Go Where You Want to Go – 5 key habits
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David, over on How to have Great Self Confidence, recently wrote about changing your habits. His premise was to look ahead to where your habits were taking you and decide if you want to go there or not.
This is an excellent plan. If you don’t know where you are going, you allow someone else to choose your destination. Better to travel a short distance you choose and when you arrive decide if you like the location and direction. To facilitate this I think you need a few basic habits that will increase the probability you will arrive in good to great health.
These are the 5 Key Habits
1. Get a good education and never stop learning. The best education you can get is gained from a reading habit. Add to that some networking skills so that you have a group of people at your level or above to discuss the material you read. The number one determinant of length of life is your satisfaction with your socioeconomic status.
2. Get the exercise habit. Taking a walk and doing some yoga or other muscle strengthening and lengthening exercises will facilitate good health. Of the top 10 major causes of early death, risk from all of them is reduced by an hour of exercise a day.
3. Get enough sleep. Most people run a chronic sleep deficit. Bad habits like: 1. eating late, 2. drinking alcoholic beverages before bedtime, 3. doing other things in bed besides sleep or have sex, 4. staying in bed when we don’t fall asleep, and 5. not going to bed regularly at a time that will give us 8 hours of sleep before we need to awaken, all contribute to sleep deprivation. Make good choices not excuses.
4. Eat more fresh or fresh frozen food and less food that has been processed. The quality of our food is lower than it should be for optimal health. We only have limited dollars to spend. Buy food that is as nutritious as possible. Don’t waste your money on manufactured water (soda pop and other “drinks”), grain mixed with corn syrup (cold cereal) and foods with added sugar. Eat from and shop from that outer ring of meat, dairy, produce, fresh baked goods (rolls and bread from whole grains) and other unprocessed foods.
5. Learn about how change occurs. There is a process and knowing where you are in the process of change allows you to do the activity best suited for that part of the change process. If you want to change but don’t have information and a written plan you aren’t ready to take action. Learn to assess your place and take the appropriate action for that place. Some people jump in but the failure rate from this is high. Better to take small steps and progress more slowly but arrive in a steady flow of achievement.
Most people can not change all their habits at once, so tell me how you are doing with habit one – reading and networking. There are some books I recommend in this area, Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty
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