When I was in high school, I met a Navy SEAL who suggested I read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. This book changed my life. It explained the progression from dependence to independence to interdependence. At the core of it is that what ever happens to us, we have the power to choose how we respond to it. Our habits form based on what we continually choose. Mr. Covey defined habits as an intersection between knowledge, skill, and desire. All three are needed to form a habit. Knowledge is knowing what to do and why. Skill is knowing how to do what needs to be done. Desire is wanting to do it. When an action is done consistently with all three components, a habit is formed. Rocket Analogy Steven Covey had an excellent analogy on habits. He likened it to gravity. Initially, it takes a tremendous amount of fuel to get a rocket ship away from the Earth’s gravity. Once it’s out, the rocket just cruises with momentum. Habits are the same. It takes a tremendous amount of effort in the beginning, but once we adapt to a new way of doing things, it becomes easier. Make and BreakIn a study published in 2009, Dr. Phillippa Lally investigated how habits were broken and created. She defined habits as doing things without thinking about it. This automaticity is brought about when there is a situation or cue, then a specific action or behavior is performed. Consistently repeating the action at a specific cue was essential to form the habit. For example, if the cue is waking up in the morning and the action is to go for a walk or run, doing it consistently is necessary to make it a habit. The time you wake up doesn’t really matter, the important thing is to walk or run when you wake. Of course if you’re used to sleeping in, then waking up to walk or run is going to be hard. Even if you want to get up, it’s can still be very difficult. A way to ease this is to get enough sleep the night before, which for most adults is 7-8 hours. When you wake up in the morning, you don’t feel too tired which makes it easier to go do your cardio. Another way is to prepare your things the night before so you don’t have to think about it in the morning. Dr. Lally’s study revealed that the easiest way to break old habits is to control your environment so you don’t encounter cues that triggers those habits. Once you get into a routine to do cardio first thing in the morning, stay consistent. Be patient with yourself. Sleeping in once in a while is ok since it doesn’t significantly impact the habit formation process, but doing it sporadically and frequently will. It’s easy to fall back to old habits. The key is to make the new habits stronger by doing it consistently. |
STEP 2: Prepare for the worst. Problems are inevitable, so the practice of foreseeing problems before they come up can be less taxing on your willpower since you already know what to do. For example, if you choose to stay with a particular diet and you go to a lot of social gatherings, which is full of tempting treats, you can bring a tray of healthy treats like this keto friendly brownie from The Good Kitchen PH. |
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October 2017
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