1. Pick a habit that you want to break. In the beginning pick a simple habit.

2. Find out why you want to break that habit. Watch videos about the dangers of it, read blogs, talk to people who’ve broken that habit, and for extremely quick results, meet people who were hospitalized because of that habit, i.e. smoking.

3. Find out your trigger that causes you to act on that habit. E.g. whenever you’re in the presence of people who’re smoking, you have an urge to smoke. So, the trigger would be you being around smokers. Whenever you feel sad you start to eat, so the trigger would be your getting sad. As soon as you sit on your couch, you turn the tv on, so the trigger would be you sitting on the couch.

4. Keep your motivation up by exposing yourself to the dangers of this habit by either reading something, watching some videos, or hanging around people who are breaking the same habit or have already broken the same habit, every single day.

5. Whenever you hit a trigger that normally causes you to act on the habit you’re trying to break, do something different right away before you can act out of habit. As soon as you sit on your couch, whip out a book and start reading it, or just stop hanging around smokers, or whenever you get sad, right away start writing in a journal.

Trick is to have a strong enough reason to break that habit. Then monitoring your triggers. As soon as you hit your trigger and want to act on your old habit, immediately put a break there. Break that pattern! If you do that enough times, trigger will get weaker. That’s pretty much all there is to it. Don’t forget that by actually trying various ways you’ll learn much more than just reading about them. Just don’t give up!

Related posts:

1. How to create a new habit in 5 simple steps
2. Habits
3. How to develop the habit of jogging every morning?

1. Pick a habit that you want to create

2. Break that habit down into small steps, 1st step being ridiculously small and easy

3. Write down why you want to create that habit, keep asking yourself why until you start to feel good every time you think about that habit

4. Read your “why” every single day at least one time, preferably once before going to bed and once right after you wake up

5. Perform the steps every single day and increasing in intensity every week. So, you would repeat the same easy step every single day for one week and next week you would increase the intensity slightly and keep it up for second week, and then increase again for third week and so on

Related posts:

1. How to break a bad habit in 5 simple steps
2. How to develop the habit of jogging every morning?
3. Habits

Habit of running on a regular basis.

Note, this time my goal is not necessarily to walk/jog/run for 21 or 30 days or so. My goal is to improve my stamina.

I run out of breath even if I have to run for 20 metres, or if I have to climb 20 stairs. So much so that I can not talk and it takes me quite a while to catch my breath.

This was to be a life long habit! As having good stamina helps in a lot of different aspects of life. That’s why it was necessary for me to develop a habit of regularly running first! Once I had developed the habit, then I could go ahead and try to perfect my technique.

Trick is to start slowly! Sooo ridiculously slow that you’d feel silly to skip a day. And do each step every single day! Remember the point is to develop a habit first! That can only really be done by consistency!

Week 1 – wear shoes, dress up, get out the door and then come back in

Week 2 – get dressed and go down the elevator and then come back up

Week 3 – walk 5 mins (could be on the treadmill in the gym in my building, or a walk outside)

Week 4 – walk for 10 mins

Week 5 – walk for 15 mins

Week 6 – walk for 15 mins with 2 30 sec jogs thrown in, so could be walk for 7 mins, jog for 30 secs, walk for another 7 mins, jog for another 30 secs, walk for another 5 mins for a total or 20 mins

Week 7 – walk for 20 mins with 4 30 sec jogs thrown in

Week 8 – walk for 2 mins, jog for 30 sec, then repeat until 20 mins are up

Week 9 – walk for 2 mins, jog for 2 mins, repeat until 20 mins are up

I could not complete week 9 properly due to low carb diet I was trying during the same time. I had incredible lack of energy during that period. So much so that I felt faint on many occasions even after 5 minutes of walking, even though I was eating a lot and drinking a lot of water. I was just careful to limit my carbohydrates.

Anyhow, had to stop mid way for a few days because of my diet experiment (more on that later). Following week I started again but I felt I had lost my rhythm.

