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HABITS Can Determine Your Life Short

The document discusses how habits can determine one's life and provides strategies for developing good habits. It begins by explaining that habits, whether good or bad, have a strong influence and can shape one's personality and destiny. Around 45% of daily behaviors are habits, so it is important to implement positive routines. The document then outlines a method for developing new habits, including starting small with specific goals, anticipating excuses, using reminders and rewards, and turning habits into enjoyable rituals. Developing habits requires perseverance but can help one achieve goals and improve their life.

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sara
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271 views

HABITS Can Determine Your Life Short

The document discusses how habits can determine one's life and provides strategies for developing good habits. It begins by explaining that habits, whether good or bad, have a strong influence and can shape one's personality and destiny. Around 45% of daily behaviors are habits, so it is important to implement positive routines. The document then outlines a method for developing new habits, including starting small with specific goals, anticipating excuses, using reminders and rewards, and turning habits into enjoyable rituals. Developing habits requires perseverance but can help one achieve goals and improve their life.

Uploaded by

sara
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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HABITS CAN DETERMINE YOUR LIFE

Hello guys. The theme I chose for my talk is "Habits can determine your life"
I chose this topic cause through the years I´ve realized the importance of good habits in
our lives and I want to share with you some ideas that I found about it.
Many years ago I saw this phrase that I liked so much “Sow an act and reap a habit, plant a
habit and reap a personality, sow a personality and reap a destiny”
Sometimes when something bad happens to a person he says, maybe that was my
destiny…but possibly a bad habit or lack of good habits led him to that destiny.
In other words habits are strong forces in our lives and we really are what we do
repeatedly.
It is proven that around 45% of what we do daily are habits. It means we are the sum of
our habits.
Before I start this little talk, I will ask you this question: have you ever propo…..
I think the answer is yes, we have all tried to adquire a new habit and it probably wasn´t
an easy task, or in the worst case we couldn´t achieved it.

So, let me begin by giving you an outline of my talk.


First of all, I will tell you about the origin of bad habits and why it is so difficult to quit
them.
Then I’ll give you a short list of the habits that can be implemented in our lives.
After that I want to share with you a practical method to acquire these new habits.
Finally I will invite you to share with the group about any habit you have managed to
acquire and how did you do it. Thank you.
Now let's take a look at the reason why do we have bad habits:
From an evolutionary point of view, our brain was programmed to save energy. Human
beings evolved in hostile environments, in which there were not much abundance of
resources and therefore we are programmed to save energy and use our reserves for
more fundamental activities such as obtaining food, seeking shelter and reproducing
ourselves. That is why we always choose the path of least effort, even knowing that it is
not the best for our objectives. Even currently living in environments of relative
abundance of resources, our brain is still programmed to save energy, so we always prefer
the path of least resistance or effort and this is often interpreted as simple laziness. for a
better understanding I will give you some examples:
What requires less effort, order a home delivery or preparing a healthy meal by yourself?
Watch a series on Netflix or concentrate to read a book?
Lying on your bed and spend hours on social networks or do a little physical exercise?
When we have options like these, we usually choose the easiest thing to do and we create
the habit of acting in this way and saving energy to the brain.
When we decide to change bad habits for healthier ones, we are forcing the brain to
expend a little more energy to acquire them.
After understanding where bad habits come from, let's move on to the third part of my
presentation, where we´ll see a list of some of the habits that it is possible to acquire.
Health Habits: Eat healthy, drink more water, do exercise, meditate, eat carefully, learn to
listen your body, stop smoking, improve your dental hygiene, among others.
Productivity habits: Punctuality, increase concentration, working more efficiently and
effectively, better administration of work activities.
Life habits: Organization of daily activities, looking to enjoy your time, improve
relationships with people around you, learn to be more tolerant and empathetic, better
manage your money.
Habits to do the tasks we do not like: Cleaning and order, paperwork, answer emails, take
calls, shopping, etc.
Finally, this is the simple 4-step method to create and maintain habits. Think about what
you want to change, what routines you want to incorporate into your life to improve it
and get down to work.

