, without so much conscious thought.
Instil One New Habit At A Time
About two months ago, I contacted Saiyan training method, to suggest me customized physical training plan I could apply to my daily routine. He was gracious to oblige.
From monday to friday, when home, set an alarm to go off every 45 minutes(except when sleeping). When the alarm goes off, do 4 pullups, 10 press ups, 7 squats and 7 burpees. If you can’t do those numbers, just do as many as you can.
On Saturday and Sunday, you rest. Every second Sunday is a test day, you do 2 sets of as many repetitions of the above exercises as possible, with 5 minutes rest between each set.
It took me a while to get the hang of it, but now I cannot slouch or slack off for too long. It gets physically uncomfortable to relax. As funny as that may sound.
Often people get very inspired to make changes in their life and they throw themselves into it headfirst. They try and make several drastic changes all at once. Ending their old ways of doing things and starting afresh.
This is noble but it doesn’t often work. It takes a lot of time and effort to instal one habit, let alone several. It’s just so emotionally draining more often than not you will give up.
I can see how people think it would be easier to just change everything all at once. But as soon as that fire of motivation burns out you just revert back to your old ways. You can focus all your attention on one area so you end up with lots of little changes that haven’t become concrete habits rather than one thing that’s actually changed.
The best way to form new habits is to tackle one at a time and focus all your energy on that. Do it for a month, lock it in and then choose a new one. It is a lot easier to stay focused and actually make the habit happen when you use this approach.
Then in a year, you could have potentially made 12 new habits. Compare that to the person who tries to make 10 new habits on every new year’s resolution but none of them ever get put into reality.
The Art of Positive Habit Formation
There are two types of habits you can try and instal – positive and negative. For example, a negative habit would be to stop being rude. Alternatively, you could twist the same thing around to a positive light and say your new habit is to be polite and courteous.
Getting fit is better than losing weight. Being successful with women is better than not scaring women away.
Just make sure you are always working towards something, not running away from something.
Positive habits give you more confidence and inspiration than negative ones and you are more likely to be able to make them happen.
How To Make It Happen
- One habit at a time.
- Commit to it for a month regardless of what happens.
- Frame the habit in a positive way.
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