The Complete Hierarchy of Habits

December 28, 2011 by 3 Comments
Habits based on Maslow and Frankl

Hierarchy of Habits © Erik Back 2011

Yesterday I searched for some sort of checklist of habits. I found a couple of good lists and I gave you some links to these lists. While I studied these lists I started to categorise the habits and I scribbled and circled the categories and habits on a sheet of blank paper. After I while I started to notice a similarity to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that I remember so well from marketing in business school.

I rediscovered Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and I started to plot in the different habits and they all make perfect sense. I added the extra dimension of Victor Frankl – transcendence and ended up with a complete model for the habits that form your life. I will call it The Hierarchy of Habits.

This model only represents the categories and grouping of habits and you can use it to get a sense of perspective before starting working on your habits. About a week ago I wrote a bit about the Shaolin monks; in that post the message was that you have to master the basics to become a master. These wise words apply well in the hierarchy of habits, because you have to master and optimise the basic habits that will form your foundation.

That means that you should practice your habits at ground level before proceeding to the next level. Before you even consider start working on your self-esteem you have to master the first three levels. You have to master the physiological habits before anything else. This means that all your focus should be on getting good sleeping habits; getting exercise; have a good diet and make sure that your digestion works well. These are the absolute basics and you will not succeed in the following levels if you do not master the basics.

Take a closer look at the hierarchy of habits by clicking it to enlarge the image. Spend some time thinking about every item in the model and feel free to comment below. In my coming posts about habits I will refer to this model and develop it further.

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Wise Words From the Shaolin Temple

December 20, 2011 by 1 Comment

Art of Shaolin Kung Fu © by kevinpoh

“To become a master you have to master the basics”

I have made it a habit, or routine, to listen to YouTube seminars while riding my bike every day. My bike is the best mean of transportation I could ever think of. I never get stuck in traffic and I am not dependent on buses or other kinds of public transportation. My bike is the ultimate mean of transportation because it makes me feel free.

I travel between 10 and 30 km every day on my bike and yesterday I had a 20 minutes ride; just enough to listen to some wise words of the Shaolin monks. There was a story about a monk wanting to teach how to throw a punch. The student had a lot of experience in martial arts and was interested in the advanced stuff of the Shaolin monks.

The teaching of the Shaolin monk was that knowing how to do advanced stuff does not make you a master. You become a master by mastering the basics. I have practiced taekwondo for almost 20 years; I stopped practicing a couple of years ago. I did not find the joy in practicing as I used to do; I did not feel challenged. It was great physical exercise and it felt good being able to do things that few can do, but after a while I wanted to do more than that. But there were not anymore techniques to learn. For about 12 years I instructed beginners in the basics of taekwondo and I found it very rewarding. By teaching others I learned much more myself.

Today I practice swimming and the first three years of swimming I felt an enormous progress, but now I am stagnating. For a while I have been thinking if I should become a swimming instructor? On the side I experienced with rowing and I became quite good at it and I also became a rowing instructor. I have proved several times that I am good at sports, but I am not a master although I can do a lot of the advanced stuff.

In taekwondo my greatest success was doing the side kick; it became good and powerful and it still is. For me it was one of the most difficult techniques to do and I decided to become good at it. Four to five times a week I practiced the side kick in slow-motion; I did hundreds of repetitions for a whole year and I finally got good at it.

I used the power of habits to learn every single movement of the leg to perform a side kick. That is the closest I ever got to master the basics in taekwondo although I was generally good at it. The words of the Shaolin monk made me think about this. He made me think about my life in general.

I think a lot of people want to be experts and masters at something and the practice hard and they learn a lot of techniques in whatever they are doing, but they never become experts; they never become masters. I think that the true masters of a discipline are not trying to become masters. They are studying every aspect of the basics; they have done an in depth research and they now everything that you can possibly know about the basics.

By mastering the basics of your life you have an excellent foundation to perform the advanced stuff upon. By mastering the basics using good habits you can become the master of your life and the master of your destiny.

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The Secret of Achievement: Recovery!

December 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment

PhoTones Works #624 © by PhoTones_TAKUMA

Do you want to be excellent at running and win competitions? Let us say that you are a runner or any other athlete of a discipline you want to achieve mastery in. You decide to practice running every day and sometimes twice a day. You push yourself to the limit every time you run, but no matter how much you practice your results seem to get worse. Why?

