4 Things to Try While Building New Habits ( Part 1 )
Have you ever had the experience that you have done something without even noticing it? Just after I finished the first line, I have unconsciously finished a cup of milk, walked to the kitchen, and walked back to my room. These are what I will automatically do when I “ enter the zone ”.
Habits are fun and useful. It can help you save a lot of time and energy finishing easy stuff, allowing you to spend more effort on something harder and more important. But on the other hand, habits can be harmful. I have heard countless couples broken up because their partner squeezed the toothpaste from the center.
“The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our habits.”
Building good habits can make you better while Ignoring bad habits can bring you trouble. I believe that most of us realize this philosophy. But for me, working on something unfamiliar for several days is not hard while persisting on doing it for months or years is very tough.
I have been bothered by my non-lasting passion for new things and kept finding ways to deal with it. Recently, I’ve finished the book “ Atomic Habits” by James Clear and had found out some interesting points and tips on building habits.
Why Building Habits Is Hard?
Before giving advice on how to building habits, let’s first figure out why building habits is hard. According to James Clear, there are 3 common misconceptions about building habits:
Changes Have to Be Big?
People tend to believe that a huge success is derived from massive actions, and usually underestimate the potential energy of minor changes, ending up beaten by depression, lack of confidence, pressure, and tiredness. In Clear’s opinion, instead of golden opportunities, what lead to success are those tiny habits you have built and repeated in your daily life. If you make yourself 1% better every day, you will be about 37 times better after a year. So try to start with a small change in your life.
Improvements will be seen immediately?
“I’ve been working out every day for a month, so why can’t I see any change in my body?” This is exactly what stops me from continuing everyday exercising during my first month of workout. People expect that changes will appear at once. But according to Clear, your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. You have to spend a certain amount of time and effort to break through the so-called “ Plateau of Latent Potential” in order to make meaningful differences. Unfortunately, few people have the patience to wait for tangible results.
“We often expect progress to be linear. At the very least, we hope it will come quickly. In reality, the results of our efforts are often delayed.”
Happiness will come only when I reach my goal?
“Once I reach the goal, I will be happy” sounds fair. But the fact is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone.” So Clear claims that we should solve problems at the system level rather than at the results level, which means that we should focus more on the processes that lead to those results. After all, If you fall in love with the processes instead of the outcomes, you don’t have to wait for your own permission to be happy.
“what truly matters is not any single accomplishment, but the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement.”
“Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.”
After understanding the three general concepts, we will discuss the 4 steps Clear provides about building habits effectively and efficiently in the next part!
