So I was sitting here watching a Netflix movie called the Land of Steady Habits and I thought maybe it was oddly coincidental that I was rifling through and found this old piece of writing from a time when I used to pen my musings. As such it struck me that maybe this might give me an excuse to post it along with a few images from a recent shoot. Neither related in any way I must warn.
Goal Achieving & Our Habits
Originally posted back on Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 9:13am.
Much has been written on this subject, many formulas laid forth as The Recipe. For some of us the process of setting a goal and achieving it comes with some ease, but for most it is a lifelong challenge. The vision board method, an ingredient from the acclaimed book and DVD, the Secret seem to work for some. The premise. Take a board, cork board or something like that and on it place pictures, text, or references to the things you want to achieve. Then place this board in a location where you can see it everyday. The role of the board is that of a continuous reminder to yourself, a daily jolt of getting your thoughts in the right direction. You know as they say, as a man thinks so is he.
For some this approach works, but for many they see no significant change. Why is that? A similar more thoughtful approach offered by others in the know, is the jotting down of your goals on a paper or in a journal and for each you outline some of tasks you feel you will need to perform to accomplish them. Then hopefully you’ll be moved to action by seeing the beginnings of a plan laid before you. But we all know life is never that structured. I am yet to see a so-called well laid plan executed to planned perfection. Life is full of diversions, unplanned events and I dare say unexplained forces.
But the one thing we can be sure about are our habits. Our adopted routines that actually structure our lives and as a result our achievements. More than anything, before we begin to achieve any goal we set forth for ourselves, we have to change our habits. Good and bad, these consistent actions that we undertake daily determines for us already the outcome. The same as they did yesterday, and the day before that. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, we can’t expect different results by doing the same things. And therein lies our biggest impediment. We are creatures of habit and essentially it is our habits that define us. An examination of some of our daily rituals would reveal what impedes us from our personal successes.
Determination and discipline are indeed major factors as these must be employed if we are to break bad habits or create new ones. It is said that it takes a month to begin to see the effects of a new habit, and about three months for it to actually become a habit. It has been clear though for ages that our habits make or break us. So take a look at your habits and see if they really align themselves with whatever it is you are trying to accomplish and if they don’t then the first item on your vision board should be to create new habits. And the work continues…
Check out these quotes.
“First we make our habits, then our habits make us.”
Charles C. Noble
“Good habits, once established are just as hard to break as are bad habits”
Robert Puller
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
Jim Rohn
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle
