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Cultivate Good Habits |
A habit is something we do over and over again until it becomes automatic. There are productive habits, those that support us and help us progress toward the life we want, and then there are destructive habits, those that take us farther away from what we want.
Some of our good habits we learned at a very young age, and they still support us. Things like brushing our teeth, taking regular baths and showers, and engaging in other personal-hygiene activities have become automatic.
If you examine your habits, you may be surprised to learn that many of the ones you’d like to change were also learned at a very young age. The tendency to eat foods high in sugar content was probably created when you were a child. Now, as an adult, instead of taking the time to go to the company cafeteria for a healthy meal, you grab a candy bar or some equally low-nutrition food from the vending machine in the hallway. You tell yourself you’re too busy to take the time to eat when in reality your productivity will be lessened because of the unhealthy lunch you had. Eating junk food in the workplace is often the cause of people’s afternoon slumps, not to mention a leading contributor to our current obesity epidemic.
Sometimes we need to motivate ourselves to take a particular action for a certain period of time until it becomes a habit. It takes about three to four weeks to instill a new habit in ourselves. For me, exercising was something I had to push myself to do for the first few months. Now I feel as though I’ve missed something if I do not get to the health club regularly. Allow yourself sufficient time to learn a new habit. Don’t quit before the miracle happens.
• Make a list of four or five habits that support your goals. In what ways might you expand on them?
• Make a list of four or five habits that are not supporting you. In what ways might you begin to replace them with more empowering and supportive ones?