There are three I’m trying to cultivate: Writing for a set period each day, meditating (zazen) for a set period each day, and to swim regularly. I’m also trying to get rid of a bad habit I’ve had for far too long; biting my nails. So what am I doing to make this happen? Well the organized folks over at Zen Habits (my source for all things habit forming) have all sorts of ideas! They have all sorts of lists and charts and what-not what it boils down to is this:
1. Be Realistic – Forming habits is hard, especially if you’ve been cultivating all sorts of bad ones (like I have). So don’t expect to turn your life around all at once, you’ll fail and end up disappointed and even further way from making the changes you want to in your life.
2. Be Simple – Whatever habit you are trying to form needs to be broken down into it’s constituent parts so you have a plan of action for accomplishing it. Don’t say “start working out”, It’s vague and you don’t know where to go with it. Instead say, “plan a work out regime, get gym membership, start doing plan, daily, etc…”. Break it all down into simple steps so that you can manage to do it.
3. Commit – This is one of the most important parts, it’s also the easiest one to break. You need to commit and probably in public. Tell your friends and family what it is you are doing, let them know it is important to you, ask for their input and support. Write your intentions down in your journal, on your blog or social networking start. In this case peer pressure is a good thing!
4. Follow Thru – This is the last and longest step. You need to be consistent. Habit’s don’t form until you’ve down them at a regular time at a regular rate, about a month. The first month is going to be a hassle and a pain, but push through and into the second month it’s going to get easier. You’ll find that you had just as mush time as you did before once you’ve adjusted.
Bonus steps:
5. Spread the Word – Once you’ve changed a part of your life, share that experience with your friends, family, and nice people you happen to meet along the way! It’ll get them excited and renew your batteries too
6. Do it Again – Once you’ve formed a habit, pick another aspect of your life you want to change/upgrade. Rinse, wash, repeat!
I’m going to start with swimming regularly and quitting nail biting. You’re thinking, “things are so busy now he’ll never be able to follow through on those!” Wrong! All of us are always to busy to change things in our lives, if we waited until we weren’t busy we’d never get farther! It’ll be a little more hectic but not by much. I’m committed, now all of you know! Hold me to it! If these two are going well I’ll pick up the other two, but you know what they say, baby steps!
good luck. um yeah. work on the swimming and writing…
i’ll work on running and stretching.
I tried committing to writing one page per day at a minimum in my novel-in-progress. That was back in April. This is December, and 58 pages is all I have to show for it. I’m not very good at the “follow through” aspect, am I?
thewritersjourney, that is something I need to work on myself. I’m good at doing what I need to for a few days maybe a week and then something comes up or I get distracted. Step 4 might be the hardest of them all.