do it yourself FREEDOM

Impacts: Mind, Health, Home, Work, Money, Time

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” – Henry David Thoreau

Habits usually just happen. Usually we fall into habits simply because we’re wired naturally to automate. If you take a step back and look at yourself simply as a living organism you might notice that your body pretty much runs itself without much conscious intervention from you. Your heart beats, your eyes blink, you breathe, etc. It even has automated ways to telling you to eat and drink.

If you’re proactive and make an effort to create positive habits, (healthy habits, time saving habits, work habits, etc), you can actually use your natural tendency to automate in positive directions. For example once you’ve been getting up early for a while you tend to automatically get up early. Bad habits form just as easily.

Breaking habits is very hard to do simply because you’re working against your natural tendency. Generations of biology are your obstacle. Try replacing one habit for another instead of trying  to break a habit. Smokers are onto this simple concept, and in fact often point to this natural tendency to explain sudden weight gain or other negative side effects after quitting smoking. To stay ahead of the habit curve consciously work to replace bad habits with beneficial habits.

Rituals are one way to create new habits. We tend to think of rituals in a religious context but if your break the idea down you’ll see that a ritual is simply an intentional act or series of actions.

To use ritual to build good habits make a conscious effort to give yourself a series of steps for simple tasks designed around the new habit you want to form. Ideally write the steps down to help you in the beginning. Eventually the list will be obsolete because you’ll quickly memorize the steps and even begin to refine and perfect you actions. In the end the simple ritual you designed will be as natural as a mindless habit.

Habits and rituals are key tools for increasing personal freedom because they help you remove bad stuff from your life and replace it with good stuff. Habits and rituals are not as powerful a tool as belief but nearly.

Take Action

• Learn about the Japanese tea ceremony. It’s a great example of ritualized tea drinking.
• Watch for habits you’ve already created. Begin by asking yourself if that habit is moving you forward of back. In other words notice what you’re doing.