Filter Your Habits

Habit is a behavior pattern that you do either consciously or unconsciously. The extended version defining habit is the things you do often which become difficult to give up. Some critical examples as follows.

Regular Habits
Waking up at 6am, sleeping late on weekends and holidays, smoking after meals, brushing your teeth and having breakfast before having your shower. You take time to Meditate daily. You review your Time Planner before you start the day and at the end of your work day. These are not necessarily Good Habits, it is just habit that you regularly do. So, know the difference.

Compulsive Habits
Checking your car door if it is locked twice or thrice, realigning photos that are not looking straight on the wall, arranging money by denominations in the wallet, pinching out pimples, biting lips, apologizing for everything, even if you did not do anything wrong, having a haircut once a week the same way always. People with extreme compulsive habits are often categorized to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and suggested to get psychological help, not always, only in extreme cases.

Bad Habits
Smoking: You know it’s bad for you. Don’t deny it. Smoking kills yet some smokers live to be 100 years, but that is not an excuse for you to smoke. The reality is that you also cause health inconvenience to people around you.

Alcohol: Excessive consumption of alcohol leading you to become an alcoholic. Most alcoholic will say they are very much in control of their hard liquor; the reality is that the alcohol is in control of you. You are just making up stories.

Profanity: You know, using words that contain vulgarity, cursing, swearing and having every sentence begin and end with a curse word. Even a spider comes into the profane word, known to be an Australian slang, if you get my drift.

Drugs: You are dependent on medication to keep you going. You need sleeping pills, anti-depression medication, hunger suppression capsules and medications that does not keep you becoming healthy, but being dependent on it due to your own believe that it is helping you. No, it is not. Sleep, general state of mind, food and personal health can be approached with exercise, proper meal plans, meditation, beneficial vitamins and surrounded by positive minded people.

Do not hesitate to ask for help. Nobody knows if you are having a problem unless you tell them. A nutritionist can advise you on proper food consumption after conducting health check. As I said before, you do not need to starve to death, you just need to eat right.

Procrastinating Habits
Just being lazy to do anything, quickly able to justify the reasons of why you are not going to complete your tasks today or within a stipulated time. You keep procrastinating more and more. What you can do today is put off and never completed or when you get into an issue where you need to resolve it immediately. Panic sets in and you make a mess of everything.

Aggressive Habits
You are so loud, that it is highly possible, the Howler monkey thinks you are a distance cousin! For your info, the howl of these monkeys can be heard 5 km away in the rain forest. It is the same with you. You talk so loud in public places that a sleeping baby gets woken up in shock.

You quickly react to hit someone, throwing a punch is just your norm, slapping a person just because they do not agree with your approach. You become very hostile, you throw things around or directed at the person. Some people also call you a bully because you just harass others as being part of your self-satisfaction in creating fear. You laugh, but in reality you are weak!

Summary
I started this topic by saying Filter Your Habits! You are well aware of what are you good and bad habits. You cannot deny it. If you are not sure, take it up with people around you. Ask your friends, family members and colleagues on what good and bad habits that they have noticed about you. Make a list saying, ‘Good Habits’ and ‘Bad Habits’.

Now, of course, good habits may also be contradicting, when someone says that you are very strict and that everyone is afraid of you. In such case, you might need to consider how people may look at you. You need to be approachable and still be firm when needed, maybe due to your job functions, but not threatening to others.

Bad habits in return can also be said to people who becomes very helpful to anyone, putting their own personal and financial risks in return, just to be helpful for others. For example, if you are asked to be a guarantor of someone’s financial debt, and you are so willing to do it without analyzing your risks or saying no, then this can be taken into one of your bad habits.

Here is a story of mother and her two children. All of them were so poor, hungry and on one fine day when she received a piece of bread, she had given it all for the children to eat whilst she stayed starving. She said, “ They need it more than me ”. What she should have done was, to eat half the bread, and gave the other have in equal portion to both children. By doing so, she could nurture extra energy for herself, able to work and in return, be more help to her children.

If she drops dead and left the children to fend for themselves, was her action fruitful? Yes, you sacrifice yourself, for your family when the dues are there; what it means is that you do not kill yourself in the process! Be wise, your well-being is the betterment of your family too.

Back to the List. Now, review it. Be brave and do not be defensive. Listen carefully first to the comments. Ask more details, if you do not clearly understand what the person relating to you in their examples. Now, pick first three crucial bad habits that you need to work on. Also, highlight three crucial good habits as well. Why, because these crucial good habits will help you to eliminate your bad habits. Read the methods to visualize, told in my blog, In Defence, I Blame You.

On this journey to Filter Your Habits, it will initiate the beginning of your determination, maintain your consistency, overcome the impossible and lead you to your success. All these, will be achieved with what? You got it right; it’s Positive Attitude.