1. START SMALL: SET SPECIFIC GOALS.


2. OUT OF EXCUSES: DEFINE A PLAN.
3. DEFINE REMINDERS AND REWARDS.
4. CREATE RITUALS AND APPLY MINDFULNESS.

1. START SMALL: SET SPECIFIC GOALS


One habit at a time. You may really want to start changing and improving things, but if you
set your mind to it all at once, you will probably end up overwhelming yourself and
throwing the towel. It is best to start with one or two habits at a time and when you have
them consolidated, move on to the next ones.

Start small
When you are trying to create a habit, gradually make it more complicated. For example, if
you want to get up earlier, start for 10 minutes, then 20 and so on until your goal. If you
want to create the habit of going for a run, the same, start with 15 minutes of continuous
running the first day and increase as you feel comfortable. It is easier to do it
progressively.
It is not the same to say: "I am going to get up earlier" than "I am going to get up 30
minutes earlier every day" or "I am going to meditate every day" than "I am going to
meditate for 10 minutes in the morning before having breakfast."

2. OUT OF EXCUSES: DEFINE A PLAN


When it comes to changing habits, you are going to have to be in continuous struggle
since your brain will always tend to return to its old habits.
Excuses and obstacles will appear yes or yes, so if you think and prepare in advance, you
will minimize the risk of failure.
Typical excuses can be laziness, I don't have time, not having the necessary material on
hand, forgetfulness, etc.
Identify all the possible excuses or situations in which you can fail in that habit and create
tactics to avoid them.
For example: If you want to go for a run every day → prepare your shoes and sportswear
the night before. If you want to meditate every day → prepare the room with the mat and
incense, so that later it is only to arrive and sit down. If you want not to use the mobile
while you are working → turn off the notifications, the sound, or put the mobile away
from your sight.

3. DEFINE REMINDERS AND REWARDS.


To keep running, towards the goal and not give up halfway, you need to do two important
things:
1. Choose a reminder: An encouragement to take action and realize the ultra-specific goal
2. Choose a reward: That reinforces that action and let's continue doing it.
How can I choose a reminder and a reward?
It is useless to write our new purpose and place it in a visible place like the bathroom
mirror, so we remember to do it.
Setting alarms and warnings, can help too.

For example:
"Whenever the alarm goes on, I get up to brush my teeth"
- Reminder: Morning alarm
- Routine: Brush teeth
- Reward: Feel the sensation of fresh mint in the mouth
Any notice that helps you not have the excuse of "I have forgotten."
The "I have forgotten" is the cheap excuse used by those who do not have willpower.
4. CREATE RITUALS
A good strategy for creating new habits is to turn them into rituals.
A ritual is a sequence of steps that you always do in the same way.
I would say that it differs from a simple habit in that it is something that you really enjoy
doing, that you love to do. And that is the key to help solidify the habit.
Look at the difference:
Habit: - Drink a fruit smoothie every morning
Ritual: - I play music that I like in the kitchen while I prepare the ingredients - I prepare the
smoothie being aware of the benefits it will bring me - I pour it on myself favorite
container for smoothies and juices - I take it calmly as I look out the window at the new
day that dawns.

Well, To sum up, I tried to give you a general idea of the importance of the habits and
how we can include new habits in our day to day.
Do not be hard on ourself, even if we have failed one day, there will be many others who
have done well. Let´s value those days and celebrate it, that will give us encouragement to
continue.
The only way to create a new habit is to repeat it as many times as necessary until it
becomes automatic. This requires perseverance, motivation and willpower.
Having new goals without new habits is like having a car without wheels. Habits are the
wheels that help you move towards your goals.
There is no magic wand to create habits, the only strategy is motivation and effort.

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