Do you know your habits are interrelated?

For example, when you re cultivating a g

ood habit in your life, everything else is moving along well. On the other hand,
when a bad habit creeps in, everything else crashes too.
There were times when my lifestyle went out of whack. It would happen when I fil
l my plate with more things than I can handle or when Q1 urgent tasks come into
the foray. Being the workaholic, I rather give up sleep to put things in place,
which causes my sleeping hours to get out of sync. I can be sleeping as late as
4-6am. Sometimes I don t even sleep if I ve an engagement the next time Since I slee
p so late, my waking hours get pushed back against my better wishes. I don t get t
o exercise in the morning. At work, I m usually playing catch up with my task list.
I m sometimes late for appointments. At night, I jog where I can, but that means I
have to stay up late to finish my work and sleep late (again).
Day after day, I observe this general pattern playing out.
Sleep late ? Wake up late ? No time to exercise ? Late for appointment ? Stay la
te to do work ? Sleep late .
I found no matter how I try to change each outcome, everything will snap back st
ubbornly into this routine. If I ve a meeting or a workshop where I absolutely hav
e to wake up early, this happens:
Sleep late ? Wake up early ? Time to exercise ? Reach work on time ? Get work do
ne ? Get more work done ? Sleep late.
However, this lasts 3-4 days before my entire system crashes inward to recover o
n my lost sleep.
Our Habits are Interlinked Like A Web
It seems as long as there s a habit that doesn t sync with the rest, it ll not be poss
ible to sustain all the other habits. This made me realize our habits are tightl
y linked to each other. Each habit is reinforced by other habits. These habits w
ork together to maintain the structure of your life. For example, imagine a spid
er web. A spider web has multiple threads which support its web pattern. If you
want the web to disintegrate, cutting off one of the threads is not enough you h
ave to cut off all the threads that are essential to the structure.
© foxypar4
Likewise, to break out of a rut, a slump or an undesirable habit, it s not as easy
as just changing that one habit. You need to change all the habits linked to it
- the bad ones, half bad ones or neutral ones.
21-Day Lifestyle Revamp Program
Realizing this sparked off the idea of the 21-Day Lifestyle Revamp Program. In 2
009, I wrote about 21-Day Trial Program as a program that helps you cultivate a
new habit at a time. With the Lifestyle Revamp Program, you design your ideal li
festyle that you want complete with all the new habits you want to cultivate, cu
rrent habits you want to tweet, old habits you want to get rid of. Then, for the
next 21-Days starting Day-1, you will embark on this new lifestyle and shed off
your past habits.
This program is about giving your lifestyle a total revamp and boosting you to t
he life you want. It applies if:
You are in a rut and you want to jumpstart your momentum
Your life has been spinning out of control and you want to make a serious change
You want to cultivate a new habit(s) which is inherently linked to other habits
You love to use overwhelming force (Strategy #6) to take your life to new levels
How To Start
Step 1: Pick At least 3 Habits
Pick at least 3 habits you want to adopt. You can refer to the list of habits he
re for your inspiration. It s best if these habits are interlinked with one anothe
r meaning, achieving one increases the likelihood of achieving the other. The si
mplest example would be sleeping early and waking up early. Another example is l
eaving work by 6pm and exercising every evening. The more habits you pick, the b
igger the change you will experience through these 21 days
Example: My Target Habits
Wake up at 5am. I used to do this before work got ahead of me. Nowadays, the tim
es when I am awake at 5am are the times when I haven t slept the day before. I loo
k forward to reliving the benefits of waking up early soon.
Sleep no later than 12am. This will be necessary to get Habit #1 in place.
Spend at least 6hrs / day on work. My key work tasks are blog related writing ne
w articles and promoting the blog.
Timeliness: Being on time for my appointments. When my day starts off on a late
note, everything else becomes implicated, including my timeliness. I ll address th
is by striving reaching early, rather than being on time (Tip #17 on 17 Tips To
Be On Time).
Stick to my skincare regimen (morning+night). (Guys can skip this if it s too girl
y for you.) This might sound atypical for a female, but I ve always been tardy wit
h my skincare regimen since I m young and I want to be diligent in it
Spirituality: Meditate every evening. I plan to meditate before I sleep. I m not s
etting a time as I ve found my meditations most effective when I meditate in my ow
n space. Usually that ranges anywhere from 15 minutes to 45 minutes. Since medit
ation clears mental clutter and reduces the amount of sleep I need, it ll help in
Habit #1.
Self-Enrichment: Read a book or listen to a podcast for 30 min
Start raw vegan diet
Step 2: Know Why You Are Doing This
You need to have a strong enough why on why you want to adopt these habits. While
idea of a mega trial might sound fun and motivating, such external sparks of ins
piration can only carry you through for a few days. If you want to achieve succe
ss for the 21 days, you need to have a strong reason why you even want to cultiv
ate these habits. For me, I ve been living the flip side of my target habits for m
onths. I ve experienced how they are and it s not all that great. Not only that, the
re are undesirable outcomes such as lower productivity, lack of control over my
lifestyle, imbalance of work and social life, among others. By cultivating these
7 new habits, it ll help set in place the structure of my day-to-day routine, whi
ch will consequently help everything to flow into place.
Step 3: Follow the Success Strategies in 21-Day Trial
I have written 6 success strategies for 21-Day Trial which apply to the 21-Day M
ega Trial too. Be sure to apply them for your mega trial.
Important Resources To Help You Succeed
21-Day Trial To Cultivate A New Habit What to expect in the 21-days and importan
t strategies to succeed
HabitForge Tracks new habits through a 21-day period. If you miss the habit for
1 day, it ll restart. (Recommended by reader Dan)
Rootein Unlike Habit Forge, this is an ongoing habit tracker. There is also a mo
bile version for you to track your habits on the go. (Recommended by reader only
amitabh)
Joe s Goals Same as Rootein. There s an option to place multiple checks on the same
goal for extra-productive days. (Recommended by reader Melinda)
Program Terms
The same term for 21-Day Trial applies You must do the habit every day for 21 da
ys. If you break the cycle in any day, you have to start all over.
Be sure to read: 21 Days to Cultivate A New Habit and 14 Tips To Successfully Cu
ltivate New Habits (exclusive article in The Personal Excellence Book)