Five Must-have Power Habits by Arfeen Khan

‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.’

— Aristotle

Change your habits if you want to change your life. The bad news is that changing an existing habit or giving it up is not easy. The good news is that beginning a new habit or cultivating it is not that hard. When you cultivate good habits and eliminate bad ones, you are more likely to find yourself in pleasant situations than unpleasant ones.

How does one cultivate power habits to achieve success, and how does one eliminate bad ones? You just need to understand how habits are formed. Once you do this, you can take the necessary steps to get rid of habits that take you away from your goals, and adopt new ones that bring you closer to them.

Habits are the tasks that you perform without thinking or planning. Until an action is performed repeatedly—day in, day out—and until it becomes a habit, you need to set a reminder that motivates you to do it. So, to get up early in the morning and go for a walk, you first need to set an alarm the previous night; this means you have to plan for it in advance. To ensure that you get up early in the morning, you have to get enough sleep, which means you have to go to bed earlier.

You need to use a reward to motivate yourself to perform an action repeatedly till it turns into a habit. The rewards for getting up early and going for a morning walk are many. You get an opportunity to spend time with yourself, to clear your mind, to gather your thoughts, see the sunrise and begin your day in a pleasant way. You need to use these rewards as constant reminders to perform the act of getting up early on a regular basis until it becomes a daily routine.

What does a gardener do when he sees the leaves of a plant wilting or drooping? He waters it. What do you do when you see the fuel indicator of your car dipping? You fill it up with gas. You see a sign or symptom and respond to it in the required manner. Similarly, if your life is not turning out the way you expect it to, then, this is a sure sign that you need to take action. You need to develop habits that will energize you.

There are many such simple yet potentially life-enhancing, life-empowering and life-energizing habits that you can develop. That’s why they are called power habits. They empower you to change your life for the better.

1.    Make Daily Plans

The rewards for or advantages of planning your day in advance affect every aspect of your day and life. When you plan your day, you are less likely to forget or miss any important tasks. Planning boosts your productivity. When you plan, you also learn to prioritize your tasks and eliminate activities that waste your time.

Space your tasks, so that they don’t encroach on the next one and create a domino effect. Plan your day the previous night. This way, you will wake up fresh and ready to start your day because you have already done the planning.

2.    Read Every Day

You will immediately see changes in your personality when you start reading daily. You will be more reflective and open to new ideas and changes than before. You will begin to see beyond the immediate. An open mind and the ability to look ahead, into the future, is one of the greatest rewards for cultivating the habit of reading every day.

3.    Tidy Up or Organize Every Week

Set aside a few hours on a particular day every week to tidy up your workplace or your desk or your office. You will discover that cleaning up or organizing is surprisingly rewarding. It calms your mind, motivates and inspires you. People who are successful have a clear and sharp idea of what they want in life.

4.    Save Money Every Month

It’s not difficult to stay debt-free and save money. Let’s look at some tips and techniques that smart people employ to save money. The first step is to keep track of your expenses. Most people usually focus on increasing their income and ignore their expenses. The next step is to stop spending on things before you can afford them. Credit cards have made it easy for people to spend even when they don’t have the money.

The third step to remind yourself to save money is to take the decision out of your hands. If you get your monthly pay in a bank account, then, ask your bank to transfer a fixed percentage of your earnings to a savings account with a lock-in period. This means that you won’t have access to the money that will get deducted from your salary every month and transferred to your savings account.

5.    Sit in Silence Every Morning

Sitting in silence helps relieve stress and makes a person mentally and emotionally stronger. Recent research even suggests that sitting in silence can build up stamina, strengthen muscles, and improve concentration. You don’t really have to believe in any of these supposed rewards to turn this into a habit. You just have to try it, not once but many times.

By now you have probably come to the conclusion that most of the power habits, if not all, appear to be quite easy and are therefore insignificant. How can you change your life by doing something so small and insignificant? Well, most things that appear small are not necessarily insignificant. Sometimes, a little more effort can take you faster towards your goals, sometimes a little less hesitation can lead you to success.

Ultimately, it is the choice you make.