I still wanted to build stamina though so started researching different ways of improving it.

Came across High intensity interval training (HIIT). This really appealed to me.

Basically, you jog for a few minutes, then go all out sprinting for 15-30 seconds, then light jog again until heart rate comes down, then sprint again and so on.

Week 9: total time 10 mins; with 2 30 sec 8 mph sprints in between (treadmill) – 2 times a week; with 5+ mins of walking on rest of the days

Week 10: total time 10-15 mins; with 2 30 sec 9.5 mph sprints in between (treadmill) – 2 times a week; with 5+ mins of walking on rest of the days

Week 11: total time 15+ mins; with 3 15 sec 10.5 mph sprints in between (treadmill) – 2 times a week; with 5+ mins of walking on rest of the days

Instead of following a strict regiment of jogging for 2 mins, then sprinting for 30 secs, I just sprint for 15-30 secs then wait for my heart rate to come below 140 then I sprint again, whether that’s with in 2 mins or 4 mins.

I’m finding that it’s hard to really sprint very fast on a treadmill. I feel like I am going to fall down!

So, next session I’ll try HIIT outside!

Related posts:

1. How to create a new habit in 5 simple steps
2. How to break a bad habit in 5 simple steps
3. Habits

There has been so much talk about it taking 21 days to establish a new habit! Almost every self help book you read you’ll find something along the same timeline. How it takes 21 days to form a new habit! Unfortunately that never worked for me. And I don’t mean that I tried one habit. I tried to form new habits in many different areas of my life but even doing them for up to 2 years did not work for me, forget about 21 days!

What went wrong? Obviously 21 days worked for some people!

Maybe it was because I was forcing myself to complete my 30 day goals? I did not look at those goals or habits as long term goals. Instead I was determined to complete them for 30 days for the sake of completing them. My goal was to complete those tasks for 30, 60 or pre-determined number of days.

So, for example, my goal was to work out for every single day for 30 days. Instead my goal should have been to look a certain way, or to have more stamina and so on.

My goal was to give up sugar for 30 days instead it should’ve been to have a healthy diet.

Now I’m looking at habits a bit differently. I decide what my ultimate goal is, then I break it down into smaller and more manageable daily tasks.

E.g. one of my goals is to have more stamina. Now this is not a 30 day goal. I want to have more stamina for the rest of my life. I want that to be my lifestyle. So, I’m in no hurry in trying to achieve that. There’s no 30 day goal here. I start with ridiculously small goals for every single day.

One thing you must remember whenever trying to set a new habit is to perform it every single day.

For the first week I only put on my jogging clothes, wear my running shoes and go out the door. Then immediately I come back in. I do this for one week.

For week two, I walked for 5 mins only.

For week three, I walked for 10 mins only and so on…

Best idea is to choose habits for life instead of for short term. If you think about habits in that sense you would realize that there is no rush. Go at a slow pace. Stretch yourself only enough that you don’t mind and you don’t get any resistance from your mind.

So, the first week do something very small. Each week, increase the intensity a little bit. This way before you know it, you would have developed a new habit.

For instance, if you wanted to develop the habit of writing a post for your blog daily.

Week 1. Pick up your computer and log onto your blog and then log off

Week 2. Start writing with a timer and write for only 5 mins, save it as a draft, which you may publish by the end of the week

Week 3. Write for 10 mins daily

Week 4. Write for 15 mins daily

Week 5. Write for 20 mins daily and keep increasing slowly but consistently

Another thing that was missing in all of my 21/60/90 day experiments was the motivation! I had incredible motivation at the beginning but eventually motivation died down and I still kept up my habit because of self discipline.

What if I had tried the following?

Whatever goal I wanted to achieve, I should’ve found sources of motivation for me. That could be watching videos, reading books, reading blog posts, listening to audio tapes regarding that goal, talking to people about it, joining groups about it (offline and online) and so on. Meaning  I should have kept my motivation high.

