Your habits define who you are through your character and performance

We are our habits

They say we are our habits. Think again. About 40% of our actions and thoughts are habitual activities. Eating, sleeping, walking, and breathing are all habits rooted so deep that we can’t miss them.

Almost every mindfulness program starts with the awareness that participants should focus on breathing. However, when we focus on breathing, many feel that breathing goes out of sync with the natural rhythm breaks. This is because we are not used to concentrating on how we live, and it is so natural that it all happens on the unconscious level.

That is why focusing on the breath is one of the most basic and crucial parts of yoga, meditation and mindfulness. When we are consciously in control, we can use breathing to relax, lower anxiety and clear out the overwhelming thoughts from the head.

The same is true for every other habit. When we know these and decidedly tune them to help us more, we can form new habits or replace those that are not helpful.

Awareness

It all begins with awareness. Follow next week closely, and when you see a habit in your activities, take note. Write down the following information:

  • What triggered the habit?

  • What was your action to respond to the cue?

  • What was the reward that was visible to you?

Step by step

To create or replace a habit, you need to change some things. If you do what you always do, nothing will change. Pick one habit and form a plan for how you want to replace it or start creating a new one.

Change your environment, start small and track your progression to ensure you follow through and succeed.

The critical point is to keep it consistent.

Practise, test

Implement your plan. You will have a cue, an action to respond to, and then a reward for the habit. Practise it and monitor the process. Challenge the results and adjust one or more components of the habit.

If you need to change two of the three quickly, question the point of the new habit. It might be too far away from your comfort zone or character. For example, a lion will never eat coconut to become healthier.

Get More

If you want to dive deeper, sign up for our course, Mindset Shift, which helps you understand and change your mindset, habits and learning processes because these contribute most significantly to your success and happiness.