As you probably remember from the first part of Creative Habit Naming mini-series which was posted last November, I’ve discovered a very effective technique for mastering your habits: creative habit naming.
The idea is pretty simple: when you’re working out a particular habit, every little helps to stay motivated and interested enough. When it comes to mastering habits, creative habit naming is a very effective way of making your life easier.
I’ve also identified three main directions in creative habit naming: motivation, progress tracking and positive affirmations. Previous two parts of this mini-series have covered topics on motivation and progress tracking, and today I’m going to talk about the third direction I have identified – positive affirmations.
The most interesting to play with are self-imaging and success acknowledgement affirmations, so I’m going to talk a little about both.
Self-imaging
Just think of what your new habit will improve in you, how exactly it will change your image, and this will help you come up with a suitable self-imaging title. The total body workout class I attend every Thursday, for instance, helps me much more when I think of it as of my “perfect abs class”. It motivates me much more this way, and keeps me focused in a specific way – so I do every exercise the best way I can just because I always remind myself that every (relatively) little effort brings me closer to having the perfect abs I want to eventually have.
Using similar approach, you can probably think of many other names for your habits which will help your self-image: your bulking-up session (in bodybuilding), your feather-lite jogging (makes you feel lighter and therefore better when you run), your sunshine smiles routine (it does help you to smile more openly), your pretty woman walk (the really confident way pretty women act when they know they’re beautiful) and so on.
Success acknowledgement
It never harms to take time and acknowledge how far you’ve already gotten with your goals. So working on new habits, it will pay tenfold if you come up with a creative success acknowledgement title.
Here are a few examples for you to work on:
- being a guru in your field – you can use any industry or subject name with this, like: blogging guru, or motivation guru, or UNIX guru. I admit, it’s best when others call you this, but working on habits towards becoming a guru will benefit you in many ways even if you’re the only one (so far) thinking this way.
- employee of the month – you can call yourself that every morning when planning your working day ahead and thinking of all the things you need to get done.
- professional approach – the more professional you think you are, the more professional you will ultimately act. To be considered a professional in your field, you obviously need to possess the necessary knowledge, but being able to show your skills off and offer help in a friendly way is a whole art on its own, and this is where you will greatly benefit from a simple yet interestingly named habit.
- self-made millionaire – this habit name presumes that you’re already a success, a person well on its way towards wealth and independence.
- best friend – you can’t obviosuly become one by simply starting habit like this, but you and your friends will benefit if you make reviewing your contacts and relationships a daily habit aimed to help you identify what else you can possibly do to make your friends feel better
That’s it! I hope you’ve learned yet another approach for making your habits into successful tools of self-improvement, and I wish you every luck with making everyday positive changes!