So, I think habits also die down after a while because we feel pointless in continuing with them. We tend to forget why we really started forming that particular habit. That’s why it’s very important to have a “WHY”. We should be reminding ourselves why we are trying to set a habit, why we’re trying to achieve a particular goal.

E.g. we learn about dangers of sugar. Now we set a goal to cut sugar from our diet. As days go by we tend to slowly forget why we were cutting sugar out of our diets. We have an idea that it’s bad for us but that real intense fear is gone. That motivation is gone! We need to spark that fire again. Otherwise, temptations come in the way! We’re surrounded by wonderful tasting foods that have sugar in them! Not to mention people eating items containing sugar all around us, and let’s not forget the advertising that bombards us on a daily basis!

So, we could start watching videos of dangers of sugar or dangers of high fructose corn syrup. And also, keep yourself busy with reading research documents, visiting blogs about their dangers and so on. Spend some time daily on doing this along with setting small daily tasks of eliminating sugar from our diet. Then see what happens!

Pretty soon you will realize that your mindset has shifted. You will automatically become conditioned to think that sugar is bad for you. And I think that’s the best form of motivation there is. Once you develop a belief then you will not have to force yourself, or discipline yourself to do anything. You will stop having foods that contain sugar or HFCS automatically. You will not even feel like having them

So, the biggest thing I’ve learned from my years of experimenting with trying to set new habits or eliminate bad ones is that we need to keep burning the fire of motivation, we need to keep reminding ourselves why we’re continuing with our 21/30/60 day experiments!

Right now, one of the habits that I’m working on is writing for my blog for 5 minutes daily! Instead of writing and posting, I just write for 5 minutes in google documents then when I feel it’s enough for a post, I just publish it on my blog.

So, do not be surprised if the quality goes down a little bit. I’m trying to write a half decent blog but more importantly setting a habit of writing every single day!

That’s where I find we go wrong! We try to achieve too much too fast! If we do not develop a habit of doing something on a consistent basis, what happens when we’re really feeling down, or tired, or just are not motivated anymore, or something else of importance comes to our life? We take a break! After all it’s just one day!

But before the habit is ingrained in your subconscious mind, no breaks should be taken! None! Even if you spend 2 minutes on your habit, do it! But do not skip a day without performing a task towards your goal!

And make sure you keep your motivation high for the first few weeks especially! 30 day experiments are fine if you consistently keep reminding yourself why you’re involved in this experiment in the first place!

Related posts:

1. Latest update on habits
2. How to develop the habit of jogging every morning?
3. How to break a bad habit in 5 simple steps

Related posts:

1. How to create a new habit in 5 simple steps
2. Big gap between my blog posts
3. Welcome

Those times have passed and I have calmed down except for sudden bursts on the highway every once in a while.

One thing I learned while driving at really high speeds is the concentration it required. I was totally concentrating on driving and I was in the “zone” as it’s called.

I was totally concentrating on driving and could not afford to think about anything else. And because of that my driving was much better!

My mind was racing at such high speed as well and making decisions with lightning speed. My reflexes were much faster and I was going through traffic with incredible calm. I was driving much better and much safer than I do when I drive at normal speed limits.

That is the same thing with setting goals. If we set small and miniscule goals, our concentration is all over the place. We work on our goals for a minutes here and there and work on some other stuff and watch tv and chit chat with friends and so on. Before we know it, the whole day’s gone by and we complain about not having enough time.

When we set huuuuuge and scary goals for ourselves and totally commit to achieving them, we do not have time to think about anything else, nor do we have time to just hang out or engage in idle chit chat.

And once we enter that total concentration zone that’s when magic begins to happen. We start achieving incredible results. Things we never thought we could do before, we start doing easily and we seem to accomplish all of this in the same amount of time.

Now please do not go out there trying this experiment of driving at high speeds. It’s incredibly foolish and a stupid thing to do. You may easily hurt yourself or someone else so do not engage in that.

If you do want to drive at fast speeds then go to a track and do it. There are a lot of tracks where you can take your car for a day for a small fee and drive however you feel like driving but just don’t do it on normal roads!

