The power of habit

is one of the major forces that shape our lives in the long run, and replacing a bad habit with a positive one now can have a major cumulative effect in a few years. For this reason, I am sharing with you the techniques that have helped #me overcome my anxiety and procrastination issues when I was under the pressure of finishing a masters thesis.

Get an accountability partner

Every person has a bad habit or two, so there is nothing wrong in asking someone to help you with overcoming them. If you ask a friend or a relative to be your accountability partner and help you keep your commitment, they will most likely be happy to help. If, on the other hand, you are an introvert and don’t want to involve your loved ones, there are many communities on the Internet made for just this purpose. One such community, which has helped me immensely, is the subreddit r/GetMotivatedBuddies, where people find accountability partners based on their interests.

Use the „X effect“

When you start changing your bad habits with good ones, it takes a lot of #motivation to keep going. After failing multiple times after being productive for just a few days, what helped me get into a productive rhythm and do the work every day was a simple philosophy called „the X effect“. For this you only a white index card, which you divide into 49 squares, and a red marker. Every day you abstain from your bad habit, you draw a big red „X“ over one of the squares. It’s the most visual representation of your progress, which gets you into a positive mindset – if you take it just one day at a time, after 7 weeks you will have broken the habit. Sometimes, it’s the most simple things that are the most effective.

Keep a journal

Writing down my #thoughts and the events of the day before I went to bed helped me visualize the slippery slope that turned into an unproductive day – it started with browsing the news, then opening a basketball video, then following recommendations on Youtube – and before you know it, the entire morning had passed. Even though it wasn’t an instant fix, keeping a journal helped me have an objective view of the pitfalls in my daily routine.

Remove triggers

After identifying the most common triggers for my procrastination, I limited my access to them. In my case, it was installing browser add-ons and apps that limit my time on sites like Facebook and Youtube, but for you it can be giving your credit card to your spouse for a month or getting rid of the candies in your pantry. The point is to not have to constantly battle the temptation of indulging in your bad habit, since those temptations aren’t near you.
Replace bad habits with pre-determined activities
After the step of removing the triggers to bad habits, it’s best to fill that time with a specific useful activity. In my case, instead of aimlessly browsing the web in the morning, I made myself go through at least one lesson of Italian on Duolingo, and instead of binge-watching „Friends“ later in the evening, I listened to one chapter of an Italian audio book. Even though it may sound tiresome, replacing bad habits with their positive equivalents required less effort than just abstaining from those bad habits.

Meditate

If you are going to implement just one of these techniques in your daily routine, let it be meditation – more precisely, mindfulness meditation. Aside from struggling with unproductivity, a few years ago I also struggled with severe anxiety, which always managed to bring me back to square one regardless of how productive I was. After reading about its benefits, I added ten minutes of mindfulness meditation to my daily routine. Not only did it help me become more focused, it also improved my willpower and my general outlook on life. I highly recommend Bhanthe Gunarathana’s book on the subject, “Mindfulness in plain English“.

Exercise

Another method I used to overcome my rough patch was physical activity. Sometimes it was chopping wood, sometimes it was a few sets of bodyweight exercises, but whenever I was overwhelmed with anxiety or in a generally unproductive state of mind, the physical activity never failed to put me in a more positive and productive state of mind. If excercise is a weak spot for you, you should know that even as little as a few lunges and some light stretching in the morning have been found to positively influence a person’s mood for the rest of the day and keep you from going into autopilot and succumbing to temptations..
Visualize yourself succeeding
After having many positive experiences with this technique, I now apply it in all areas of my life – by visualizing a positive outcome, you subconsciously align your actions with that scenario, which creates a positive feedback loop and brings you closer to the goal.

Take cold showers

When a friend of mine recommended taking cold showers as a way of overcoming anxiety and increasing #motivation, I was very sceptical, but I gave it a try. The experience turned out to be exactly as he described it - I found myself grinnig without a particular reason and felt more energized throughout the day, which completely got my mind off struggling with my bad habits. There are many other health benefits of cold showers, but I suggest you discover them by yourself.
Fine yourself for each relapse
If all else #fails, there’s the „hard“ approach – fining yourself each time you succumb to your bad habit. Even though I haven’t applied this method myself, seeing what you could have bought instead of giving it, for example, to your accountability partner, can often be incentive enough to #think twice about relapsing.
At the end of the day, remember that old habits die hard and that it takes time to implement positive changes in your #life. But if you take one step at a time, these techniques will help you turn those bad habits into positive ones sooner than you expect!

I hope you enjoyed my hard work, and I encourage you to publish your own work.

All images are copyright FREE

©2017 Mark P. All rights reserved