Everyone has dreams that they wish would one day come true. Learning a new language, staying in shape, finishing a degree, and more may be goals that we want to achieve, but these will never materialize without good habits.
Habits are behaviors that are carried out every day, automatically and effortlessly. If they form habits that are related to what they want to achieve, the process that will make us get closer to our dream becomes increasingly easier, flowing on its own.
However, habits are not something that emerge overnight. To do this, it is necessary to be focused on its achievement, dedicating both physical and mental effort to them.
In this article we are going to talk about how habits are created, indicating a series of guidelines that can help in their achievement and, in addition, a series of aspects to take into account when deciding to introduce one of them into daily life.
As we were already commenting, habits are behaviors that are done automatically every day. When an action has become something everyday, something that is done every day, it becomes a habit and is done almost without thinking about it. These types of patterns, once established, imply less energy consumption, both physically and mentally.
However, habits only become present in people’s daily lives after a process has been completed in which they have been able to integrate them into daily life. Trying to make something new become our daily bread is something that certainly involves greater concentration, being aware of what is being done and how it is being done, in addition to not losing the objective for which it is being done.
It is very comfortable to fantasize about the idea that you can achieve a long-awaited dream. What is not so comfortable is having to work hard every day at activities that are related to the goal you want to achieve, whether they require mental or physical resources.
It must be taken into account that the process of habit formation is not something concrete and fixed, that is, not all habits are established with the same ease nor do they take the same time to become something everyday. This process can vary depending on several aspects:
The starting point where the person is.
Furthermore, the speed with which the habit establishes itself depends on both the objective and the difficulty of the habit itself to incorporate. For example, trying to walk for half an hour each day is not the same as trying to lift weights for half an hour daily. The physical and mental effort is much greater in the second case and the desire to do it may be less.
The statement has become quite famous that it only takes about 21 days to introduce a habit into people’s daily lives, or in other words, 3 weeks. This statement, in addition to being very risky, has been shown to be clearly false for those habits that are more complex.
Several investigations have tried to see how long it takes to acquire a habit, obtaining very varied results, depending on the difficulty of what was wanted to achieve. Research suggests that some habits can take very little time to acquire, just 18 days, while others, on the other hand, take almost a year to become something everyday. It has also been seen that failing one or two days does not have a negative impact on the acquisition of the habit, but failing more than two does.
How to create a habit: steps to follow
However, once the habit has been introduced into the person’s daily life, the physical and intellectual effort that was necessary to invest at the beginning of the process becomes much less.
1. Set specific goals
It is quite possible that you have many goals that you want to achieve. However, as the popular saying goes, he who covers a lot, takes little.
The ideal is to try to introduce only one habit at first, at most two, and hope to achieve it after a while.
If the habit is established, you can try to increase the level of complexity. For example, if you wanted to walk half an hour a day, now you can try to make it an hour or even spend part of that time running.
It is very important that the habits to follow are defined in a very concrete way. Saying that you are going to walk for half an hour every day after eating is not the same as telling yourself that you are going to walk.
In the second case, it is more likely to fall into self-deception, telling yourself that just because you have moved inside the house it already counts as walking or, since you have already done the errands that you had to do, you could say that you have exercised. .
2. Define a plan and stop making excuses
Whenever you try to introduce a new habit in life, the constant fight against laziness and the return to the previous routine arises.
It is common for one to tell oneself that one does not have enough time, that one does not have the material one needs, that one has other obligations, etc.
The worst enemy to achieving a dream is not obligations or lack of time. The worst enemy is oneself.
To put an end to these excuses, the best thing to do is identify them and prepare in advance everything to avoid them.
Are there other obligations to do? Well, it’s time to do them before. Don’t we have the necessary material? Surely there is something at home or, if not, it is bought and ready.
Dreams are not going to come true on their own, you have to put in the desire and effort to achieve them.
3. Schedule reminders
There is little point in becoming aware that you are going to follow a new habit if later, in practice, you forget that you had to do it.
Thanks to technological advances, cell phones, in addition to being devices for watching kitten videos, have multiple functions among them being able to program personalized alarms, with a text message that reminds you what you should do and when.
Furthermore, another option, a little more analogous, is to leave notes in strategic places in the house, such as the bathroom mirror, the refrigerator door or the television screen on which the things you have are written down. to do.
Following this strategy the excuse that you have forgotten what had to be done is no longer valid.
4. Monitor progress
Every so often, It is convenient to see how progress is happening.
It is very important to check if progress has been made, and the best way to see it is to write down in a notebook or on your cell phone the days in which the habit to be carried out has and has not been fulfilled.
If it has happened that there has been a day in which what had to be done was not done, it is very important to note the reason for this.
In this way, not only will it be known how frequently the habit is being done and to what degree the objective is being achieved, it will also be possible to detect possible obstacles that have arisen during the process.
5. Celebrate what you have achieved
In the same way that it is very important to see to what extent what is proposed is being achieved, It is also very important to celebrate.
Even if you have failed on some days, it is possible to celebrate what you have achieved at the end of the week or month, allowing yourself some respite or whim.
However, the rewards must be consistent and must also be very specific.
It wouldn’t make much sense to celebrate having gone a whole week without eating industrial pastries by cramming an entire cake over the weekend.
There is also no point in celebrating not having smoked today by lighting a cigarette the next morning.
