Habits

Exercise calendar

It's been almost a year since I made the commitment to revive this blog and consistently write a think piece every month.

Finishing this post will mean that I have succeeded in forming and maintaining this habit, because save for one crazy busy February, I have been able to churn out a cohesive piece of writing every month for a whole year that reflects something I consider worthwhile to share from the jumbled thoughts and ideas in my head.

So yes, today I am going to talk about habits.

I have been learning about the science and psychology of habits for the past few years and tried to apply different methods of making habits stick in my daily routine in an effort on self-improvement. I have read many books and articles on the subject, and while all of them have been insightful, not all of them have been helpful.

Which for me means that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to forming and maintaining habits.

So what I will be sharing here are the top three things that have helped and worked best for me in doing this habit thing.

1) PATIENCE

"It's almost like you have to be patient to gain patience. You can't practice patience unless you have time. It's not something that can be instant; it's something that takes time. You practice it over time just like anything else." - David Archuleta

This is very true with habits - it takes time. I can't say I write think pieces if I have only been able to write one post that gained more than a thousand clicks - and then abandon it at that. It took a year for this to become integrated in my system as something I do: I write a blog post every month.

For other habits too, such as working out regularly, or eating well, or maintaining a good sleeping schedule. It takes time. You really have to be patient because most of the time it feels like nothing is happening, but that is not true. You took that step to do something to improve yourself. It doesn't end there, though. You have to be patient with yourself because results are not instant. You don't become strong in a day. You won't have glowing skin after one meal of fresh greens. It takes time.

What has helped me most in this aspect of practicing patience, aside perhaps from learning over and over that most of life is waiting but the best rewards often come after the toughest battles of patience, are these articles by James Clear on the power of tiny gains, and how to fall in love with boredom.

"Success is often found by practicing the fundamentals that everyone knows they should be doing, but they find too boring or basic to practice routinely."

2) SYSTEMS, NOT GOALS

Why crash diet's don't work is because you are forcing yourself to reach a goal weight in as little time as possible without creating the necessary foundation to sustain and maintain that weight in a healthy way.

The reason why you can't finish writing that paper or reviewing that article is because you are trying to tackle it only when you feel motivated.

If you wait for inspiration before you start on something, you are never going to achieve anything.

In contrast, if you commit yourself to a particular system, then slowly but surely you are going to establish something solid into your framework that will allow you to achieve things as a by-product of your system.

In the process you also learn what works and what doesn't work for you, and adjust accordingly until you have optimized your system to a level that satisfies you.

Moreover, it allows you not to beat yourself up when you miss a "goal".

I wanted to be a more consistent blogger. However, four months in, I failed to make time for it and missed one month. I pushed through anyway and was able to write again every month since. It is again a very, very busy time in my life currently, but I wanted to put out this blog to share this to the world. So here I am making time for it.

I wanted to exercise more consistently. There are days when I don't feel like getting up early though, because I was too tired from work the day before. There was a time when we went on vacation and I can't assume regular programming as I do at home. What matters though is the commitment to pick up where you left off as soon as you are able to (see exercise calendar above 😋).

Again, James Clear wrote very good articles on systems vs goals and identity-based habits that has helped me a lot in this. The idea is that "your current behaviors are simply a reflection of your current identity." So decide on the person that you want to be and build your system around that so that you can prove to yourself in small wins that this is who you are becoming.

3) ENJOYMENT

Again, what we should be trying to develop in mastering our habits is self-improvement. We are not trying to torture ourselves here. We want to be in the best form that we can possibly be, and that is not going to happen if you are making yourself miserable in the process.

I write because I find it enjoyable and therapeutic to let out my thoughts. And in the process I hope it will help or inspire or challenge people in some way. I find that even if life and work and everything in between gets too busy, taking an hour or two to write a piece every month gives me some sense of fulfilment.

In the beginning I found it hard to get up a bit earlier in the morning to get my exercise habit going, but once I got through the first few weeks, I find that it is now something I look forward to doing. It's not really about figuring out how to stay motivated. As Ina Feleo puts it, "How do you stay motivated? I don't. I just do it anyway." Because you enjoy what you are doing. Because you know it helps make you a better person every day.

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And that is it. It is almost November and New Year is fast approaching, which means the time for making resolutions is upon us again. But what I found in the past year is that you don't need to wait for New Year's to decide who you want to become and take the first step to get there.

One other thing: Do not ever compare your progress to others. This is your journey, this is your life; own it.

Build yourself and discover yourself and create your own happiness along the way.

Cheers. 💙💚