The Power of Habit…a quick guide to staying consistent
When you’re new to something, whether it be the gym or drawing or whatever, we often find ourselves at the mercy of motivation. Now the word motivation to most has a positive connotation, you’re pumped up, excited to get things done and its all hunky dory! But what happens when you don’t have the motivation? Are you still willing to go in and get the job done, learn that skill or lift that weight? That’s what I mean when I say we are at motivation’s mercy.
What would you say if I told you there was a better driving factor to getting to where you want to be? Now I’m gonna warn you, it’s not sexy, and in fact to a lot of people this word actually, has a negative connotation. Are you ready for it? Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you the word Discipline! Now because I know that the word can leave a bad taste in some people’s mouths lets just call it Habit instead.
When you do things out of habit, it takes the thinking out of it, you don’t do it because you feel like it. Instead you do it because it’s just another part of your day! But how do we build up habit? How do we get to the point to where we go do the things we have to do even though we may not feel like it? Now this answer has a few parts so bare with me. And for simplicity’s sake lets just say going to the gym is that habit we are trying to form. The first thing you have to do is reframe your mindset about going in the first place. Instead of looking like it like “ ugh I have to go to the gym” try saying “ I GET to go to the gym” See the difference? Simply reframing something does something to the brain that turns it from a drag to something you can look forward to. The second part of that is to find a frequency that you can commit to! A LOT of people find themselves going balls to the wall in an effort to see quick results…this is the best way to burn out and decide you hate this new habit. The best thing you can do is start off small. Dedicate some time, something easily committed to and then slowly increase the frequency. This is how ALL habits are built. Sooner or later you wont even have to think about it, you’ll just be about it!
Hopefully you guys enjoyed this piece and found it to be at least somewhat helpful. Looking forward to hearing your success stories. If you guys are looking for a fantastic book about building good habits, I’d like to recommend a couple for you. They are “Atomic Habits”, by James Clear and “The Compound Effect” by Darren Hardy, both of which I’ll leave an Amazon affiliate link for you down below if you’re interested. As an amazon affiliate I make a small commission on qualified sales.
Atomic Habits ——-> https://amzn.to/3A6c4Ha
The Compound Effect ——-> https://amzn.to/3psOnDQ
