One habit to rule them all

[Uncle]

Hello PDSM forums!

I'm fed up with my personal development jo-jo effect. It seems that i keep trying, succeeding, failing and quitting, over and over again in the field of personal improvement. I've recently failed again, but I'm (again) determined to keep trying. I've realized that habitualization is the way to improve myself. It seems that I have no self-discipline to focus on my goals for longer periods of time.

This time, i'm not even trying to fix everything or learn a new productivity system, cope with my anxieties or anything too complex. I'll focus on learning a sustainable self-improvement habit. This is, i'm determined to learn a habit-forming habit that i can keep doing from here to eternity. I'll call this one habit to rule them all. As i see this, it should be a self-reinforcing habit that enables habitualizing other good habits.
My question to you, dear fellow PDSM forum member is
what do you think "an one habit to rule them all" would be? How would you formulate it?

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[Edit] My v0.2 formulation of this habit:

Every 30 days, choose a good habit to learn. Write down the actions that you need to conduct every day in order to learn that habit. Preferably use some context to trigger that habit so it can become automatic.
Practice that habit for 30 days, and keep track of your success.
After 30 days, decide if you want to continue with this habit. Keep tracking old habits. An improved version of old habit for next 30 days counts as a new habit.

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[Edit , v0.1 formulation of my habit]
My first practical formulation of this habit is something like establishing a habit of a 30-day-trials. My first goal is establishing a trusted system (next actions or todo's in a small notebook that i carry everywhere, and look daily).

Since the goal is to establish a habit, i'm not going to track success in terms of things i did, but in terms of if i did follow the intended habit.
I'll track daily my habit as follows

Success = I read OR updated OR worked on OR completed to-do items on my notebook.
Exception = I decided not to follow the habit for a Very Good Reason. (A real emergency)
Failure = I forgot or did not use my notebook at all during the day.

[Edit: I'm not going to bother you with posting my track record here.]

These thoughts were inspired by writings of Steve, philosophy of Kaizen and the Everyday Systems Habits podcasts.

[funnyav]

One habit? Breathe.

Pretty damn useful!



What I mean is, when you focus on your breathing, your inner body, what the hell you are doing, it puts things into perspective. You usually know what to do next (which may very well be figuring out what to do next).

What are your goals? Your list of things to do as 30 day trials?

[Remiel]

Isn't self-discipline the one habit to rule them all? After all without it, what do you get?

[Swede]

Everyday I do something to get better.

[FazK]

Like Remiel said the one habit to rule them all is SELF DISCIPLINE if you do nothing else but cultivate insanely high levels of self discipline in yourself. You will still get further than most people do in life

[jbsmith]

Terrific exercise - the discipline to maintain consistency, focus and ongoing action is exactly what it takes to turn a tactic or practice into a learned behavior.

What helps me apply the proper discipline is first developing a big WHY that motivates me to stick with a practice for 30-days AND visualizations to help picture the ultimate benefit of sticking with the tactic.

Think of Tiger Woods - immensely self-disciplined with practicing golf, working out, nutrition - all of this is backed by huge WHY (be the absolute best EVER in golf) and lots of visualization.

Jeff

[Robou]

I would definitely second self discipline as the habit to cultivate and maintain because I feel it is the precursor to success, achievement and PD of all types.

[Aleksander Krstic]

Originally Posted by Swede

Everyday I do something to get better.

Word.

[sidsavara]

One book I really like and that you may enjoy is Zen To Done. Leo Babauta has done a great job laying out how to get organized one habit at a time, but more to the point of your question, he really convinced me that one habit at a time is the right approach for some people. For me I prefer system reboots, but that's just me - I understand other people prefer to make change in other ways =)

Another thing you may want to consider is making the habits *very* small at first. I like The Greatest salesman in the world because the habit was so easy - read a self affirmation 3 times a day. If I can't handle a habit that takes 5 minutes a day, how can I expect to change my routine for working out, or make a habit for writing?

I wrote more about both these books in my discussion about my favorite personal development books, if you are interested

The Best Personal Development Books Reading List

[thebestlife]

Originally Posted by funnyav

One habit? Breathe.

Pretty damn useful!



What I mean is, when you focus on your breathing, your inner body, what the hell you are doing, it puts things into perspective. You usually know what to do next (which may very well be figuring out what to do next).

