Read Why You Need to Educate Yourself about Your Habits

Nora,18, is a college student. She has got a new mobile phone from her parents on her 18th birthday. Till then she spends 8 hours on an average everyday on the mobile screen. She and her parents do not have the slightest sense that she has been developing a bad habit very quickly. If she continues this way for few months , the habit can turn into a pathological disaster. It can seriously tell upon her health, waste her time, attention, energy and so on. Her parents may blame her phone but the question is who is to blame: parents, Nora or the device? Surely the phone is not as it does not have the ability to think and freedom to choose. Formally educating the parents and children about the science of Habit has become forefront more than ever before. It is no doubt that it is increasingly becoming more and more relevant everyday.

Everyday a person subconsciously performs his/her bad habits in a very disciplined fashion and in a passionate way with the highest amount of attention possible. There is no doubt that those bad habits get stronger every single day. It means that those eat up more time, energy and money from good activities. Nowadays, people have so many alternatives to choose from that if he or she does not educate painstakingly himself or herself about habits, he or she can get lost easily and waste valuable time from life. That is why, one very important realization is that our life time is very short and it cannot be wasted anyway. It is also called effective living. Failure to realize this creates problems which are so chronic in nature that there is even no time to think about the solution and correct these problems to start a new life.

Let’s now try to learn about what is habit, how does it form, how can it be changed or how can it be replaced with a new one.

Habit is the tendency to do an activity repeatedly. About 95% of a person’s daily activities repeat everyday. For example, sleeping, eating, working, verbal communications about these activities, emotional reactions to these are almost similar and these do not change everyday. So, it can be said that an individual does these everyday out of their habits weather s/he is aware of it or not. A person spends most of the time everyday, doing these things obsessively, attentively and passionately.

Tanvir, a highly ambitious industrialist in his mid 30s, is thinking of a new a goal which he wants to achieve in 3 months. He makes a plan for that, arranges resources, and fixes a timeline to complete. This is a new activity but it will turn into a new habit if he succeeds. First of all, he needs to know what he is actually going to do. Next important thing is that he has to do or perform every single step accurately to get to the target. Remember one thing at this stage: knowing the right thing and doing the wrong one will not help to reach the target. Third and the most important thing is that he has to do this activity time and time again passionately until he achieves the desired excellence. Passion is the most significant factor here because having exact knowledge and proper skill will not work without it.

Tanvir wants to lose some weight. He makes a plan and fixes a timeline of 90 days to achieve his goal oflosing15Kg. He is very clear about what he is going to do in next 90 days. He has to start the first day exactly the same way he has planned and he needs to repeat it everyday for next 90 days. It is no doubt that on the subsequent days, he will have some kind of discomfort which may divert him from not performing his planned activity and achieving his goals. To overcome this challenge, the person must have the desire, passion and attention so that he forgets about the discomfort and goes ahead. In case of a bad habit, instead of knowing that it is causing physical and economic damage, one’s tendency is to keep doing the activity everyday without stopping.

From the above paragraphs, it is clear that three things are needed for habit formation. These are: Knowledge of the activity, how to perform it, and the desire to continue that activity again and again. When these three factors interact together in a balanced way, a habit is formed.

The most important thing is that most people are not aware of how they pass their day or spend most of the time. Do they really know when they start doing something wrong once, twice, thrice and then get locked in the trap of doing it unless they get lost or incur a big loss. Every person needs to be vigilant of one’s life so that one knows oneself the most.

What do we need to learn about ourselves? At present, we have so many choices and so many things around us that we can get distract very easily and spend our whole life doing some garbage activities and never know when our life finishes. We have to find out the focus and get ourselves stick to that. Otherwise, our life will be ineffective.

To get the most out of our life, we have to shortlist only the activities which brings good to us and surroundings. Likewise, we need to carefully remove the ones which may cause us damages in terms of any form.

Humans can reap the highest from their life when they discover the real mastery over their life. For that, they have to have strong command over all habits whether these are good or bad. Moreover, they need to remain careful so that no activity can be turned into bad habits and steal the joy, peace, happiness, wealth and energy from their life. Lifetime is limited and the most valuable asset. To utilize it in the best possible way, there is no alternative rather than educating ourselves about the science of habit.