Every day you wake up and enter the constant struggle to be a better person and live a better life. You want to be better than you were yesterday, and this constant need for self-improvement is one of the things that makes life itself worth living.
The person you are today is made up of little habits that you perform and have perfected over the years.
Whatever it is we try to do, we build habits around it. If you want to get fit, you look around for a fitness coach and start going to the gym. If you want to be a master gambler, you begin by keeping up with the latest live casino trends and start honing your skills.
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Here’s the thing, though – habits aren’t necessarily all good. Many of us have developed bad habits, which can be detrimental to our self-improvement goals.
Nevertheless, there is still time for you to make personal habit changes that can help you to become the person you always wanted to be. The interesting thing is that you don’t need to make overly dramatic improvements to your habits – even the smallest things can quickly transform your life and turn things around.
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Anything Can Be a Small Habit
One of the biggest misconceptions that many of us tend to have from a self-improvement perspective is that you will need to make huge habit and lifestyle changes to be a better person. This is not even remotely true. In fact, some of the smallest habit switches have been shown to have significant results.
A small habit is any of the little things you do that make you the person you are – and can help you to become who you want to be. These habits are easy to perform, even on autopilot. You don’t necessarily need to think much about them, and the only time you need to really think about them is if you’re trying to make habit modifications.
It is a proven fact that small changes in your daily routine can have positive effects on your life in the long term. In fact, some studies have suggested that people feel much happier when they’re able to depart from their everyday routines.
Habit formation allows you to enjoy the benefits of your new habit almost immediately. And when you change your habits over time, you’ll find that the cognitive dissonance that comes with it tends to fade.
A small change something as simple as taking the elevator instead of the stairs every morning, or looking at your company’s finances before starting work weekly so you know your daily budget. However, it can also be a major change that will require more effort – such as choosing to spend less time on social media, or spending more time organizing your house before you leave for work.
Forming Routines
As explained earlier, one of the biggest mistakes that most people make on their self-improvement journey is thinking that they’ll only change their lives when they make big changes. But this is not true.
First of all, you should consider that big changes are difficult to make happen, and usually unsustainable. You can’t just go from not ever going to the gym in your life to being a gym addict that goes there every day of the week. Besides the fact that you probably won’t have the time, your body itself will fight against such an extreme development.
Instead, you should ease into things. The average person takes a month to fully adapt to a new habit. So, why are you rushing things? Just as you can’t master a new concept in a single day, you shouldn’t rush yourself into forming a habit. Instead, give yourself time and commit yourself to practicing it. From there, you can build on it so much that it finally becomes like second nature to you.
If you eventually stick with it long enough, you’d be surprised at how much progress you can make over time.
Building Routines from Scratch
One of the best ways for you to get better at forming habits is to break down the steps needed to form the habit into smaller steps. Try your best to break things into the smallest details, and work on incorporating those into your life.
For instance, you could have an issue with listening intently at work. So, instead of throwing yourself into meetings, start small – begin with ensuring that you take notes at meetings, then start by listening to one person; maybe in a one-on-one meeting. From there, move on to two people – and three, and four. Before you know it, you’ll become a master at this.
Remember the most important rule – habits are never formed overnight. You need to be deliberate about making small changes, then you’ll see the big results.
