You are your Habits

Humans are habit machines. We run on autopilot most of the time. Never fully present, never reevaluating the situation. We do today, what we did yesterday. In this way, your life can pass by without your notice. We are meat machines running old code.

We're also lazy. As long as things are working (and sometimes even when they're not) we just keep chugging along. There is tremendous momentum behind our habits, and when under stress, we revert to the habits already installed in our lives.

You are the sum total of your habits, so change your habits to change your life.

"But change is hard!"

The old habits are so deeply ingrained, that even the slightest stress in life causes us to abandon our current efforts and return to our old ways. You know this. It's happened to you before.

"I was dieting, but then I had a piece of pizza, so I ate everything in the house."
"I was going to the gym, but then it got hard, so I stopped."

When things get difficult, we quit, unless we've already built the habit. Personal growth is not easy. This is why it's so hard to change.

You'd like to be more discipline. You'd like to be able to stick with it, but you just can't. Neither can I. Nobody can. We're human. If it were easy everyone would do it. This isn't something to be ashamed about, it's just the fact of reality that we should recognize and plan around. So, what should you do?

Separate the habit formation process from the habit growth process. 

Many of the positive habits you desire to incorporate in your life are also stressful in someway. This makes changing doubly hard. Your trying to (1) change your default behaviors (2) from something pleasurable to something less pleasurable (for the moment).

"Mediating is time consuming."

"Eating well is a chore."

"Exercising is tiring."

The key is to make the habit change as easy as possible for as long as possible. The new habit should be fully installed in your life, before it becomes an additional source of stress. Identify the simplest and easiest possible way to practice your habit.

For dieting this could be just reading the nutrition facts on the food you already eat. Don't change what you eat, just become aware of what's going into your body.

For working this could be just physically going to the gym without even exercising. Don't make things hard yet. After a few days of arriving at the gym and leaving, you'll be itching to start doing something, but don't! This is dangerous. Do not push yourself yet. The habit isn't there. You will burn out before you've changed momentum.

Only after at least thirty continuous days of habit building, should you begin to engage in the growth process of your habit. Growth should also be done in a very slow and controlled way. Constantly making small improvements gives you more time for the habit to form and builds up tons of self-confidence by "winning" every day.

Growth happens via the principle of progressive overload. Start small. Progress slowly. Do just a little more than yesterday.

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

Pick good habits, because they will define you.