Changing habits

Lists!! Organization!! Efficiency!! Evaluation!! Crunching the numbers!! These words envoke the vision of a well-oiled machine that is well maintained and poised to make significant change. It would probably be an impossible feat to run ones life like this religiously, unless maybe they were disguised as joyful habits. This is what I find myself thinking about as I for the hundredth time try to organize my priorities while cleaning my room. I think alot of people live their lives inefficiently, except that they efficiently live it the way they live it. What I mean is that based on their expectations for life and what they want to accomplish, they dont put out the required effort and use the necessary leverage. Instead they give up on the dream, even if only subconsciouly and resign themselves to live in a way that makes only their current reality possible. Usually this mostly caused by ignorance and not a fault of ther persons genuine desire to acheive the dream.

But lists and organization and efficiency and evaluation, sure they sound like they would help. But I think its scary to live a life so calculated UNLESS such effective efforts were effortless habits. Now I understand why my Dad tried so hard to drill habit into our mindset. How do you develop habits that become effortless. Last I checked you had to do a particular activity over and over and over again. I have heard that it takes 30 days to establish a new habit. I have also heard it takes a renewing of the mind, probably through encouragement, meditation and replacing old activities with new ones using a sustained conscious effort

I know one thing and that is I have tried to change my habits for maybe a decade now and some habits just dont seem to want to give and some just wont develop. It makes one think that the task is impossible. But really I still maintain thats its possible. To me it isnt the goal that is unacheivable but more probably the approach to acheiving it. I have read many books on habit creation and I have come to one conclusion. At the end of the day changing habits lie in your own resolve to change or create them, subjecting your self to ongoing self discovery and renewal and having faith in yourself that change is just around the corner and worth fighting for.

Stress! You feel it? I feel it! Some of us groan about it. Some of us laugh about it. Some of us ignore it. I have done all of the above, but I believe the appropriate response is to learn from it.

Stress can be an indication of depression, dissapointment, working too hard and a myriad of other things which all center around the same concept, Change!! Stress is an indication that something has changed or that something needs to be changed!! Or both!! When I started the going to the gym it came with a center level of stress. I didn't see it as stress because I was having fun, but when I really analyze my emotions I see that at times I was unsure of the proper technique and my body was clearly telling me that it was not used to the new routine. That was stress, but good stress!

I also remember when I was at my previous job I was under a lot of stress and I groaned at the though of going to work in the morning. That was stress! It was telling me something. It was saying to me that it was time to move on. Once I realized this, I did my research, handed in my resignation and left the country.

In my experience change should not be ignored. The source of the stress needs to be identified and so opens the opportunity for learning and growth and appropriate change!

Happy stressing! Happy changing!