Maya Advises: What are habits, and how do they benefit us?
In this edition, Maya Advises: What are habits, and how do they benefit us?
What are habits, and why are they useful? Why this article?
Because it is vital to understand habits and see how much they can positively or negatively influence our life.
For me, changing some of my habits was a game-changer. Changes improved how I feel, what I do, and what I get as a final result. I created an entirely new picture of what I am capable of achieving.
So, if you want to improve your life aspects and get excellent results, keep reading.
You should know that changing habits is a challenging process. Because of that, many people give up right from the beginning and stop trying to change something in their lives. But changing habits is not impossible.
To help you achieve positive changes in your life, I would like to share my knowledge and experience of habits today.
We are creatures of habits
Have you heard the phrase “We are creatures of habit?”
Almost everything we do in a day is habitual. Habits are behaviours we repeat frequently. Upon waking up in the morning, we go to the bathroom, brush our teeth, and take a shower. After that, we dress and prepare coffee or breakfast. Whether travelling to work or working from home, the same rituals apply. Everybody has habits, and our brains love the feeling of familiarity. As a result, we easily stick with practice once we’ve adopted it.
Useful vs Unsusful Habits
Many of our habits are valuable. They help us do useful things without wasting a lot of time.
Some people love to exercise each morning and do it consistently because it’s their habit. They may struggle with discipline issues in the beginning, but after repeating this behaviour enough times, it becomes a habit. They gain many benefits from this habit. Because they exercise, they invest in their health, are happy with their appearance, and are energized daily. The habit of exercising makes it easy. They do it without thinking. People who haven’t made exercising a habit struggle with discipline each day, planning to start on Monday, calculating time, feeling tired, etc.
Unuseful habits can also harm us in the long run. For instance, some read tweets instead of books, spend hours on social media and watch Netflix all night.
We even habituate how we speak. A lot of people complain as a matter of habit. For example, a lot of people complain about limitations rather than possibilities. Instead of discussing ideas, people gossip about others habitually. We think habitually. Some people think all the time negatively, while others think all the time positively. When we smoke, eat, or drink, we often do so not because our bodies need those things at the moment but because we are bored. What habits are unuseful? Simply put, those habits which produce terrible results are unuseful.
For example:
- Spending hours watching TV shows, scrolling through social media, and gossiping about others – are terrible ways to waste your time. Due to this, you miss out on learning, acquiring new skills, and developing your ideas (which will emerge only when you look within and pay attention to your interests). You will miss many opportunities if you continue this behaviour. What’s your best guess as to how much anxiety you might experience in the long run when you realize it’s too late to fix the consequences of this behaviour?
- Eating a lot, drinking, and smoking are wrong for your health, self-confidence, and self-esteem.
- This habit of small resistance – not communicating and thinking, “this will go away, I can’t deal with it now” – brings terrible consequences manifested as stress, fights with partners and closest family members, breakups or divorces.
Habits vs Beliefs
Many people are aware of their bad habits but falsely believe they cannot change them. The best news, however, is that we can replace unproductive habits with a new ones that will benefit us. It is here where we realize habits are tied to beliefs.
We live by habits, and we live by beliefs.
If we believe that we have little discipline, it is hard for us to form a habit of exercising. Similarly, if we believe we cannot reach our goals, it is hard for us to exercise regularly. We can’t implement beneficial habits in our free time, like reading or taking a course, if we imagine that there are no more immense achievements than those presently set. So, instead, let’s watch 4 hours of television. This is essential for people of all ages.
Habits are formed by a trigger (mainly an emotion), a behaviour, and a reward.
Hearing your phone beep is a trigger. Reading a message is the behaviour. It rewards your curiosity.
The trigger is feeling stressed, the behaviour is scrolling on social media, the reward is a distraction, and the reward is not having to deal with the stress immediately.
Summery
We all have habits. It’s how we function; even young children have rituals and habits.
It is possible to spot negative habits and replace them with useful ones. Healthy and free-spirited people adopt valuable habits. As a result, they feel fulfilled and accomplished and have clarity.
Identifying which habits help you and which ones do not is possible. Following this article, we will discuss how to form new habits.
If you wish to learn more about exchanging your bad habits for good and useful ones, reach out to Maya.
Read more interesting articles in our Media chapter!
Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash
