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Change your habits, change your life

The world is on a break due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. It has spread in nearly every country in the world. Most of the countries have shut their borders, not allowing anyone to exit or enter from outside.

Stay home, stay safe

During the Covid-19 pandemic, schools are continuing with online education. Educational institutions, offices, restaurants, coffee shops, and parks have pushed people to stay home or limit outings. Most of us either working from home or sent back on vacation.

Till the recent past, those who were opposing virtual learning, now suddenly found this is the best way to educate the world.

Effect of virus on businesses

Airline businesses, hotel industries, and other tourism businesses are the most affected.

On other hand, businesses of sanitizers, soaps, paper napkins, masks, hand gloves, and many other hygienic products suddenly got big momentum.

Hospitals and pharmaceutical companies will rise in their businesses and will tempt the investors to capitalize on their businesses.

Do not get bored

Remember, boredom is the greatest threat to a person’s productivity and progress. In order to kill the time most of people busy killing time.

Some are making fun, creating jokes about the situation, and others are busy creating panic in society. Reluctantly, or willingly everyone is involved in spreading COVID-19 news through their media channels.

Use this pandemic period for productivity

I thought about it for a long, then I concluded. Why not use this isolation time in some productive work.

Time flies, and soon this time will be history, but these moments will remain in our memories. This is a good time to take account of our daily routine and erase some bad habits from our life and gain new good habits.

Write down one by one our bad habits, and try to eliminate them from our daily routine, or convert them to good ones.

No one is free from bad habits

A person without a single bad habit is an illusion. But with strong efforts, we can minimize our bad habits and capitalize on the potential to acquire good ones. It is said that changing bad habits to a good ones is easy in new circumstances.

Study your bad habits before any alarm

When a person gets alarmed by a doctor that if he or she continues with cigarettes or alcohol consumption, it will badly influence health and has a higher risk of heart disease. In this situation, surely this person will use all his efforts to limit this habit.

Our habits like watching TV for a long time, keeping ourselves busy on social media are not different.

Before that situation shows up, wise people learn about it and change their bad habits to change their life.

How do you decide if it is a good habit or bad?

Habits are formed by what you do on a daily basis in repetitive work. Slowly it becomes routine behavior most of the time we follow without many efforts from our cognizance.

Did you ever think why you do what you do as part of you habit?

Short and long term effects

The habit that looks difficult in the short-term may give you constructive outcomes over a long period.

For the person who is overweight, keeping away from favorite sugary, creamy, and rich food looks difficult in short term.

When you are on the right diet, its impact will not show you after a meal or two, but you may successfully keep weight in control when you keep doing it for a longer period.

On the contradictory, a habit that gives immediate pleasure may show its adverse effect in life ahead. Like cigarette smoking gives quick relief from stress but this habit can have an adverse effect on health if continued for long.

In general, you can write on paper and distinguish between your good and bad habits easily. Use the following table for self-assessment. Add up all your known habits to the following table and see which habits are known to you are good or bad. It will also give a sense of priority, to which bad habits you want to eliminate from your life as quickly as possible.

Remember, when you erase some bad habits from your life, to fill in space, it will automatically introduce new habits that are either good or bad in nature. So when you allow new habits to enter your daily routine, keep a watch and follow the same steps mentioned above.

Motive influences a habit

The time we were born, we did not know what kind of person we would be when we will turn into an adult. There are many motives influence role in shaping us as we are. Close people, friends, environment, your role model, and most astonishingly crowd are the most dominant in creating your life patterns.

Role of close people

During our childhood, we followed our parents doing certain practices on a regular basis. They were busy nourishing us as the best children as they could. But when they were involved in certain customs, they forgot that we were learning from their actions and were quick to grab such habits from them.

Because I thought my parents were the best in the world and whatever they do is the best I can follow, my couple of habits are a gift from them.

Though the majority of habits we get from our parents are good, but some we can label as bad, and we don’t want to continue as we turn into adults. Such habits engraved in us for many years and needs a great deal of workaround to get rid of them.

