Growing Into You

“Good habits, once established, are just as hard to break as are bad habits.” –Robert Puller

In my post, “My 21 Day Habit,” I told you I was going to focus on no more than two habits I either want to form or want to break for 21 days. 21 days represents the amount of time I believe it takes in order to form or break a habit. After the 21st day, if I have succeeded in forming those habits, then I will proceed to go after two more habits. This page will be continuously updated to inform you of my progress.

I encourage each one of you to try this on your own. Putting your goals out there for others to view allows others to hold you accountable (which I have discussed briefly in my article Why Blog? .) Being held accountable will put more emphasis on completing your tasks in order to not let the other readers down. Any encouragement I receive from you, whether via e-mail or posts, will give me more motivation to continue.

My Habits: Cycle 1 (March 30-April 20)

Habit 1: Early to Bed, Early to Rise

The first habit will be my “early to bed, early to rise” habit. I have been reading Peter’s blog at I Will Change Your Life . Com when I came upon his article entitled “How I Won the Battle of the Bed.” This really got me thinking as to what I need to do in order to succeed at forming this habit.

My first goal to help me succeed is to get to bed earlier. With the new baby, my sleeping patterns are all out of whack. There have been nights when I did not get to sleep until 5 A.M. I cannot ALWAYS control what time I fall asleep, but I am going to shoot for no later than 11 P.M. If I get to sleep by then, waking earlier will not be a problem.

The second part of my goal will be to wake earlier and earlier every day until I reach 6 A.M. I know this may not sound early, but because of my work/school schedule, it is the time I feel works best for me. I do not have to be at work until 11:30 A.M. so this will give me plenty of time in the morning to be productive.

Habit 2: Write down EVERYTHING I eat

The second habit I am going to try to start is to carry a notepad around with me and write down everything that goes in my mouth (both food and beverages.) I am not as worried about the QUALITY of the food as much as I am the QUANTITY. What I eat can be changed MUCH easier than how much. The key to succeeding will be to make sure I carry the notepad with me everywhere I go. If I go to class or work, it will have to be in my bag. If I am at home, it will have to be on my kitchen counter for easy access.

So now that I have my goals written down for you to read, it is time to get to work. Please check in daily to let me know where you stand with your habits and to see where I stand on mine.

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 1:19 am and is filed under Self-Improvement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.