Developing Habits and Your Success

I highly recommend you to read it. It is not so long, about 300-400 words, but , in my opinion, very valuable.

This article reminded me  that I’ve been trying to develop some habits recently. Actually, I’ve seen some success with it. So I decidet to share with you some of my thoughts regarding this topic. Not to mention, that I keep seeing lot of other people writing and talking about power of habits. For example, Patt Flynn (another blogger I keep track), recorded quite interesting podcast about habits and how we can get away bad ones.

As I see numerous examples of how successful people incorporate valuable habits in their lives, I feel like this is really something I can stick to. Here is a short list of other people talking about power of habits which helped me a lot:

• Leo Babauta (zenhabits.com)
• Pat Flynn (smartpassiveincome.com)
• Paul Minors (paulminors.com)
• Shawn Stevenson (theshawnstevensonmodel.com)
• Hal Elrod (halelrod.com)

What Are Habits I’ve Been Trying to Develop Recently

Here is the list of  habits I’ve been trying to develop recently. Most of them form my everyday morning routine:

• waking up early
• drinking 0.5-1.0 litre of water
• 5 min meditation
• doing excerces before I go to work
• taking a short walk with my daugter after work
• writing regularly
• limiting time I spend in the Internet and social web services
• making todo list
• having skype conversations with members of mastermind group I created
• stop being perfectionist (I constantly try to remind myself that I don’t need to do something in best possible way)

 

I have a few more, but I think it is better to stop here. It looks like I have a lot of new habits I’m trying to make use of. Anyway, Isome of them  were added to my life about half a year ago and I can see some good results.

My Habits: Wins and Fails

There are both wins and fails when it comes to developing habits.

Here are some of the things  I can say have made positive impact on my life since I introduced some habits to my behaviour.

• I feel healthier and more energized in the mornings
• I see progress in my side projects
• I see better perfomance at work
• I see potential in developing more positve habits and benefitting from it

 

That said, I struggle with such some  things as I’m trying to equire new habits. For example, I still cannot make writing for my blog everyday routine. At this point  I manage to sit and write ony 1 or 2 times per week. I feel that it is absolutely possible to spent 30 min and have 200-300 words written daily. Writing on every day basis is something that many successful bloggers have in common, and I definitely should make it my habit.

 

Another big obstacle is doing too much. Each time I set for myself a task, I’m trying to perfect it. That always results in spending too much time for polishing things which not worth  spending so much time! I feel that, if I handle this problem I will be much more efficient and productive.

Habits I Want To Develop

I see that once you’ve created new positive habit and incorporated it in your life, it results in positive changes. For example, I started to goto bed earlier which made it much easier to wake up earlier in the morning. Now I can use extra 40-60 min per day to do things that help me to improve myself and become closer to my goals. I can now allocate 5-10 min to reading  in English. I can excercise in the morning and etc.

On the other hand I always  look at current situation and try to reflect. I literally write down list of thing that I need to improove and create corresponding habit. For example,  I see that I don’t publish posts on my blog regularly. Ideally, I want to have 2-3 articles published per week. In fact, I normally create only  article each week. On top of that I spend to much time writing each article. That’s why  I want to create a habit if writing 200-300 words daily. If I do it, I will achieve my small target and will be publishing  2-3 desired articles each week. Sounds easy, but challenging to do.

Do you know your weaknessess? What are things that drags you. Is there something you want to improve? Reflect. Write them down. Start creating new habits that will help you to overcome those obstacles. All you have to do is to be consistent. You need to know that first 20-30 days are the hardest. Then it will become easier to do maintain your new habits. Eventually, you will be doing them without even thinking. Do you think too much about brushing your teeth? Right.

Here is the list of habits I want to develop in the next 6 months:

• writing 200-300 words for my blog daily
• jogging before going to work
• doing things faster without being perfectionist
• pracricing spoken English 4-5 times per week
• having sex 2-3 times per week (for sure, my wife will appreciate it 🙂

Key Takeaways On How  to Develop Habit

Well, It looks like I’ve spent too much time for this article. Let’s summarize key points look at  them:

• There are a lot of examples prooving that developing  habits is one of the main reasons why some people succeed and other don’t
• It is easy to test on yourself and see how  habits make a positive change in your life
• There are always both the habits you managed to create and maintain and those which you struggle to incorporate in your life. Don’t make it stop you
• Always reflect and try to analyze what are habits you need to develop
• First 20-30 days are the most hardest. Don’t make it stop you. #Just take action.

 

Share, what are your struggles ? Fell free to and leave a comment.

What habits you would want to develop to succeed in IELTS and Language Learning?

What helps you to maintain habits and overocome difficulties? Share what something you’ve read no this topic.

Thanks!

Maksim