The Power of Habits

Our life is molded by our habits. If you think that this is a sweeping statement, do a small exercise. At the end of a normal day, write down the things you did, from the morning to the evening. You will be surprised to discover that a vast majority of your actions have resulted from habits. Habits influence the way we think, speak, act, smile, cry, respond, react, show our emotions, plan, succeed, fail, innovate and so on. Some of the terms like succeed, fail and innovative might have surprised you. It's a fact that we achieve success by doing things in a particular way and we also fail by doing things in a certain way. Even creativity follows a habit. Have you not heard some famous writers and artists proclaiming (rather proudly!) that they get ideas when they have a shower, when they walk on a particular path or sit down at a particular place at a particular time!

Habits can be good or bad depending on what habits we have. And the good news is we can choose our habits. First, identify the undesirable habits you have. By undesirable habits I don't mean just smoking or drinking which can ruin your physical and mental health. I am also referring to the way we act in a particular situation, the way we spend our time, the way we do our work etc. By curtailing wasteful habits like watching TV, playing video games, chatting over the mobile phone or through the internet etc, we can save a considerable amount of time which we can use in a fruitful way. By consciously overcoming tendencies like procrastinating, doing things in a hurry etc, we can improve our efficiency and effectiveness.

Identifying negative habits and taking steps to free ourselves from them and developing powerful habits should be an ongoing exercise. Habits die hard. So, it takes time both to cultivate a good habit and to get rid of a bad habit. On the other hand, bad habits get entrenched in our lives very easily without our even realizing the fact. The more sustained we are in making habits work for us, the simpler will become the process as time goes by.

So, start the effort today.
1) Identify one bad habit and resolve to come out of it within a time frame.
2) Identify one powerful habit you could develop and start working for it.

We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
                                                                - Aristotle