Superhuman Habits

(Book by Tynan)               

                      

                                 "At first you create your habits, and then your habits create you”

 

1 What is a Habit?

A habit is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur unconsciously.

In the American Journal of Psychology it is defined in this way:

"A habit, from the standpoint of psychology, is a more or less fixed way of thinking, willing, or feeling acquired through previous repetition of a mental experience.”

Will power is finite…you only have a certain amount. So we have to use our limited amount of will power to create new habits.

Old habits are hard to break and new habits are hard to form because the behavioral patterns we repeat are imprinted in our neural pathways, but it is possible to form new habits through repetition.

2. Don’t miss a day!

Consistency…set up habits to do daily.

If you miss a day…then set up “the habit” as the most important thing to do the next day.

What if you miss two days?  DON’T MISS TWO DAYS!

Set boundaries. There are certain things you will not allow.

3. Use your mistakes.

“Perfection is not reality”

No bodies perfect.  Don’t tell yourself, “I am bad at this”….that becomes a mindset.

Say, “I AM BETTER THAN THIS!”

“Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re right”  ~ Henry Ford

 4. Focus on the Process.

If you want to stress yourself out when it comes to weight loss, hop on the scales every day. Measure your progress by the results you’re getting….go ahead…make the results as short term as you can. Be all about immediate results.

That is the quickest path to giving up. You’re not going to see the results as fast as you think you should be seeing them, and it’s not working, so you give up.

Focus on the Process.  Here are some things to ask yourself….

~ Am I doing what I said I was going to do to lose weight?

~ Am I preparing my food ahead of time?

~ Am I Exercising?

~ Is my “new habit” still a priority?

~ Am I staying within my boundaries?

~ Am I using my mistakes to learn new lessons?

~ Have I continued to focus on the process?

The outcome of our success will be a natural by-product of the process.

Make a commitment to the practice…the process.

5. Negative Habits

Identify my negative habits.

~ Staying up too late.

~ Wasting time. (Not planning)

~ Eating out

~ Too much time on the internet.

~ Procrastination.

Notice the triggers that moves us…replace the negative habits with positive habits.

Notice the consequences, so that we can see the value to change.


"The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love.  The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation.  To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life."
 
   

 

                                  

 

 

 

The Diet Circle

                        “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

                                                                                                       ~ George Santayana

 

The Devil’s Circle by Stephen Batchelor

"A man lost in a desert can trudge for hours through the sands until he sees ahead of him an unmistakable line of foot prints leading to the horizon. But his joy on finding a trail turns to despair when he realizes the tracks are his own. Since one limb was a few millimeters longer than the other or habit or injury inclined him to step fractionally further with one leg, he consistently veered to the right or left. Without a path or landmark to guide him, he traced a vast circle while convinced he was walking in a straight line.”

This describes life’s tendency to repeat itself…

“Like someone lost in a desert, I feel compelled to struggle ahead, unaware that a devil’s circle will only bring me back to where I began. Through the years, I return again and again to the same stock obsessions. I flick through the tomb of my achievements in the blink of an eye only to feel that nothing has really happened. I am still the anxious and puzzled child who set out on the journey.”

How many times has this occurred in our efforts to lose weight?

“No matter what experience has taught us in the past, we insist on making the same mistakes again and again. A devil's circle is addictive. It raises you to dizzy heights of rapture only to bring you crashing down into thoughts of despair. Yet I do not hesitate to start the diabolic cycle again. I find it hard to resist the urge to go through the familiar and comforting motions of habit, even when I know that the end result will be the anxious craving to repeat the experience again.”

A path leads into unknown territory, whereas a circle goes over the same ground again and again. The enticing avenues that a devil’s circle offers are not paths at all.

“New paths are not familiar and secure. The new patterns we will create are not as stable or predictable as they once appeared. In the devil's circle, not only does the devil block the way to freedom, he tricks one into following paths that appear promising, but lead only to frustration and disillusion.”

Batchelor concludes… "In the end, we humans are the only adequate metaphor for the Devil"