HOW TO CREATE A HABIT?

Have you ever planned to establish a new habit and failed? Did you ever fail to achieve
something significant in your life? Don’t worry, reading this post will not bring that coveted
success to your feet. I am not here to guarantee that you can change your life just by reading
something. I just want to add honey to fruits, so that they taste better.

 

Let us start with habits. From tens of self help books I read, I can say that habits that are deep
rooted are almost impossible to change and it takes 21 days to establish a new habit ( Don’t
believe that). Your habits are something YOU deliberately CHOOSE every time you get into
action.

Every established habit has deep roots in your mind and if you try to change them
conventionally you’re destined to fail every time.

Habit loop:

Do you smoke or drink a lot? Are you addicted to porn or soap operas? Are you that Facebook
owl? 99.99% of humans are expected to have at least three chronic addictions in their life
ranging from Coffee to Game of Thrones. So if you think you dont have any, better stop reading
this now because the rest of this won’t help you.

A little back story:

It was 2003 I guess, I was in 4th class, surrounded by bunch of little friends. I was short with
meeky voice and craved significance then. Though I was the first ranker of the class( I had a
great past :P ), I always wanted to be significant because most of my friends can run, play
cricket and Kabaddi. Then something happened, my school principal announced year end
awards to kids who get first rank in the annual examinations and a cash prize will be given to
the first ranker. I got it for the first time and the reward ( not the cash prize, but the recognition
from the Principal and getting an award from him in front of the whole school ) registered in my
brain and that steered me to read and read, so that I can be awarded again and again.

Can you draw anything from this?

Well, we have this thing called as Habit loop which operates your life all the time and you are
not at all aware of its function. Have you ever seen an ice cream parlour on road and drawn to it
on an autopilot? If you are a smoker, you get the urge to smoke, just by watching someone who
is holding a cigarette? That is the signal. You get a signal and you are drawn to an established
action, and you get the reward ( taste of ice cream on taste buds). It all comes down to the
effect the reward makes on your mind. If the reward gives you more pleasure, ( temporary
99/100 times), it pushes you into an autopilot and you'll be forced to smoke and drink even if
there is a regret feeling lurking in your mind.

It is always the same loop. Signal → Action → Reward. You cannot change this. No way. Unless
you form new habits that override the older habits.

How do we create new habits?

Imagine you’re Batman and I am the Joker. I have kidnapped a few people and they are in
Antarctica now surrounded by approaching ice glaciers that eventually will kill them. Now as per
my command you have to read all the five books of A Song of Ice and Fire ( Game of thrones
for the unschooled :) in one week and write summaries of them ( Leave aside Internet and
Wikipedia for a while where you can get summaries and all the shit).

What will you do now? You’re the Batman, the powerful dark knight, self righteous beast. You
will either find a plan to tackle with Joker which is not going to happen because this is not a
movie or you’re gonna start with A Game of Thrones and get ready to read some 4800 pages (
If you really read it, I envy you for the journey that awaits you).

So why did you, the Batman, agree to Joker’s terms? Because, the purpose. The lives of
people are more important than Batman’s habit of taking down rogues and psychopaths.

It is the purpose that helps you create new habits. If you can register the aftermath of achieving
that purpose as a reward in your mind with great intensity than any of your established rewards,
you can override any habit which is sabotaging you. Remember all you need to have is a strong,
inspiring purpose which will not allow you to submit to your temptations. The purpose will
automatically allow you to establish new loops and soon you delete your old loops from your
repository.

As James Allen said, “He should make this purpose his supreme duty, and should devote
himself to its attainment, not allowing his thoughts to wander away into ephemeral fancies,
longings, and imaginings. This is the royal road to self-control and true concentration of thought.
Even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose (as he necessarily must until his
weakness is overcome),the strength of character gained will be the measure of his true
success” a man without a purpose will never reach any destination.

P.S : Alcohol, smoking, Social media and Pornography they aren’t necessarily bad, but too much of anything pushes people into endless loops they cannot even imagine to stop.