Archive for the ‘Roy Baumeister’ tag
Your Master Habit: Get One Thing Clicking, Watch Others Follow
For many people, forming and keeping positive habits is a real challenge. Each habit can sometimes require a different mindset or a slightly different approach in order to make it into a routine, and that can make it awfully difficult to stay consistent. It turns out that our happiness is a direct result of how much control we have over our environment, and control is directly correlated with how well we’re able to form and maintain positive habits. If you’re able to identify changes in your current behavior that align to your values and bring you closer to your goals, and then keep those positive changes going on a regular basis, you’ll find that you’ll have a comfortable level of control over your life.
Think back to a time when you felt everything was in order in your life; you felt great in your relationships and with your family, your job was something you looked forward to each day, your finances were on a positive trajectory, and you were getting regular exercise. Heck, you were even flossing every day, making your bed, and staying on top of the laundry. Every night as you drifted off to sleep the only thing you were thinking about was counting sheep. Minimal stress, maximum smiles.
Compare that to how you feel right now – do you have that same sense of control over things? Do you find one or more areas lacking? How many things would you change if you could? If you’re sitting there thinking that something’s lacking, this post may help get you back on track. Yet thinking about the level of effort involved in getting everything going at once can be pretty overwhelming. Where to start?
The key is to stop beating yourself up about all the small things you’re not doing, and focus on getting just one habit back on track first.
In a series of studies performed by a social psychologist named Roy Baumeister, it’s been suggested that “improving self-regulation operates by increasing a general, core capacity. That is, as the person performs exercises to improve self-regulation in one sphere, he or she becomes better at self-regulating in other spheres.”
