When it comes to habits, I’ve had some successes and I’ve had some failures. Giving up the “snooze” button has notably failed thus far. But pounding through emails and working out have generally succeeded.
I believe that building proper habits is the key to… Well, everything! “Motivation” is not really a thing and I’ve learned that I, like everyone else, am regularly completely powerless to fight how I’m “feeling”. It’s fantasy to believe anything else.
Only habit stands in the way of biology.
It’s the one thing I can rely on to get myself to do things even when I don’t feel like. If properly built-up, habits can ensure that I do all of the things that are good for me and will lead to a better life. Because sheer force of will and motivation don’t seem to go very far.
In my reading I’ve learned that it’s difficult to build up more than one significant habit at the same time, and that it’s better to focus on just one until it’s well-established. So what am I working on right now?
Not really anything! Time to fix that.
I’d like to actually break the habit of seeking out mindless entertainment, especially when I’m procrastinating. This means being okay not having anything to do.
Specifically, this means no browsing the web before I get out of bed. No more browsing after eating lunch or during the work day. Any single session of non-productive internet usage should be limited to 15 minutes maximum.
At the moment, this habit-breaking doesn’t necessarily need to extend to replacing this old habit with anything productive. We’ll get there. But for now, I just want to address the real time-waster. As long as I’m not forcing myself to do something less fun in its place, I believe it will be much easier to give up this habit.
I think from now on, I should also track my habit-building progress on here. I should always be building a habit and tracking how it’s going. I think the more good habits I have, the easier life will be and the more effective I’ll be in all areas.