The Power of Habits
Never underestimate them!
You’ve heard about habits over and over. There’s quite a number of books, apps and websites that revolve around the subject. It is something so simple, yet I believe it is greatly underestimated.
Even without having read any of the books on habits, most of us have at least made a habit part of our life. The first one I can think of is the habit of doing my bed in the morning.
There is quite a number of habits and types of habits. I think that in essence, a habit is something that is done repeated times over a period of time. It is a task that is not easy to accomplish in the beginning, perhaps because it is something new, something we normally don’t do. And then after doing it several times, it becomes not only easy but natural.
Here is what made me think and write about habits:
- I take for granted that the habits I’ve been able to incorporate in my life, are enough to get me through all the challenges I find along the way.
- I recognize that I need to evaluate regularly what habits are working for me, and which ones are not.
- I need to be willing to incorporate new habits. Always. Constantly. Because part of life is to always be learning, to always embrace change and challenges.
- In as much as I’ve mastered one of the habits, if it doesn’t make me a better person, it has to go. (sorry bad habits, out the door!).
Momentum:
If you were to make a list of all the habits that you have incorporated in your life, you would be surprised to find out how much momentum you have built and how much power there is behind them.
I once started to make it a habit to be thankful for the day, at the end of the day. This was back when I lived in Mexico City and I would normally come home at around 11pm every night.
Then one day, when I was at a different place, I noticed that around 11pm my mood would change to a good mood. Then I realized that it was because of that one habit to be thankful for the day, no matter how the day was!
Links:
I could come up with a long list of books and resources about habits, but I’ll just leave a simple link to a search on Medium about:
What I found interesting was that I tried to search for a an image to use for this post (not the one of the mountain you just saw), and as I searched for “habits”, I found an interesting article by Fast Company titled “4 Daily Habits That Lead To Success” in which one of the habits is to “MAKE YOUR BED” (you never know!).
Then that made me remember about Zen Habits. And so, here are two interesting posts by Leo Babauta about habits that I know you’ll find very interesting:
