what is a habit it can be compared to a cable in which we weave one thread each
day until the cable becomes so strong that you cannot break it
similarly the repeated little actions we take on a daily basis create habits
within ourselves either for good or for bad good habits can take us right to the
top and bad habits can drop us down to the lowest nada
today on the 18th day of this happiness challenge
let us discuss how we can upgrade the quality of our life through the power of
habits this brain of ours is a very interesting mechanism whenever we engage
in a physical or mental activity the brain fires up neurons in the sensory
motor region the neocortex the prefrontal cortex etc to accomplish the
task but the brain has the ability to program itself and when it discovers
that a certain action is being repeated it creates a program for it and stores
it in the basal ganglia region of its neurons that action then starts
happening automatically a habit has three parts to it the first is the cue
the second is the programmed action and the third is the reward let us say
that for one month on a daily basis after coming home from work you sat on
your sofa to watch the television and at that time you also drank coffee
alongside now the brain created a habit out of it so the moment you go to sit on
your sofa that is the trigger the cue the brain then creates the desire I wish
to have coffee and when you indulge in it there is a little bit of reward that
reward of pleasure reinforces the habit loop cue action and pleasure this brain
is so remarkable and intelligent that it can create its own rewards when it
reinforces the habit look it sends a few feel-good chemicals to that portion of
the brain the dopamine the endorphin the serotonin that creates the pleasurable
sensation to strengthen the habit loop our brain doesn't care how it has been
programmed if we have set up wrong habits within ourselves then those wrong
thoughts and wrong actions will happen to us easily the moment we see the
trigger the desire will be created or the activity will be engaged it now when
you repeat that activity again and again the habit loop gets strengthened within
yourself until finally it starts happening automatically
it is said that bad habits are easy to create but hard to live with good habits
are an austerity to establish but easy to live with
so the advantage of creating good habits within ourselves is that they enable us
to upgrade the quality of our life without much of a drain on our willpower
but to be able to do that we need to first invest our willpower and engage in
the austerity required for creating a good habit just like some people live
from paycheck to paycheck spending all that they earn others who
are wiser save a bit of their income and invest it for a comfortable future in
the same way you can either go through life exerting your willpower to refrain
from the temptations and engage in the disciplines required for success or you
spend a little time and effort every day engaging in the beneficial works though
they may be difficult by exerting your willpower and thereby investing this
self-control to create within yourself a beneficial habit so think about it how
we could benefit by dismantling unproductive habits and establishing
within ourselves uplifting habit
make a list of the habits you wish to create within yourself and exert your
will power to do so tomorrow we will progress further and mastering the art
of becoming better doing better and thereby feeling better and happier thank
you