BEING AWESOME

This is a bit of a continuation from my last post on strengths and weaknesses. I think it's important to talk about habits as well in the context of personality, strengths and weaknesses. Because I believe that our good habits and bad habits are a major part of our personality in that they are manifestations of our strengths and weaknesses respectively. The term "personality" has no universally agreed upon definition and psychologists and researchers do not usually confine themselves to a particular perspective. Although generally, one could say that a personality is a set of characteristics that uniquely defines a person.

What I refer as to habits are types of behaviors, actions or things we do consistently as well as thoughts and mental processes that we have on a regular basis. It can range from typical actions like smoking or how we make our breakfast every morning to what we think about ourselves in those or other situations. In fact, habits are in many ways what make up the image of ourselves and I think that people generally define themselves through the habits they retain. For example, people might (unwillingly) define themselves as smokers, alcoholics or drug-addicts, and these are all (bad) habits that guide their behavior on a daily basis. Some habits are so strong and ingrained in our personalities that they lead our lives in a certain direction, which would be the case with the habits mentioned above, but also with less detrimental habits like hitting the gym regularly. Furthermore, when you ask someone one who they are they usually reply by stating what they do, e.g. what job they have and what their interests and hobbies are, and to some extent, what they think about themselves based upon their actions and mental processes (also habits). An example of that might be someone who says that, "I am a nice guy because I always treat people with respect and listen to them attentively". The "nice guy" trait in this example is based upon what kind of actions he takes and his thought about those actions, i.e. the habits that the person retains.

Habits are usually labeled as "good" or "bad" depending on if they leverage or hinder us as human beings. But good and bad are relative in the sense that habits are always a means to an end; they help us in achieving a certain goal. The goal itself is usually looked upon as good because it is something we strive towards, regardless of what it entails. Smoking, for example, is widely assumed to be a bad habit (and for good reasons), but in some sense and to some people it can be a good habit in that it supports them in getting their "nicotine fix" which makes them feel good. In the long run, of course, smoking is always a bad habit and I wouldn't dream to think otherwise, but it illustrates my point which is that habits are not inherently good or bad. In fact, I would argue that it is the goal that dictates whether a habit is good or bad, but then again, nothing is just pure good or bad, it's a gray-scale that shifts depending on the variables.

Habits tend to occur subconsciously, they are behavioral patterns we do almost by default without paying attention to and being conscious about. Therefore, there are two steps involved in changing, removing or creating new habits. The first is to become and stay conscious of the habit, the second is to actively take some kind of action to either create a new habit or change an already existing one. Using ones strengths is an efficient way of doing this, since our strengths are what empower us. More importantly however, is getting and staying motivated. Without motivation, there is no way of reaching any goal at all and very hard to change or create habits. Moreover, the combination of habits plus motivation is what gets us to reach the goals we have set.

The new years resolution is a classic example of a type of goal we set to achieve but rarely do. This is because, first of all; how can one expect to accomplish anything tomorrow if the motivation to do so today is not present? In other words, telling yourself that you will quit smoking some other day because you don't feel like it in the moment you make the resolution, will not make it more likely that you'd feel compelled to do so on the day that you set for yourself. Remember, tomorrow is not going to be any different from today unless you can do today that which you tell yourself you will do tomorrow. So, to keep your new years resolution start by getting motivated, stay motivated, start doing the thing that will let you reach your goal and keep on doing it regularly and consistently, then keep motivating yourself to do it everyday regardless of the obstacles you encounter. In the example of quitting smoking, hold on to the motivation – whatever it might be, get motivated everyday to make sure you don't smoke and if you do break the new habit of not smoking, DON'T GIVE UP! There will always be obstacles on the way, but what is more important is that you don't let the obstacles hinder your overall progress. So when you fall down, just get right back up there and keep on moving forward no matter how many times it happens. Now naturally, this is easier said than done but that doesn't make it less true.

Eventually the conscious actions will become more and more subconscious to the point where a new habit has been created in the place of an old one or in the lack of a habit. As a final note I will quote the self-development coach and former salesman Zig Ziglar:

"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing – that's why we recommend it daily."

Final summation: Find your motivation, take action and keep motivating yourself everyday to make the regular actions in to a habit. That will then let you accomplish the goals you have set.

Stay motivated,

- Philip