Do you want to be successful? Discover the 4 vital habits for you

Have you ever set a goal to form a new habit, only to find yourself not doing it later? I know I have done it. Why is it so difficult to form good habits? Why is it so hard to be consistent with change? How is it that we can have every intention of becoming better people, but then see very little progress? And even more importantly, is there anything we can do? Your life goals are not your habits Audacious life goals are great. We are proud to have them. But those goals may be designed to distract you from what you really fear – the change in your daily habits that could mean a reinvention of how you see yourself. –Seth Godin. We all have dreams and hopes. If you don’t have them, you’re not the type of person who would read this article. And most of the time, we have at least a general idea of ​​what those goals are. The way we want our bodies to look and the good health we want to enjoy. The respect we want to get from our colleagues and the important work we want to create. The relationships we want with our families and friends and the love we want to share. Overall, this is a good thing. It’s nice to know what you want, and having goals gives you a sense of direction and purpose. However, there is a way in which your hopes and dreams sabotage you and prevent you from being better: your desires can easily seduce you into biting off more than you can swallow. This is what I mean: – You are inspired by The Biggest Loser, you go to the gym, but you work out until you drop. So you need the next three months to recover. – Finally you have the need to write your book, you write all weekend and then you return to work on Monday and forget about it. – You are motivated by your friends’ stories of trips to different countries. You start planning yours around the world, ending up overwhelmed by the details and staying home. Too often we let our motivations and desires lead us to try to solve all our problems at once, instead of starting little by little with a new routine. I know, I know. It’s not nearly as ‘sexy’ as saying you lost 15 kilos in three months. But the truth is this: the dreams you have are very different from the actions that will lead you to them. So how do we balance our desire to make life-changing transformations with the need to create small, sustainable habits? Good habits: Dream big, but start small If you really want to make a significant change (in other words, if you are willing to do things better than you currently do them), you have to start small. Imagine the typical habits, both good and bad. Brush your teeth. Put on your seat belt. Biting your nails. These actions are small enough that you don’t even think about them. You just do them automatically. They are small actions that become consistent patterns. Wouldn’t it make sense that if we wanted to form new habits, the best way to start would be to make small changes that our brain could learn quickly and repeat automatically? What would happen if you started thinking about your life goals, not as big, bold things that you could only achieve when the time was right or c When you have more resources, but in small, daily behaviors that you repeat until success is inevitable? What would happen if, for example, losing 20 kilos did not depend on someone discovering the perfect diet or finding a superhuman will, but on a series of small habits that you could always control? Habits like walking 20 minutes a day, drinking eight glasses of water a day and measuring yourself at each meal. I think the following quote from BJ Fogg, a professor at Stanford, sums up this idea well. If you plant the right seed, in the right place, it will grow without further persuasion. I think this is the best metaphor for creating habits. The “right seed” is the small behavior you choose. The “right place” is the sequence (what comes next). And “persuasion” is amplifying motivation, which I think has nothing to do with creating habits. In fact, focusing on motivation as the key to habits is wrong. Let me explain: If you choose the small habit and the sequence well, then you won’t have to motivate yourself to make it grow. It will just happen naturally, like a good seed planted in a good place. –BJ Fogg. The typical strategy is to dive in deep when you get just the right amount of motivation, only to quickly fail and wish you had more willpower as your new habit sinks. The new strategy is to enter the shore and little by little go deeper, so that you reach a point where you can swim, whether you are motivated or not. Focus on lifestyle, not life change We often become obsessed with making transformations that change lives. – Losing 20 kilos would be a life change, drinking eight glasses of water a day is a new lifestyle. – Publish t Your first book would be a life change, writing two pages every day is a new lifestyle. – Running a marathon would be a life change, running three times a week is a new lifestyle. – Earning $100,000 more a year would be a life change, working five extra hours a week as a freelancer is a new lifestyle. Do you notice the difference? Life goals are good because they provide direction, but they can also trick you into taking on more than you can handle. Daily habits (small repeatable routines) are how you can turn big dreams into reality.