Forming an habit is complex, yet easy.

Hello friends, I hope you are excited to open this mail. I believe you're doing great as well. It happened that sending this mail wasn't my ugliest and biggest frog for the week but I need not let it pass today.

I have a list of books to talk about throughout the year already but my choice for this week was influenced by a friend. It wasn't on the list. She beeped me to advise her about forming an habit and I feel I should just drag you all on that ship too.

Previously, I have recommended the book, Atomic Habit in my newsletter and we will be going through it now. It is a very wonderful and well written book that couldn't have been written better. I said forming habit is complex, yet easy. Atomic Habit is where you will get the baby step to forming any habit you think you should or you needed.

We both can't count the number of times you have made resolutions to do some things and you ended up forgetting the “burden” because you can't just cope or you can't sustain it. It is simply because you didn't make that resolution follow the 4 Laws of behaviour change.

Before you can adapt to a behaviour, habit or resolution you need to make the actions obvious, easy, attractive and satisfying. If you want to build an habit of reading daily and you didn't set an alarm to remind you, you haven't made it obvious and you will probably lose track and continue with your normal daily routine. It is also vital that you make your prospective habits easy for you. You can't sorround your Prospective Habit (PH) with lots of complexity.

If reading books is what you want to adopt, you need not to make it a task to start searching for the books or planning to eat, drink & take a stroll before you come back to start reading. It really would not work. You will lose consistency and eventually give up.

Habits that are not attractive and seems like a punishment to you should be a no go area. You shouldn't make your PH unattractive else you won't sustain it. If you have ticked the aforementioned boxes, it is then Important that you make it satisfying.

All the things that sorround my Habits always make me long to do them. You know it's a gradual process abi, that's why I didn't start my exercise with road walk for many kilometers, I just simply do 10 push ups before taking my bath and trek a short distance before entering okada to work (I am saving N50 too anyway 😁). Who would tell me I'm not exercising my body? Zero Body!

I will share the strategies for forming a new habit I developed from the book.

Firstly, it is Stack & Start. With stacking, you entangle a hold habit with the PH. Definitely, you will brush your teeth every morning, you can then stack reading 2 pages of book after brushing, just 2 pages. In no time, you would be looking forward to reading the book, just like you look forward to brush your teeth. The old habit is now a trigger to your new habit. However, you need to reduce the new habit to an easy starting ritual. Just make it easy to start for yourself.

Secondly, it is synchronization and scoring. I know someone who enjoy listening to music early in the morning. He mentioned to me that he want to form habit of reading and I suggested that he synchronize it with listening to music since he would always listen to music every morning. He is enjoying his new habit now, thanks to yours truly. Using a scoring system or tracking system after completion of your new habits will refresh your mind and keep you going too.

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You are a champion for reading till this point. Please, go and pick that habit you want to adopt and start cruising! When it is time to start paying for my insights, I will tell you.

Thank you for your time. You are mouthed!

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Book Recommendation:

Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn by John Maxwell.

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See you when I see you. Don't forget to share, leave a comment and enjoy your life.