Want to build better habits? Make use of the Military Strategy!
Sun Tzu, a legendary military strategist of ancient China and the author of the famous book, The Art of War, had one simple motto — to win without fighting or at least win the easiest battles first instead of jumping into the difficult ones.
Throughout his book, he emanates his teachings that go beyond the field of battle. Some of these principles are used in business, life, and management. Let’s take this one step ahead and talk about how to apply his military strategies to building better habits.
Choose your habits wisely
Sun Tzu recommends that military commanders should avoid spreading their forces too thin as that would make an army weaker throughout. If we apply this teaching to our personal habits, it means that taking on too many habit changes all at once can derail the progress we have made in our current habits as well.
For example, you may have undertaken a couple of habits such as walking to the office and eating healthy food. Now, let’s suppose you pick three more habits: eliminating junk food, enrolling in a yoga class, and learning mindfulness. Wouldn’t it be difficult to continue all these habits? Here’s a better way for choosing your habits wisely:
- Segregate your life into different segments like career, health, relationships, hobbies, and so on.
- Instead of picking up all the habits for one segment, choose one habit in a single segment such as working on high-value activities for at least an hour in the career segment.
- Once you get a certain momentum, pick another habit but in a different segment.
This approach ensures you don’t take on too much in one single segment and balance all the areas of life.
Be in a better position to deal with difficult changes
We try to build better habits or get rid of bad habits through sheer willpower. For example, forcing yourself to not reach for that bag of chips when it is lying there in front of you. Or trying to work on high-value activities when there’s a lot of noise in your house.
When we fail to keep up with these habits, we blame ourselves for having low willpower and not wanting things badly enough. But so often these failures are a result of poor planning instead of poor willpower. Here are three of Sun Tzu’s teachings that can help us be in a better position to deal with difficult changes:
Principle 1: “You can be sure in succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended”
Application: Build habits that are easy to maintain. For example, instead of starting yoga for an hour, start with a 15 minutes session or a 20-minute video tutorial.
Principle 2: “He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight”
Application: Start with easy habits and leave the difficult ones for later. For example, instead of picking up a hard habit like eliminating all junk, pick up a habit like eating a healthy meal four times a week.
Principle 3: “A clever general, avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish and inclined to return.”
Application: Attack bad habits where they are weak and easy to change instead of attacking them where they are the strongest. For example, implementing a no-junk food meal when you do not have it lying around in your house.
Know yourself
Sun Tzu says that generals should be adept at the “military calculus” of taking into account all the factors that could affect the outcome of the battle. This means knowing yourself, your strengths and weaknesses as much as the enemy’s. How this might help? Let’s say you know from your past experiences that the habits you schedule in the morning are much easier to continue than those that you schedule at the end of the day.
This leaves you two options — schedule your habits in the morning or find out the reasons why they are difficult to implement in the evening and resolve those first. There could be numerous things you may figure out with more self-awareness which will help you build and continue better habits.
Success breeds success
“Opportunities multiply as they are seized,” Sun Tzu wrote in “The Art of War”. Momentum is one of the most important things in warfare and in our lives too. When we see the progress we have achieved and the results our habits are bringing, we become more motivated to stick to them.
So, mark your progress, set milestones and keep a track of every little change in your life. One way to do that is by setting daily reminders in our simple and effective task management tool, Brutask.
All you need to do is put in your habits and let the tool remind you of completing them every day.
Make use of our tool for free by clicking here: https://brutask.com/
