36 Lessons I've Learned About Habits-4

36 Lessons I've Learned About Habits-4

Failure is a learning tool. You will fail in your habit attempts - that's a given. But instead of seeing it as a failure of you as a person (it's not), see it as a way to learn about yourself and habit change. Each person is different - what works for me won't necessarily work for you. And you won't know until you try it and fail. When you fail, you learn something new, and that helps you get better.
How you deal with failure is key. When many people fail, they feel bad about themselves and give up. This is why they have such a hard time changing habits. If instead they got back up and tried again, perhaps with an adjustment to their method (some new accountability, for example), they'd obviously have a much higher chance of success. The people who succeed at habits aren't people who never fail - they're people who keep going after they fail.

Adjust or die. On a related note, habit change is about learning to adjust. New job? That will change things, so you'll need to adjust your habit. Missed a few days? Figure out what's going wrong and adjust. Habit isn't enjoyable? Find a new way to make it enjoyable. Self-talk sabotaging your habit change? Focus on becoming aware of your self-talk so you can solve that problem. Adjust, adjust, adjust.

Enlist support. Who will you turn to when things get hard? When you need encouragement? When you fail? Have a support buddy - I had one when I was quitting smoking, and I've used it other times as well. If you start out without support, and fail, that's OK - adjust by finding someone to help you. That might be your spouse or best friend or parent or sibling or co-worker. Or maybe you find a support group online. It makes a big difference.

You limit yourself. Lots of times I suggest people give up something like cheese or sugar or beer, at least for a little while. They respond: "I could never give up my cheese!" (or meat, or sweets, etc.) Well, that's true if you believe it. However, I've learned that we often think we can't do something when really we can. I recently talked to someone who was absolutely sure she couldn't give up baked goods. She limits herself with this belief. We all do to some extent - but if you can examine your beliefs and be willing to test them out, you'll often find out they're not true.

Set up your environment for success. If you're going to give up sweets, get rid of all the sweets in your house. Ask your spouse to support you by not making or buying sweets for a little while. Tell friends you're not eating sweets and ask them to support you. Yes, this can require others to make adjustments, but if you ask nicely for their help, often they'll be glad to support you. But the point is, find ways to create an environment where you're likely to succeed. Create accountability, reminders, support, a lack of temptations and distractions, etc.

Just lace up your shoes get out the door. Reduce the barrier to starting the habit. If I need to go for a run, often I'll think about how hard it is, how long it will take, how cold it will be, etc., and I'll psyche myself out and not do it. But when my rule is, "Just lace up my shoes and get out the door", that's so easy it's hard to say no. That's my bar. As easy as possible. Once I'm out the door, I'm invariably glad I started and things go well. For meditating, just get your butt on the cushion. For writing, just open up your writing program and write a sentence.

Define your breaks. If you're going to be traveling and know that you can't stick to your habit, for example, set the dates of your habit break in advance, rather than letting it slide and then thinking that you've failed. And have the date when you're going to get back on track, and set a reminder so you don't forget. This will keep a planned event from completely derailing your habit change.

Om Namah Shivay