But do try and set goals that require you to stretch beyond your comfort zone! Think about what it is that you want and totally commit yourself to it. Just test it out! It doesn’t have to be anything extraordinary, just something that might require your total concentration. Do that and see how it feels!

“Aim at the sun and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if you had aimed at an object on a level with yourself.” – F. Hawes

Related posts:

1. How to develop the habit of jogging every morning?
2. Self-Discipline – the missing link
3. Habits

Subliminal messages on a tape or cd

A method that has been around for a long time now is using tapes with subliminal messages on them. A lot of people swear by them. There are literally tons of tapes and cds being sold (with subliminal messages) for just about every area of your life.

Basically, the tape contains some music and positive affirmations. All you can consciously hear is the music and not the messages. But your subconscious mind is supposedly able to listen to the hidden messages.

In theory this works because your conscious mind is busy listening to the music and the messages/affirmations bypass it and get directly imbedded in your subconscious mind.

Audio Affirmations

I had heard that a very effective method for using affirmations is recording them onto a tape or cd and listening to them while sleeping. To make it more effective you can actually listen to them while you’re falling asleep, through out the night while you’re sleeping and wake up listening to them.

These are the times that the conscious mind is dormant and you have direct access to subconscious mind without much resistance. You can theoretically bypass your analytical and self-limiting beliefs.

That’s briefly how they work. I’m assuming everyone has a basic understanding of them.

If not then there are probably many places online that can describe them in much greater detail than me, for anyone interested.

I wanted to find out for myself if they did indeed work. If they did then that would be simply awesome as both of these methods were very simple and easy to apply.

So, this is was my plan:

1. Listen to tapes while I fell asleep, through out the night while I was sleeping, and wake up listening to them
2. Do it consistently for at least 30-60 days
3. If no change then same as #1 but also listen to them through out the day
4. Do it consistently for at least 30-60 days again
5. If desired change not there then record baroke music along with the affirmations
6. Listen to them again for at least 30-60 days
7. Listen to subliminal tapes while I fell asleep, through out the night while I was sleeping and wake up listening to them
8. Do it consistently for at least 60 days
9. Same as #7 but also listen to them through out the day
10. Do it consistently for at least 60 days

How to measure results?

First of all I really wanted it to work. I had read how this had helped so many people so I was actually very motivated and very much looking forward to them working.

So how exactly would I know if either of these methods worked?

I was looking for any difference in my attitude. I also wanted to see if I was acting in accordance with the new messages or if I was still acting the same.

If a situation presented itself I would notice what thoughts came to my mind and what actions I took. I was not necessarily looking for a total change in my thinking but even a little reminder or a nudge in the right direction.

For example:

I was afraid of roller coasters, every time I got close to them I would start panicking and mind would be filled with fearful thoughts.

After applying these processes, even if I could feel myself thinking that even though it roller coasters were something I’d been afraid of I could actually take steps to overcome this fear, that would have been considered successful for me.

Basically, I was looking any, even a tiniest change in my thinking and attitude.

Results:

I did not notice any change.

The subliminal tapes also provided manuals with written affirmations that were recorded on the tapes so I actually would read through those affirmations as well to make sure I knew what was being programmed in my mind.

For the example of roller coaster above, I noticed if I was still acting out of fear or not. But in the moment of fear I could not even remember any affirmations that were being programmed in my mind through subliminal tapes or while sleeping via tapes I had created.

I had several affirmations regarding many different issues but I did not notice any change whatsoever in any of those areas nor in my attitude in those areas. That was very disappointing.

I had a lot of limiting beliefs toward these processes though. Even though I had really wanted them to work and was willing to put in the work required to make them work, I was also not very optimistic about them.

It’s quite possible they might have worked with a different attitude. But the whole point of these processes was to develop a different attitude. It was catch 22.

Even though both of these processes have apparently worked for a lot of people, for me neither the subliminal tapes, nor audio affirmations worked.

