Habit Forming/crushing

[step1]

I am currently trying to incorporate the following into my life:

 

habit forming:

20 mins exercise each morning

cold shower every evening

daily flossing

if something takes less than 2 mins to do then do it straight away

having a to do list that i complete each day including chores and a long term goal

 

habit crushing:

no tv

no internet that is not productive

no snacking

 

I understand that we only have a finite source of willpower and by trying to tackle these all at once i am bound to fail..  I read somewhere that you should take on only 1 goal at a time to conserve your willpower..  So would it be wise to only tackle 1 of the above say every few weeks?  I feel like that would be too little...  What do you think?

[David1]

@step1 You're going to need willpower for something that you crave. Like the snacking maybe? Or TV. And you will need willpower to do something that you believe really sucks, like the cold shower. So be careful that you don't snack or watch TV after the cold shower because you just blew all your willpower on the shower, and now you deserve a reward. The best way imo is to sell your tv and don't buy snacks. That way, you only need willpower in the supermarket for a short period of time. The exercise should be no problem because that is fun. And the flossing is neutral, so that shouldn't give you any problem either. I think you need a goal for every habit you install.

[dude]

You should try do as much as you can when you wake up at the beginning of the day. When you have that habit in place everything will fall into place but focus first on that morning routine. That's what helps me at least.

A suggestion is to do the workout session, flossing and working on your goal as soon as you get out of bed this will setup a really good day. Otherwise you will be like well I didn't do the workout session in the morning so why bother to do this.

[aurum]

A quick note, it's very hard to break a habit unless you replace it with a new one. So for instance, if you're trying to kick TV watching, replace your TV watching time with maybe watching a self development video or listening to an audiobook.

As far as incorporating multiple habits, it definitely can be tough. But I'd still try. What will probably happen is that some will stick and some won't, and then you'll eventually come back to the ones that didn't stick when the time is right.

[Mercy]

This is what i started working on @step1 

 

November 1st happened to be the day that i started getting back on track. I have been trying to improve my life for a while now. I have come to a realization of one of the main reasons why i have been failing in the past with trying to stick to my habits was because i wanted success and results quickly. As a result i always started with a big list of challenging habits that were pretty tough to do at a beginner level. So now after looking back at all the time i wasted. I realized that i should of just started slow. That's one thing that i recommend you. It was like a big blind spot to me when i asked people for advice on the internet and they said to me to start slow.

 

So on November 1st i started with 20 minutes of meditation. I told myself that i would try to do this habit everyday no matter what. I also told myself that from now on i'm going to add a new habit to my list of habits every week. I think this is a little to much though. I have been drinking only water and taking cold showers for so long now that i don't really consider them in my habit list because of how somewhat ingrained they have become in me. So, so far i have been able to stay on track. Now i have 20 minutes of meditation & 20 minutes of taking a walk outside. Next Tuesday i plan to add reading 20 minutes a day to my list. One thing that i recommend you do when you feel like you become overwhelmed to the point where you think you're going to fall of track is taking your foot of the gas a little bit and toning things down just for a little bit longer. Till those things have on your habit list  become easier for you to do. Another thing i want to add to my habit list is No PMO. One problem that i see though is that if i immediately cut that thing off from my life that i will fall of pretty quickly because of how an addiction it somewhat became in my life. So now what i'm doing is keeping record of how many times i do it every day for the whole week and then once i want add that habit i'll calculate the average amount of times i do it every week and just scale back that number a little bit every week. Like for example if i do it 12 times a week. Then i might allow myself to just do it no more than 10. And then next week not allow myself to do it more then 8. I also plan on reading a book on how to cure this addiction to by the way so that might help me a little bit even more to succeed. So yea that's pretty much it for the most part. Hope this helped.

 

Get right!

Edited November 12, 2016 by Mercy

[Schulzy]

If you feel really repulsed by even the thought about wasting your time watching meaningless tv series, eating unhealthy, then i dont think you should have such a hard time and can do all of this at once.

If you still have cravings for these things you should take it 1 step at a time.

[YaNanNallari]

On 12.11.2016 at 2:04 AM, step1 said:

I read somewhere that you should take on only 1 goal at a time to conserve your willpower

I don't think this is true. Having one goal to focus on at a time is good however but in a different way. For example if you're playing a new videogame with a lot of different difficult mechanics and techniques if you try to focus on all of them you'll simply not be able to do it. This is when it's good to focus on one or two things only because otherwise your focus can't keep up. However if you are doing those things in separate times as you are now I think it's completely fine to have multiple goals and things to focus on. Just be forgiving to yourself if you miss something and do it immediately or as soon as possible when you remember it again. This is just how I do it though.

[Bronsoval]

On Saturday, November 12, 2016 at 5:04 PM, step1 said:

 

I understand that we only have a finite source of willpower and by trying to tackle these all at once i am bound to fail..  I read somewhere that you should take on only 1 goal at a time to conserve your willpower.

Willpower is a muscle.  The more you use it the stronger it gets 

[mikeyy]

Only waters awesome I do same but I add black or green tea u should do it ull be healthier @Mercy