What It Takes to Form a Good Habit I think "accountability buddy" really misses the point. There is satisfaction and joy in accomplishing the task, but that's where accountability buddy is a misnomer. All habits of any sort will trip, falter, fail, etc. We are humans and we love to connect and share experiences with - even introverts have a means by which they connect and share. By far, the most important aspect of developing any habit is the actual doing of the habit. [From years of experience as fitness center owner/operator] 18 Tricks to Make New Habits Stick Wouldn’t it be nice to have everything run on autopilot? Chores, exercise, eating healthy and getting your work done just happening automatically. Unless they manage to invent robot servants, all your work isn’t going to disappear overnight. But if you program behaviors as new habits you can take out the struggle. With a small amount of initial discipline, you can create a new habit that requires little effort to maintain. 1. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
How To Create A Habit In 15 Days Most of our life is lived by habits. We learn how to ride a bike, how to drive a car, we even learn how to speak and read. And then we do all of these with minimum effort and implication. As any other things in our life, habits are just tools we use in our joyful exploration of life. In today’s post I’ll share some of my experiences with habit creation using one of my favorite activities: journaling. Why Do You Need A New Habit? Well, let’s say you want a new habit in order to: write on your blog more oftenupdate your twitter status dailywrite each day a page from your new bookstart a fitness programstart a new eating habit or dietlearn a new language All these new activities are made by some repetitive tasks, a set of moves you have to do daily in order to get some positive results. How To Create A Habit In 15 Days All you need for that is a journal. Day 1: Name your habit Define it in the shortest, yet most understandable sentence you can write. Day 2: Describe your actions in detail
The Power of Habit and How to Rewire Our "Habit Loops" by Maria Popova What Iraqi kebob vendors have to do with your New Year’s resolutions. As a young man, Benjamin Franklin set out to improve himself by devising a chart-based log for tracking his progress against the virtues he identified as essential to good personhood. Each week, he would pick a virtue to cultivate, then put a black pencil mark in his calendar chart on any day he failed to uphold the virtue. This visual feedback on his progress encouraged him, and allowed him to move to a different virtue the following week, hoping that each week would leave him with a “habitude” for that particular virtue. We try to reverse-engineer willpower and flowchart our way to happiness, but in the end, it is habit that is at the heart of our successes and our failures. Duhigg first became fascinated by the power of habit eight years ago, while in Baghdad as a newspaper reporter. So the major summoned Kufa’s mayor and made a strange request: Get the food vendors out of the plaza. Donating = Loving
Nine Things Successful People Do Differently - Heidi Grant Halvorson Learn more about the science of success with Heidi Grant Halvorson’s HBR Single, based on this blog post. Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. 1. To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. 3. Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. The good news is, if you aren’t particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. 7. To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you’d honestly rather not do. 8. 9. If you want to change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead? It is my hope that, after reading about the nine things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along.
How to Build Self-Discipline Discipline is freedom. You may disagree with this statement, and if you do you are certainly not alone. For many people discipline is a dirty word that is equated with the absence of freedom. In fact the opposite is true. As Stephen R. Self-discipline involves acting according to what you think instead of how you feel in the moment. Work on an idea or project after the initial rush of enthusiasm has faded awayGo to the gym when all you want to do is lie on the couch and watch TVWake early to work on yourselfSay “no” when tempted to break your dietOnly check your email a few of times per day at particular times In the past self-discipline has been a weakness of mine, and as a result today I find myself lacking the ability to do a number of things which I would like – e.g. to play the guitar. If you struggle with self-discipline, the good news is that it can be developed. 1. Discipline means behaving according to what you have decided is best, regardless of how you feel in the moment. 2.
THE MENTAL MARATHON THE MENTAL MARATHONBy Mindy Solkin Owner and Head Coach The Running Center We all know that running requires a great amount of physicality. But your mental fortitude is equally important. There are two types of mental training in the sport of running: "Association" and "Dis-association". Association or "associative running" allows you to "tune-in" to your body and its physical sensations, while Dis-association or "dis-associative running" refers to the process of "tuning-out" distractions. ASSOCIATION Association refers to running where your mind is focused on the body and you are intentionally concentrating on physical sensations. The limitations of association include: 1) Harder to learn and apply. 2) Requires mental effort. 3) Requires mental skills. DIS-ASSOCIATION Dis-association refers to running where your mind is focused either on external stimuli or internal distractions. © 2003 The Running Center™ All Rights Reserved
Self-Discipline This week I’ll be blogging a series on self-discipline. New posts on this topic will appear every day Mon-Fri. I’ve also added a new self-discipline category. In this series I’ll be focusing on what I call the five pillars of self-discipline. The Five Pillars of Self-Discipline The five pillars of self-discipline are: Acceptance, Willpower, Hard Work, Industry, and Persistence. Each day of the series, I’ll explore one of these pillars, explaining why it’s important and how to develop it. What Is Self-Discipline? Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state. Imagine what you could accomplish if you could simply get yourself to follow through on your best intentions no matter what. Self-discipline is one of many personal development tools available to you. Building Self-Discipline My philosophy of how to build self-discipline is best explained by an analogy. Progressive training means that once you succeed, you increase the challenge.
