May 2015

If I could add any 12 behavior changes to my daily life, that would be pretty significant, right? Really. Imagine, in one short year, I could be well on my way to becoming fluent in a new language, and could be getting better all the time by devoting only 15 minutes a day to using a fun phone app to learn any number of foreign languages. If I could convince my girlfriend to do it with me, we could talk privately right in the company of most everyone we know. We could open the doors to communicating to a broad array of people that we see each day whom most of the people I know could not communicate with.

Studies show that it generally takes only 21 days of repetition to form a habit. This works for bad habits as well as good ones, so being mindful of my actions is important. And I can choose to either establish new, good habits, or to replace bad habits with better ones!

One great aspect for someone who is easily distracted is that once a good habit is in place, I can be on autopilot with the behavior and reap the benefits from now on without having to put any real thought or effort into it. In fact, I’ve heard many people say that when they first began their gym membership, it was grueling, difficult to keep it up, and easy to make excuses to not go – but once they finally got in the habit of going, they say that now they can’t help but go, and that it even feels a little weird if they have to skip a day for some reason.

So sign me up! If I can have a better diet, exercise more, learn a language, blog every day, get some gardening done, meditate and/or do some yoga, learn to dance, teach myself to make smartphone apps, write to my loved ones, read more, etc., I would feel so much healthier and accomplished!

If I could add any 12 behavior changes to my daily life, that would be pretty significant, right? Really. Imagine, in one short year, I could be well on my way to becoming fluent in a new language, and could be getting better all the time by devoting only 15 minutes a day to using a fun phone app to learn any number of foreign languages. If I could convince my girlfriend to do it with me, we could talk privately right in the company of most everyone we know. We could open the doors to communicating to a broad array of people that we see each day whom most of the people I know could not communicate with.

Studies show that it generally takes only 21 days of repetition to form a habit. This works for bad habits as well as good ones, so being mindful of my actions is important. And I can choose to either establish new, good habits, or to replace bad habits with better ones!

One great aspect for someone who is easily distracted is that once a good habit is in place, I can be on autopilot with the behavior and reap the benefits from now on without having to put any real thought or effort into it. In fact, I’ve heard many people say that when they first began their gym membership, it was grueling, difficult to keep it up, and easy to make excuses to not go – but once they finally got in the habit of going, they say that now they can’t help but go, and that it even feels a little weird if they have to skip a day for some reason.

So sign me up! If I can have a better diet, exercise more, learn a language, blog every day, get some gardening done, meditate and/or do some yoga, learn to dance, teach myself to make smartphone apps, write to my loved ones, read more, etc., I would feel so much healthier and accomplished!