This is just some random thoughts that crossed my mind these days.
I have always been a guy who struggled with having discipline and consistency in many aspects of life. So, like many other people, every year, I start setting goals that will mostly fall apart three months later, and I usually get frustrated about it.
However, in the middle of this year, I decided to make some changes: instead of setting huge goals, I’ll choose to show up on whatever I want to build a habit.
I’m not the guy who invented it or someone who will say that it must work for everyone. The fun fact is that this idea came after having some beers with a friend who said: “Bene, the secret is just show up”. That hit my head. At first, we laughed, but those simple words make sense, and it’s not drunk people’s wisdom.
After researching, I stumbled upon James Clear content and his famous book Atomic Habits, and that’s the book my friend was mentioning.
Imagine, for example, if you want to set a goal of reading X books a year. What if you change this goal to “read as many as possible every day?”? Or maybe “open a book every day”? It seems simple, but it’s a powerful exercise.
Though I haven’t read it yet (but will do), I’ve tried to exercise it the following way:
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Have a morning ritual: I make coffee and open a book before I start working in the morning. I’d rather read five pages than none at all. That’s showing up on my book reading.
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Go to the gym: It’s better to go there and spend ten minutes than not doing it all. Do I like going to the gym? No. The challenge is to go there, not work out. However, there’s a psychological effect on me when I get there: I feel that I’m pushing myself to work out.
Finally, this shouldn’t work for everyone. It doesn’t always work for me either. There are many lazy days, but most of them, I’m there.