9 Productivity Tricks for Procrastinators Irony: As I started to write this article, I thought, “I’ll just go play one quick Sudoku game first.” I caught myself in the act and marched myself to my laptop. People who say that procrastination is about laziness are probably the same people who think that anorexia is about not eating enough. Procrastination isn’t about laziness. The good news is that there are ways to get moving again. Here are 9 of my favorite tricks to help even the worst procrastinator break the habit: 1 – When you get an idea, do some little thing to begin. When I read Stephen King’s book On Writing, I noticed something. Most people get an idea. Then they sit there. They wonder if it’s a good idea. Then, they wonder if it’s a good idea some more. Got an idea? 2 – All hail small chunks of time! Lots of us complain about having no time. Are you waiting for many hours of spare time to begin your idea, your project, or your taxes? 3 – Agree to do it badly. Set a goal to do it badly. 4 – Commit aloud. 5 – Define quantities. Why?
Start Your Day in 33 Different Ways Mornings are underrated. I consider them fundamental for the whole diurnal experience. What you do in the very first moments of your morning will fundamentally and inexorably shape your entire day. Consciously inserting your intentions in these very first moments will have a huge effect. Here are at least 33 ways in which you can transform your days by only spending 5 minutes every morning. 1. I love the morning stillness and the unspoken promise of something ready to start. 2. And do nothing. 3. Point your mind to something you’re really grateful for and stay there. 4. Regardless of the current season. 5. You’re going to spot it pretty easily if you put your mind to it. 6. Write an answer to an old question, do part of a small chore, move an object out of somebody’s way. 7. Empty your mind and isolate from your environment. 8. This is different from number 6 in terms of the actual time of the helping act. 9. Like in getting physical. 10. 11. Let go. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.
Dave Lee - GTD sucks for creative work. Here's an alternative system. GTD sucks for creative work. Here’s an alternative system. (This is Part 1 in a series about My Productivity System.) A friend asked me this question about what system I use to manage my todo list: Your todo list is probably like mine, a million items long and constantly growing… Do you use a system or systems to manage your todo list? I’ve been loosely following GTD, and currently using a text document to handly my todo list. So, here’s my critique of GTD. I think GTD can work for those who have more straightforward jobs, like sales. Though I still appreciate some of GTD’s principles (next action, desired outcome as project, brain dumping, etc), I think the system can actually work against the creative innovator. Most task/to-do software is based around the concept of projects and tasks. The most important thing for the creative innovator is not a ton of tasks to do but rather the ability to see what’s important to focus on and to focus on that deeply. So, what’s my task system? 1. 2. 3.
5 important questions each day Magazine - The Perfected Self B. F. Skinner’s notorious theory of behavior modification was denounced by critics 50 years ago as a fascist, manipulative vehicle for government control. Frederik Broden My younger brother Dan gradually put on weight over a decade, reaching 230 pounds two years ago, at the age of 50. He’d be in good company: a 2007 study by TheJournal of the American Medical Association found that each year, 160,000 Americans die early for reasons related to obesity, accounting for more than one in 20 deaths. Dan had always been a gregarious, confident, life-of-the-party sort of guy, but as his weight went up, he seemed to be winding down. Today, my brother weighs 165 pounds—what he weighed at age 23—and his doctor has taken him off all his medications. Sorry if this sounds like a commercial for a miracle weight-loss program. Alcoholics don’t seem to face such dismal prospects, thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous and similar multistep programs, which are widely regarded as effective treatments.
Aging With Dignity Five Wishes Five Wishes lets your family and doctors know: Who you want to make health care decisions for you when you can't make them. The kind of medical treatment you want or don't want. Five Wishes is changing the way America talks about and plans for care at the end of life. Five Wishes has become America’s most popular living will because it is written in everyday language and helps start and structure important conversations about care in times of serious illness. Five Wishes was introduced in 1997 and originally distributed with support from a grant by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care.