Starting a new habit and sticking to it and not finding success in kicking one.
There are many books written on this, I am only making an attempt to write my successes and failures in forming or getting out of habits. There is great book that I have read, titled Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, which I have borrowed some references in this write up. It is a great read except for the drag on the gamblers’ case, on which Charles goes on and on to make his point.
This is how I started, jumpstarted with the book and something that I heard from my daughter piano teacher saying to her:
“if you practice for 21 days straight it will become a habit and you will become a maestro in that piece”.
I kept wondering if that is true for any habit that I want to start. As an adult starting a new “good” habits is very hard, not sure if you have tried and stuck to it, you would know what I am talking about. A friend of mine said:
“Man is a creature of habit”, by Man he meant all Humans!!
This is so true after you cultivate certain habits, you will want to stick to it, some of them however idiosyncratic it may sound, like taking the same route to office, having 2 eggs and smoothie for breakfast etc.
So I thought I should give this 21 days a try since I wanted to cultivate new good habits. Here are things I started using 21 days and the books advice:
- Plank for 90 secs every day
- Meditate/Yoga for 10 mins every day
- Exercise for at least 20 mins each day
- Praise or acknowledge a team member, family member or acquaintance, sincerely each day
- Read a book for at least 30 min each day
- Engage in a spiritual activity (prayer and lighting an oil wick lamp)
I am very happy at the out come of 21 days discipline, it works, so far it has been this way:
- 60 days of planks/yoga (with an app called Daily Yoga),
- 23 days of meditation (with an app called Headspace),
- 60+ days of exercise — each day a different one: walk, bike, run, elliptical, rowing, badminton, bike (all tracked on Apple Watch circles)
- 21 working days of : set a remainder on calendar at 4:30pm to take time to acknowledge a team member or your boss or a peer
- 45 days of spiritual connection: do not have breakfast without lighting the lamp and praying.
All these have become a habit like Charles Duhigg has written about, now I cannot miss them. I feel guilty, uncomfortable if I miss it. It keeps me honest to do these as a routine, no matter what.
Keeping track of them and having the discipline to do it really helps, the apps have been a key to it — I have spent about $10 per month on these apps and it is well worth it. Of course you need support of family to have time to do these, so I share these with my family so they understand the space I need.
These were on starting new habits. I have not found an easy one for kicking some “bad” habits. I have several bad habits and I have stayed aloof from them for a long time. I really don’t want to list them here since you will start judging me. But it goes without saying
Bad habits die hard
I have tried to kick some of them as many as 13 years and I yield to them once in a blue moon. So somehow the 21 day theory does not work on kicking habits for me. If you know of some way, I would love to hear since these bad habits are hindering me in many ways.