Note: This article is by Darius Foroux, who discusses the most important methods and steps for committing to habits that change and improve our lives.
And I think that this applies and is also true of what is opposite to excellence. Presenting modest performance is the result of practicing humble habits, which means that we can move from a modest life towards a life filled with distinction and excellence by changing our habits.
Before we get into how to do that, I would like to clarify what I said when I said that habits change your life, but they do not guarantee success. Because this is what the articles and books that talk about the habits of wealthy people tell us. They explain to us, for example, how Elon Musk, a successful investor and CEO of Tesla Motors, sleeps only two hours a day and eats cereal as his dinner, or something like that.
The writers of these kinds of stupid articles hide from the readers that correlation does not require causation; Getting up early, working hard, and taking a cold shower do not make you successful, and no one illustrates this point better than essayist Nassim Taleb, who wrote about it in his book Fooled By Randomness.
He said, “Working hard, showing up for work and appointments on time, wearing a clean white shirt, using deodorant, and other traditional things can contribute to achieving success. They are certainly necessary, but they may not be sufficient because they do not cause success.”
Therefore, when I speak of habits, I do not mean the consequences that follow from them. Rather, I mean changing our actual behavior; it improves the quality of the life we live. Now that we've put that issue aside, I'm going to show you my four-step method for sticking to your life-changing habits:
The first step is to choose good habits
I can tell you about the habits that changed my life all day long, But this will not do you any good, and the reason for this is that you are the only one who can decide what is a good habit for you. It is very important to determine whether the new habits that you intend to adopt are working.
We often hear about something and immediately think that we ought to do it. Getting up early may be very useful to you; I don't know much about you. But when I wake up early, I get in a bad mood and act like a grumpy old man who hates the world, which leads to a deterioration in the quality of my life and my relationships with others. So I don't get up early—by 7 a.m. or earlier—no matter how many people tell me it will make me successful.
So before you adopt any new habit and decide to add it to your life, you just have to ask yourself if that habit will improve the quality of your life, and the reason that prompts us to ask ourselves that question is that we all need a reason to change, and it must be a greater reason. Much more important than the usual superficial causes.
For example, you may want to read one book a week, and here you have to ask yourself why you want to do so, what you aim for after doing so, and your future vision of the results of your new habit and your goals based on it.
For me, I read two books a week. Because I work as a teacher or productivity coach, I need to learn new things daily so that I can always improve my performance at work. I also do strength training because I want to be a helpful person and help others. I do most of the housework in my house as well as in my office because I like to make things and fix them if they get damaged.
I also need to keep fit so that I can carry heavy things or carry out strenuous tasks. These are my reasons. So now I want you to know your reasons. Then you adopt habits that bring you closer to the things you want in life and stick to them.
The second step is to focus on one habit at a time
I finally got to write about my success in building the habit of exercising daily after trying to do it for years. I had reasons behind my failure in that; one of them was my constant attempts to build and follow several habits at the same time. I do not know the reason for that, but sometimes I get a rush for self-improvement and development that takes over me completely and pushes me to make changes in several aspects of my life.
I feel like reading more books, writing more, working harder, living better, improving the quality of the food I eat, and all the other things you can think of. So you had better hold back your ardor if you are like me. In general, when we do many things at the same time, we end up in a state of chaos, as we always end up where we started.
Our overestimating ourselves and expecting too much of ourselves must be one of the reasons why we do so many things at the same time. We mistakenly think that we can accomplish a lot of work in a short period of time; the truth, however, is that we can actually achieve a lot, but we need a long period of time to do so.
So, focus on things one by one, stacking the habits you usually want to follow on top of each other, one by one, little by little.
The third step is to lower the level of expectations
We often want to do very great things without understanding what they are. Starting a business or building a career requires a lot of effort and work, and in fact, everything precious and valuable in life requires a lot of effort and striving to achieve it when it's out of our reach. So, we have to start with simple and small steps before we achieve huge achievements.
Similarly, you have to start by changing yourself before you try to change the world. The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace, expressed this best when he said: “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but none of us thinks of changing ourselves.”
So I advise you to focus on the small things and build a strong foundation for yourself, because we will not be able to achieve any important achievement without that. For example, if you want to run every day, start walking first. If you intend to write a book, write one sentence at a time. If you want to start a business, get one client at a time. If your goal, for example, is to read two books a week, you should start by reading one page a day. If you want to save money for your retirement, don't spend your money on minor things that you don't need, and so forth. Great things and achievements come on their own little by little.
The fourth step is to use checklists
I suffer forgetting everything. A few years ago, I got into the habit of daily reading, and I made a big mistake in the beginning. I have been reading for five or six days in a row, and then all of a sudden I forget about it, as if the desire to read more has simply vanished.
It's like you really wanted to do something, you did it, and then you completely forgot about it, which gives you a very bad feeling. This indicates your weak will. So you must not allow yourself to evade habits like this; we must use checklists or to-do lists to remind ourselves of the things we want to achieve.
In conclusion
Always remember that we follow new habits to change and improve our lives for the better. After you write your daily habits on a to-do list, I advise you to check them off by ticking them off daily, and one day you will be surprised how much these seemingly small habits can change your life.
At least this has happened to me and thousands of other people who focus well on their habits. So I am sure you will find a similar result as well.
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