Develop Habits and Set Your Life on Autopilot

The need for simplicity

In recent years I have learned I have a way of overcomplicating things. I always wanted to be the best, and I have set many goals that were just unattainable for me at the time. This has led to many failures and fewer successes in life.

As humans we have a need for simplicity. Complication seems to get in the way and increases our chances of failure. One of the ways we add complexity to life is we live not for ourselves, but for others. We are worried about other's perceptions: Will they think we are good enough? Will they like us? Will they view us as successful? It would be much simpler to decide what we want out of life, decide how to achieve it, and then do what needs to be done. If you want to write an article on read.cash, then do your research, write the article, edit it, and publish it. That is all. Let everyone else worry about themselves. You have achieved your goal.

Another way of overcomplicating things is to work against yourself by making changes too quickly, and not starting from the beginning. In this world of modern convenience, we tend to want what we want right now. But things take time. You are better starting slowly and adding difficulty little by little. One way to do this is to create the necessary habits to achieve your goals.

Habits Defined

According to Merriam-Webster, there are nine different meanings for the word habit. In this article we are only concerned with two of them. Here are the two definitions we will be using:

a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior, and

an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary.

There are three parts to a habit: the trigger, the action, and the reward. In the beginning it is very important to get all three parts down. Don't worry about doing superhuman actions or anything like that, make sure you start small. First, decide your trigger, your action, and how you will reward yourself. For example, if you want to get in better shape, your trigger could be waking up. Your action could be to run for five minutes. Your reward could be a morning cup of coffee. So all you have to do is wake up, run for five minutes, and have a coffee. Later you can increase your running, but for now concentrate on making the habit second nature and involuntary. You want to reach the point that if upon waking you don't run for five minutes and have a morning coffee, you feel like something is wrong.

I made a mistake that I want to warn you about. Work on only one habit at a time until it becomes automatic. Only I could make something this simple overly complicated. When I first learned about the three parts of a habit, I tried to develop a dozen habits at once. I repeat, stick with one and only one habit at the time. Take about a month to get used to it. Then add another habit only after the first is second nature.

Life on autopilot

When you develop simple habits until they become second nature, you don't even have to think about what needs to be done. You automatically do it. Do all of your thinking at the beginning to decide what your trigger, your action, and your reward is going to be. Do the habit every day, until it is second nature, and coast to new heights on autopilot.

This is my first article on read.cash. I plan on writing a few articles a month on the topics of simplicity, goals, habits, and whatever else I get the fancy to write. The goal for my writing is to provide as much information as I can in a few minutes worth of reading. I also want to keep my writing, well, simple. If I could ask a favor, please leave a comment with any constructive criticism on how I am doing. I will use the comments to improve. And if there is anything you would like me to research and write about, just let me know that too.