I've been reading a lot about habits. Whoever said "we are creatures of habit" was right. Everyone has habits, good and bad, and everyone lives their daily lives on the basis of these habits.
I used to think that I'm a strong willed person, and I could do anything if I really wanted to. The more I think about it and observe myself, however, the more apparent it becomes that I'm a slave to my habits, just like everybody else. I used to think that I could change all the bad things about myself in one shot if I really tried hard enough. Again, an illusion. Your habits are who you are, and its not exactly easy to change who you are overnight.
It takes concentrated effort to actually change something about yourself, and you're more than likely to fail at the first attempt. I now realize that becoming who you want to be is an ongoing process, and you
may be successful after several iterations and changing yourself in tiny bits. And it will probably take a lifetime.
I've also realized that I tend to put things off by giving myself arbitrary excuses. However, the logical me believes that unless there's a strong reason for putting something off, there's no better time to start than
now.
In that spirit, I christen this effort to reprogram myself as "Project FixMe". I've opened a publicly accessible Google spreadsheet (link below) to mark my progress against some pre-decided goals, with the aim to achieve these goals and make them habits.
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Interesting reading on "habits" can be found
here and
here.
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My spreadsheet can be found
here. My first goals are sleeping by 12AM each night, and getting 8 hours of sleep.
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"We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit"
- Will Durant