What are your goals? Your list of things to do as 30 day trials?

I agree about this one BIG TIME! Proper breathing establishes proper connection with our bodies and our higher self (the one that always has honest answers and simple solutions for us) and is so calming and beneficial for our physical bodies. I find i hold my breath a lot and I have to remind my self of breathing properly a lot.This is the most important habit. Thank you for the reminder!
Do you have any effective technique to get into habit of breathing well that worked for you?

[Orecle]

your thinking is the problem. It sounds a bit too perfectionist

"I must find the one ........

You will never enjoy growth that way, becos every thing will feel like an exam

Personal development is about continuous improvement

Can you imagine if steve wrote "one article to rule them all" this wont be 1000000th the site it is. the value of this site is in the variety of info on just about everything from cooking rice to time man.

Dont get obsessed with PD. Your acheivement is what counts, not more techniques (i speak as a recovering pd junkie)


Personal development is life long and massive, just like education.

stop looking for the one.

If if there is a one

it will be CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT and results are the name of the game.


MEASURABLE IMPROVEMENT

TANGIBLE MEASURABLE IMPROVEMENT

maybe not daily, or even weekly

but definately 90 days to 6 mths and definately annually there should be a marked difference in results.

then the bigger you get, you can start working on projects that produce skyscraper results over 10 20 yrs

ALL ELSE IS COMMENTARY

We are all posting on this site cos steve has proved he can get results and we have seen his improvement in his writing over the years

[FeelGood]

Originally Posted by funnyav

One habit? Breathe.

Pretty damn useful!



What I mean is, when you focus on your breathing, your inner body, what the hell you are doing, it puts things into perspective. You usually know what to do next (which may very well be figuring out what to do next).

What are your goals? Your list of things to do as 30 day trials?

Best suggestion so far. One thing that always works wonders for me is closing my eyes, breathing deeply and imagining white light (or sunlight) flooding into my body into the top of my head, filling my whole body and being. If you start having distracting or negative thoughts, fill those thoughts up with light too. It works.

Abraham Hicks says that if you want miracles in your life, sit quiet and breathe for 15 minutes a day. The theory is that most of the day, you're in ask-mode. In other words, you're consciously and subconsciously expressing desire, while your mind chatters away.

However, when you're breathing, focusing on your breath, you're relaxing. When you relax, you are allowing - allowing the universe to bring you the things you desire.

I tried this on a couple of years ago the first time. I did the excercise faithfully for 15 minutes a day for almost a month, and the results I got was nothing short of staggering. I got a dream job (doing what I love) which paid amazingly well and it came right out of the blue.

Highly recommended if you're going to pick just one habit.

[Lauxa]

Originally Posted by Uncle

I'll focus on learning a sustainable self-improvement habit. This is, i'm determined to learn a habit-forming habit that i can keep doing from here to eternity. I'll call this one habit to rule them all. As i see this, it should be a self-reinforcing habit that enables habitualizing other good habits.
My question to you, dear fellow PDSM forum member is
what do you think "an one habit to rule them all" would be? How would you formulate it?

I'm a bit late to the party, but my focus for this year has been to improve the quality of my thoughts. That's it. No action. But every time I find myself experiencing thoughts that don't make me feel good, I have to redirect them. My main redirection techniques have been negative affirmations and mantras. When I think it is too hard or really want to wallow, I remind myself that it doesn't require me to act any differently.

Even though I do act differently when I am thinking more positive thoughts.

I think learning to manage your thoughts, your mind, is the ultimate PD habit.

[James81]

Maybe you aren't failing so much as you are trying out things that don't resonate with you.

All those times you tried and "failed" are just marks that you either pushed yourself too hard or did something that you really didn't want to do but feel compelled to do because it seems right.

[sidsavara]

James definitely has a point. On the other hand, there will be times where thigns you are doing will be difficult for you and you need to push through it anyway to get better

I have been reading a couple books on Simplifying Life recently, I'll let you know when I have the book reviews written - may give you a different perspective on it

[findinginspiration]

I've found it helpful to kind of reset and recharge myself every morning when I wake up. Sometimes it takes waking up a few minutes earlier than I usually would, but if you do this it has the ability to set the stage for you that day to succeed.

I've picked this up from listening to a Tony Robbins book that I found to be really helpful called "Get the Edge"

Good Luck! - If you want it bad enough it will no doubt happen