Related posts:

1. Using affirmations
2. Challenges with affirmations
3. Are you feeding your mind?

Never really concentrating on one thing long enough to see it to fruition.

Recently, I was concentrating on affirmations and finding out what worked for me and what didn’t. Then I got interested in eating healthy. Then it was exercising. Then it was using the law of attraction more effectively. Then it was de-cluttering my house and keeping it that way. Then it was “maybe I should try to go on a vegetarian diet for a month?” Then I thought maybe I should buy organic meat and try that before going on a vegetarian diet. Then I thought about how I can work fewer hours at work and still get paid the same. Then I thought more about gossiping at work and how I am getting involved again. Then I thought about doing some more 30 day experiments. Then I thought about over 4,000 email messages that are in my yahoo account that I should clean out. And this is not all, that’s just what I can think of right now.

In the end I ended up doing a lot of things in bits and pieces but nothing to full completion.

So, you can see that I did not do anything effectively.

This is the multi-tasking world, with multi-tasking mentality! At work, you should be able to respond to your emails, converse with your colleagues/boss, work on your project and update the reporting sheets all at the same time.

I started looking around at people who were achieving enormous results in a very short period of time and every single one of them had one thing in common. They were all focusing on that particular item with all of their energy.

So…. what would happen if I started doing that? hmm…

I’ve done a lot of 30 day experiments but since I feel like there is so much I want to do, taking a whole month for just one item seems like a long time. It’s not really because time is passing anyways and a month is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Also, a month can easily pass by just in all this confusion. Instead of getting confused, I could have done some one thing for that month. If I started to just do things that I want to or would love to do, I would learn a lot more about myself whether I failed or succeeded.

I have trained myself to be disciplined whenever I need to be. I don’t doubt that I can concentrate on one thing for a whole month for example. It’s just deciding which one thing to concentrate on. It’s more in my mind than anything else.

Still I have to look out for myself and work with myself so instead I will devise some 7 day experiments. I will totally focus on one item for 7 days.

That means not even browsing the internet for other stuff. Totally excluding, even going to forums or websites that are not directly related to my goal of the week. Let’s see what happens!

Ivy Lee’s system

In one of his books Napoleon Hill tells a story about Ivy Lee who was working with Charles Schwab, the head of Bethlehem Steel. Ivy Lee is considered the father of modern public relations.

Charles Schawb told Lee that the biggest problem he had was making his managers more effective – helping them better utilize their time. Lee provided a system to Schwab and told Schwab to first try the system out for a while and then pay him whatever Schwab thought the idea was worth.

This is basically what Ivy Lee told Charles Schwab:

1. List the six most important things you have to do tomorrow
2. Number them in order of importance/priority
3. Take the paper out tomorrow morning – start with 1 and stay with it until it is completed
4. Only then go to 2 and repeat until the end of day. If you don’t finish all six you probably wouldn’t have finished them using any other system anyway

In a short while after trying this system out, Schwab sent Ivy Lee a cheque for $25,000. Now this was in 1920s so you can imagine what that amount is today. This shows you what Schwab thought of Lee’s idea and Napoleon Hill gave it to us for free!

There are literally thousands of time management books, tapes, videos, seminars out there but so often we get caught up in designing really complex systems that we lose track of the basics. If Charles Schwab thought so highly of this basic system, and if this simple system helped people at that level, surely it can help us!

Focus on one thing until it’s done! I am going to devise some experiments for myself and find out what can be achieved in one week!

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1. Where does your time go?
2. One day challenge to stop gossiping
3. How to organize your receipts?

It all goes back to the law of attraction and changing our vibrational state. Like I mentioned in a previous article, in order to change our vibrational state, one way is to put ourself in a different environment. In an environment that is more fitting to the person we want to become.

As an experiment I’ve been meeting different people who’re interested in investing in real estate. I am a real estate sales person as well so I can sell property but investing is a different ball game all together.

