Habits, Motivation and Discipline
Have you ever asked yourself about achieving something you want, but can't get any progress done to be closer to achieving it?
Throughout the past few days, I've realized that all the promises I made myself to get fit, be better academically, and organize my time and duties were the ones I never fulfilled. Even though I am sometimes happy with the progress I am making, there often comes a point when I realize that I'm getting further and further away from my goal.
What often happens to me and many other people is that I'm just too lazy to make progress on achieving something. Even though I know I'm going to be happy with the end goal and that I should trust the process, the mind sometimes tricks itself and I brush it off to do tomorrow.
Building habits is a crucial part of achieving a certain goal. The book Atomic Habits, which I've been reading recently, outlines this perfectly. I won't get into details, but the environment and the actions you take are highly effective in determining whether you are going to start a good habit or end one. If you're interested, make sure to read Atomic Habits; it's an amazing book.
Your habits shape you. And your habits are shaped by your discipline to do them every so often.
The first step is always realizing which bad habits you currently have. If you already know what you're doing wrong, half of the problem is solved. The hardest part is getting rid of them and replacing them with good habits. This brings me to the part I'm currently struggling with.
It's often hard to connect the process with the end goal which in the end makes you unmotivated, but motivation shouldn't be the main factor of a habit. It should be discipline - to get yourself to do something even though you don't want to do it or you're lazy.
Once you know how to build discipline in habits, you're practically unstoppable. Gym? 3 times a week, no skipping. You have to set yourself a hard rule you can't break. And if you skip, you need to make sure that it doesn't happen twice in a row, because then you're already losing track of the habit.
The most important thing is to believe in yourself. If you lack self-confidence and never believe you can achieve a certain thing, you can never get past that. If you're, for example, out of shape, but are afraid of being judged at the gym or wherever you need to convince yourself that it's only you that you're doing this for and not for other people. In the end, you're the only person that will be affected by your own goals.
Imagine that your goal is a mountaintop and progress is the mountain you're climbing. You, of course, want to get to the top but to get to the top, you need to go through all the challenges the mountain brings. This is exactly why some people are even afraid to start. You need to get that fear out of yourself and trek your way to the top of the mountain.
Even though knowing all of this is useful, it's the application of it in your own life that gets you to where you want to be. Over the past few days, I've realized all of this, but now it's time to start applying it in practice.
And remember, starting is the first step. Once you get started, everything gets easier from there. Even though there may be hard parts of the journey, it's important to trust the process.
But it's also important to be yourself and not to be too hard on yourself. It's all our first time living. You learn from your mistakes.
Until next time! 🖋️
Day 41 of #100DaysToOffload
