The thing about habits is that they can be the best of slaves or the worst of masters. I don’t know if you ever heard that. Habits can tie you to activities. For instance, the first time you do it, it’s like you’re sewing yourself to an activity. The first time it’s just one little thread, and then another, and then another, but after years of it, it binds you so tightly to the habit that you almost can’t do anything different, even if you wanted to.
Workaholism could be a bad habit we tie ourselves to. They say sugar lights up more receptors in your brain than cigarettes or heroin. Sugar. High-fructose corn syrup is another name for sugar. Look it up, some time, there’s like a hundred names for sugar. You think, “There’s no sugar in this.” Then you start looking at all the names for sugar and it’s everywhere.
A practice can be to create a time diary for a weekday and a weekend day and see if you can uncover habits. Are they taking us where we want to go in five, ten, or twenty years.
If we look honestly at your habits, we can predict where we’ll be in five, ten, or twenty years. Let’s talk about some healthy habits that have to do with our mental mind state and a ays that we can ease stress. Are we always late? Do we feel that we’re running late, apologizing, starting meetings off on the wrong foot? Why is that? Are there ways that you can track that? What are some of the continual ways that you’re late?
What else causes stress on a regular basis? Is it because you can’t find your keys? That’s a simple one, so maybe you hang your keys right by the door every time. Your shoes, where were they? Maybe you can just find one of them. That doesn’t do you much good, so you want to find out where both of them are. Ease the stress if that’s one of them by frequently being late.
Are you overextended? Do you feel like you just can’t get it all done, there’s not enough hours in the day? Where can you outsource some of that stuff? At least one activity to see if you can clear the deck on that activity. Peace of mind is worth something; pay to get some help to reduce stress.