You are the sum of your habits

“We become what we repeatedly do” — Stephen Covey

We are the sum of our habits. New habits are things you do, old habits are who you are. So, who are you? What are the habits that define you? “I don’t have any habits”, you tell yourself. You aren’t aware of them, yet they define who you are.

Bad habits go unnoticed. Removing them is often more important than developing good ones. Bad habits, if unchecked, encroach on the good ones. It took me years to figure this one out. I used to be a drunk, out of shape, watched too much TV, used drugs, treated people badly, entitled. I slept in every day, and was out every night. Guess what? I was always stressed at work. Had an ulcer. I moved from crisis to crisis, waited ’til the last minute to handle anything. I did not appreciate or realize then, that I had bad habits. One particular bad habit, drinking, cascaded negatively over everything in my life. It was directly responsible for other bad habits. It was a keystone habit.

What are your habits?

“You can’t manage, what you can’t measure” — Peter Drucker

The first step is awareness. What habits define you? Who are you? The more important question is… who do you want to become? What are the habits that make that person? If you want to be an artist, you need to paint everyday. Want to be a writer? You need to have a daily writing habit. Want to finish a triathlon? You will need to train daily. Want to be a great parent? Commit to regular quality time with your kids. You get the idea.

First thing is to be conscious about your unknown (probably bad) habits. Think about the activities you perform regularly. What are the cues that trigger them. What are the situations in which you engage in both bad and good behaviors. Write them down, form a list. Many will be obvious, I want to drink less, smoke less, read more, work less, eat better, spend more time with the kids, train more, write more , paint more, etc etc.

Once you have a sense of your habits, decide which you want to change. This will be hard. My suggestion is to start slow. One habit at a time. Remove bad before adding good. Your unrealized habits are more ingrained than you can imagine. You have been repeating these habits, without even realizing, for years. Look for the triggers. Analyze them. If you are honest with yourself, you will see that many hold you back from growth. Changing will take massive effort, which eventually leads to ease. That is what makes habits amazing. You have limited decision making power in any day. Habits and routines remove the thought and mental energy required to make hard decisions. A habit makes it easier to simply “do it”. No thought required, allowing you to omit unnecessary decisions, so you can use that energy to focus on what matters.

A simple example: I start everyday by making my bed. Beginning the day with a quick win. When I started the habit, I would often forget, or have to think about doing it. Now it has become a natural action and part of my morning routine. Get out of bed, boom its made, Sometimes I haven’t even realized I made it, no thought required.

Work on your habits, be conscious of them, track them. Keep adding positive ones and removing negative ones. It will become obvious that you can change who you are and shape the life that you want.

So, what habits do you want for yourself?

Shawn Kolodny is an artist, writer (almost), and entrepreneur. You can check out his artwork here.

If you enjoyed it, hit that heart button below. Would mean a lot to me and it helps other people see the story.