Coming from poverty, the idea of investing in real estate scares me as I do not have the money even now to buy an investment property. The fact that I would have to deal with tenants and any problems that might arise from them also discourage me. So, I thought this would be perfect.

There was a real estate investors’ meeting this past weekend which I attended. Every single person there had an investment property besides their principle residence. Every single person seemed to have a lot of money just sitting in the bank. They were talking about using 20%-25% down payment versus using 35% down payment to buy another investment property. An Indian person there with broken english was the star of the evening. Very helpful and one of the most positive people I’ve met. He apparently had recently just bought 60 properties.

I felt very uncomfortable sitting there. All sorts of negative emotions were coming out. I started to feel quite bad and poor sitting amongst them. I felt like there wasn’t much I could contribute to the meeting as well.

But then I reminded myself the reason for me being there. Near the end of the conversation I was feeling a lot more comfortable there.

Another reason I loved being there was because each one of these people had actually stepped outside the box. Where people at my work are totally conditioned to be employees for the rest of their lives, these people had actually realized that it was possible to be financially independent without a job.

Being around people like these could not hurt me in any which way!

So, the trick is: put yourself amongst people who’re where you want to be. Stay there until it starts to feel comfortable to be there. That’s when you know your vibration has changed and that’s when you’ll automatically start to attract things that’ll actually bring you closer to your goal! Easy, right?!

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3. Using affirmations

Affirmations

According to webster.com, an affirmation is:

- an act of affirming

- a positive assertion

Basically to affirm means to say something with positive conviction.

I think a lot of misunderstanding would be laid to rest if people actually find the real meaning of an affirmation. By that I mean that I would have saved a lot of time if I had actually done that!

We are using affirmations all day long anyways. The negative statements that we keep repeating in our minds about ourselves and others are nothing but affirmations, just negative affirmations.

Auto suggestion

From the beginning of time people have been telling us the benefits of auto suggestion. If we tell ourselves something over and over again, we’re going to end up believing it.  No matter what it is.

That little statement is sooooo powerful that it’s unbelievable! We can actually change our beliefs about anything and anyone using auto suggestion. We can literally change our life around using auto suggestion!

It depends a lot also on how we use affirmations. Do we just say the words? That will have minimal if any effect on us. More emotions we can engage while repeating affirmations, faster we’ll actually notice them making a difference.

I have soooo much to write about it that I don’t know where to begin and what to write or in what order to write. It’s quite possible that somethings might be repeated more than once as well.

How to use affirmations?

Most important thing to remember in using affirmations is that you must believe them when you’re repeating them. Initially, the first time you say something to yourself  you may not believe it. For example, if you say “I am good at cooking!”. Initially, you may laugh at this, that is if you’re a bad cook right now!

What you do is keep repeating this statement to yourself! Out loud! Sing it, write it down, repeat it but keep at it until you get a little feeling of belief inside of you.  I don’t mean do this during the day or over a few days. I mean at one time keep repeating it until you feel like you can be a good cook or that you are a good cook. Sometimes you’ll get that feeling after repeating an affirmation one time and sometimes it could be after several hundred times.

After you get that feeling, that positive feeling towards the affirmation, now you can let it go.  Now repeat this again the next day, or twice a day or however many times. Most important thing is not to ever just say the words out loud without reaching the point of believing in that affirmation.

Now if you just do that for a few days, again depends on how faithfully you do this it could be a few days to a few weeks but you’ll actually start to really believe that you are a good cook.

Now what?

If you have done it properly not only are you going to believe that you’re a great cook but you will actually be one. What happens if you’re affirming a statement is that you get excited about it, inspired ideas keep coming in your mind and if you were to take action on those inspired ideas you’ll notice yourself improving.

Now it becomes a positive cycle. More you affirm with conviction, more inspired ideas you get and more you act on those ideas, better you get and thus taking you to what you have been affirming and that “I am good at cooking!”

Related posts:

1. Challenges with affirmations
2. Subliminal tapes and audio affirmations
3. How to instill new beliefs?