Your environment

Remember, you are what five people you are surrounded by most of the time. It is easier for you to follow what people in your vicinity do on a daily basis.

That is why it is said, chose friends who are good in nature. If you are a teenager, your guardians must have warned you from getting close to bad company. It is mostly because you will unnoticeably follow what your friends or society people do.

Note that, when you are in the company of negative-minded people, it is difficult to keep your positive cues alive.

Loop of bad habits

Some habits keep you go round and round in their loop. For example, if you are tired, instead of a workout you watch TV or get busy on social media. Since you are busy too much on electronic media, you get tired. Since you are tired, you don’t want to go for a walk, thus keep yourself busy on TV or social media, hence avoid any other productive work.

Stress in the office makes you crave for a cigarette, which makes you feel even worse and feel stressed, thus crave for more cigarettes.

Habits triggered by certain event

A couple of habits are not based on your routine but based on events. College students are inclined to some habits when they are with their friends. After college when they get busy with their routine, they tend to forget these habits. However, when they meet their friends after a long time, it triggers that habit and all carve to do the same what they used to do in their college life. Similar incidents can go with gym friends or coffee shop friends.

This can go with kids too. When my kids see McDonald’s sign, they crave for a burger, even if we just left home after having lunch. Just seeing MacDonald’s outlet makes them feel carving for a burger. When the sign is off their sight, they forget about it.

Following crowd

Since many people are doing it, so I am doing it. This kind of thinking is common. People think, what the majority does, has some reason and it must be a valid reason to follow.  They have the self-belief that the majority cannot be wrong. But this is not true.

The science behind it is nicely explained by Rob Henderson in his article on “Psychology today”.

We have seen in the COVOD-19 Lockdown period, thousands of people rushing to buy toilet paper rolls.

Though the market had enough toilet papers available, and sometimes it takes time for retailers to bring and keep it available on isles. But since thousands of people are buying it, there has to be a reason that toilet papers will fall short, so I must buy it too.

You will find it in every part of your life, it is cultural, social, or religious activities. Since the crowd is doing certain religious activities, so it must be right and people follow it without educating themselves from religious scripts.

The best idea to change bad habits to good one is,

  • Record it.
  • Accept it
  • And make a determination to change it.

Change your environment

If you want to change your bad habits, change the environment that helps you stick to these bad habits.

This lockdown period, when we are in complete isolation, is an ideal time to convert our bad habits to good ones. The environment has changed. Most of us are away from our office colleagues, college, and other friends. I am sure; no one would like to pollute their own homes with cigarette smoke. Likewise, no one would like to spend this time lazy sleeping in the bed too.

Your environment is feasible now to learn about your existing habits. Note down the good and bad about it and try to improve these habits in a productive way.

Stack up small good habits

If you add one dollar coin to your wealth, it will not make a difference in your wealth. Nobody will call you a millionaire. However, when you add up one dollar to another, millions of dollars added up together, will ultimately make you a rich person.

Similarly, one small change in habit won’t make you feel you are achieving what you aim for, but when stacking up small habits and keep doing it consistently, in long term it will give you a result of what you intended for.

Always make a system to improve

When you achieve a good habit, it is not the end of the story. When you achieve desired results, it is easy for anyone to slip down after motivation is weakened. Habit formation is like a journey, you need to keep yourself inspired all the time to keep this drive interesting.

Keep track of your habits. Add up some motivation to keep following it every time. Remember, Boredom is the biggest enemy

Be flexible to adapt change

Remember, dead people are stiff and do not have any flexibility while living people are ready to adapt to new changes.

Always be ready to accept the change. Some situations are not in your control, but this change can give you an opportunity to learn.

Share with others

Encouraging others will help you in return, it will motivate you to keep your commitment to yourself. If you like the article, please share it with others too, so they also know how Changing habits can change a life.

Remember, time spent with family is worth every second.

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