Forming Habits You Can Live With

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Professionals will tell you it takes 21 days to create a habit.  While this may be true a habit that is only 21 days old can easily be broken.  Habits a truly formed over a lifetime of study and change.  The younger we form the habit in our lives the deeper the habit will be ingrained.  Kids that learn to get out their books and study as soon as they get home will keep this habit for a life time. On of the strongest habits we as Americans have is watching TV.  Yes it is a habit not a need for you to watch must see TV every night.

Here is one way to form a habit.

1) Take a 3×5 index card and write in the first person present tense the habit you want to form.  If you want to be more courteous, on time, an early riser, what ever habit you want to form write it on the card.  Only Do This For One Habit At A Time. If you try to change to many things you will change nothing.  Read the card every hour during the day to instill it into your mind. Example:

I get up at 5:30 every morning

2) Do what you say you are doing.  If it is hard to get up get a coffee pot that automatically makes the coffee before you wake up so you can go get a cup as soon as you get up. You must do the thing you want to.  Reinforcing by reading and then not doing only brings disappointment in yourself .  This turns into failure talk and you stop doing what you really want to do.

3) Don’t give in to tomorrow talk.  I’ll start tomorrow will never start.  You have to do the things you say you want to do or you will never do anything.  If you do the same thing enough days in a row you will find it becoming easier over time.  It becomes ingrained and you become better for it.   A habit is like a computer program that just starts ever time your computer starts.  You don’t have to worry about it and you know you can rely on it being there.  You will do the right thing every time without having to think about it.

Charles C Noble said this, “First we make our habits, then our habits make us.”  You can do what you set your mind to, but you have to do it.  Reading about it will not organize your house.  Watching a TV show will not drop the pounds.  Listening to a motivational speaker will not get you off the couch.  You have to go do it so do it today.

For all you techies here is a website to help you with your habits HabitForge.  It is free and emails you everyday for 21 days.  Another place I like is FutureMe.  You can send an email to your future self just so you know what you were thinking, or check up on where you thought you should be.

You Can Start A Payment Jar

I hate to admit it, but I have a swear jar.  If I use a curse word I put a dollar in the jar.  It only has five dollars in it, but that is a sign of a habit I need to break.  If you want to stop swearing or even stop eating out a jar is a good way to encourage change.  Fro the eating out, or spending money without accounting for it, you put the amount you were going to spend in the jar so you are saving the money instead of spending.  Yo can also do this by asking a friend to keep you accountable. This is the jerk friend that points out when you need to put money in the jar and smiles at your failure.  Yes it needs to be a jerk friend that you will get so tired of seeing their smiling face tell you to put the money in the jar you will stop doing to get back at them instead of losing the money.  Remember, you still have to do it for it to work.

Here is a quick idea from Unclutterer…Three quick organizing projects you can do right now

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