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Writer's pictureAriel Colhoun

Creating Helpful & Effective Habits

By Ariel Colhoun Passionate about increasing the sphere of influence for women & driving positive change.


We Are Addicted To Habits

Our minds are addicted to habits – both good and bad. And we all know the difference between our good habits and our ‘bad’ habits. It’s kind of a given. Deep down in our souls, we know what good habits we should keep pursuing and what not-so-good habits we should be giving up.


Bad habits have the deceptive appearance of requiring less effort that may easily translate to being more enticing. So naturally, we may end up defaulting to the option of picking a bad habit over a good one. And when it comes to outside input on our choices, and when someone else tries to give us guidance on our own habit preferences, we often put up a wall. Not being receptive to external advice or opinions may end up creating even more of a barrier for ourselves and ultimately inhibit our ability to change.


So if you are like the average person, and are not fond of being told what to do, you should take it upon yourself to be your own boss, recognize your not-so-good habits, and make the change yourself.


Willpower

Creating good habits and ending bad habits takes an enormous amount of willpower. Changing your existing patterns directly relates back to all that fear, self-doubt and uncertainty. If you take a moment to reflect back on some of your not-so-good habits, what do they all have in common? Are you continually trying to solve the same problem over and over by using the same patterns? Are you getting anywhere, or are you just setting yourself up for failure when you knowingly repeat habits that repeatedly disappoint? Unfortunately, we all know that bad habits create unfavourable self-fulfilling prophecies and they are often the hardest ones to break.


Our brains store our long-term memories in distinct regions of our brains and they can be divided into two categories - procedural and declarative. Skills fall into the procedural category, and factual knowledge and recollections fall into the declarative category. Depending on the types of habits you create for yourself, they can end up residing in both categories for long-term memories. When you create any type of habit, you build strong muscles for it along with strong muscle memories. Think of a habit like riding a bike, if you mastered the skill of riding a bike you will never forget it. That’s why breaking a bad habit can be so hard.


Create Habits In Line With Your Goals

In order to take action and start fulfilling your dreams, your habits need to be in line with your wishes. What needs to be done in order to achieve your end goal? Quite often this means completely shaking everything up and breaking free from all your past ways to accelerate the path of creating better, meaningful, and purposeful habits. This is the moment where I cannot stress enough that you need to listen to your heart. Deep down you know in your heart what you need to do in order to change. The problem is taking the first step, following through, and then maintaining it.


Make The Effort To Budget Time To Form Good Habits

A good habit can only happen when you budget time for it. Create discipline in your life. Try making a commitment to yourself. Take the first step and break an old habit or create a new one. If you can stick to it for 21 days straight, you are well on the way to creating an effective habit that won’t feel like it takes so much work as when you took your first step. Your goal is to get to that point that the newly created habit is fully integrated into your everyday life. The goal of creating these new and helpful habits is to assist you in fulfilling your wishes and lead a better life for yourself.


The end goal is to fill your soul with purpose, happy moments, peace, and gratitude. The feeling of harmony within your soul is of utmost importance with hopes that you will be able to share that feeling with others and create a positive effect. You live according to the habits you form. If you don’t do this step and align your habits with your wishes, the chances of you achieving your goals will be reduced significantly.




All posts are intended strictly for educational purposes. It is not intended to make any representations or warranties about the outcome of any product/service.

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