The answer is quite simple; all training is degradation of the body. It is simple logic; if you use something it will degrade. If you use the same shirt every day for one year then it will be worn out; the shirt will degrade. So will you if you keep training twice a day. The difference between you and your shirt is that you can regenerate and the shirt cannot.

How do you increase the service life of your shirt? You take care of it by cleaning it, repairing it and most importantly, you wear other shirts. You do not have just one shirt you have several shirts in different colours and designs. The same goes for your body. You have to give your body rest to regenerate; it is called the recovery phase and is a very important part of all training.

When you give your shirt a rest you wear another shirt because you cannot run around half-naked. If you want to achieve running then you have to practice something else while recovering from running. That is why you need to plan training carefully to optimise training.

The principle applies in all aspects of your life!

Okay, you do not want to be a world champion in some athletic discipline, but the principle applies anyway. In every aspect of your life you have to remember the recovery phase! If you want to achieve anything today, tomorrow, next week and in your life then you have to optimise your tasks and incorporate rest to recover.

If you do not make time for recovery you will get stressed and worn out; you will feel tired and it will be difficult for you to focus. The meaning of life will seem difficult to find. You do not have to sit and do nothing to recover. Variation in you routines is enough. Of course, you have to fulfil some basic needs like sleep, diet and exercise, but variation is a very important part of development. When you work on your development in all aspects of your life then you will achieve more.

I found an interesting article on the net about mastery and relaxation that I recommend reading.

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How to Give Yourself a Motivational Speech

November 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Post-It Motivation © by Amy Loves Yah

If you are about to do something that takes extra motivation then a small motivational speech will help. Maybe you need to pull yourself together or maybe you have to do something you really do not want to, but have to do. Maybe your self-esteem is low and you need someone to acknowledge and motivate and that someone is you.

When your self-esteem is very low and you think that no one likes you then it is actually you that do not like yourself. People like you but you have to like yourself first. Think about it… how do you feel about people that do not like themselves? It is very hard to love someone that does not love oneself.

Exercise 1: Stand in front of a mirror and take a good look at yourself. Have you noticed that when you usually look at yourself you do not really look? Now, take a closer look and notice the person in that mirror. When you acknowledge your reflexion in the mirror and feel comfortable about it then you are ready for exercise 2.

Exercise 2: Stand in front of a mirror and look into your eyes. It sounds easy but it is extremely difficult to do because you get in touch with your inner self. But mind that this is the ‘you’ that other people meet. If you do not love yourself then how can you expect others to love you? When you can look yourself into your own eyes and keep eye contact, then you are ready to self-talk.

Exercise 3: Stand in front of a mirror; smile and look into your eyes and say – hi! Do this several days every time you pass a mirror and feel how it feels inside your body. You will feel a tickling sensation in your stomach called happiness. When you feel this you are ready to compliment yourself.

Exercise 4: Give yourself compliments while looking in the mirror. Look in your eyes; smile and compliment your looks.

Exercise 5: Your training is going well and you can start using this method to prepare yourself for big events or to motivate yourself for whatever you need motivation. Say to yourself that you can do what it takes and that people value you.

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13 Ways to Improve Your Self-Confidence

November 12, 2011 by 3 Comments

Assembly (006) © by Arbron

The theme for the past two weeks has been self-confidence and today I have made a list of all the articles I wrote about this. Each item on the list below is linked to the corresponding article. If you want to build your self-esteem instead, then take a look at my series about self-esteem.

  1. Radiate confidence. Specific actions you can take to improve your self-confidence instantly. Mind that radiating self-confidence does not mean that you are self-confident but people will perceive you as such. It is a way to help you feel more confident.
  2. Accomplish something. Sitting around thinking only makes things worse; over analysing will create fear and you will miss all the action; you will also miss the opportunity to accomplish something.
  3. Achieve mastery. How is it possible for a person with low self-confidence to achieve mastery? I can see the contradiction because lack of self-confidence is the belief that you do not have the abilities to achieve mastery.
  4. Define yourself. Do not let an event or other people define who you are! If I tell you to give me a list of ten words that describe you best, would you be able to make that list?
  5. Confront your fears. Nothing is more stimulating for your self-confidence than accomplishing something you dread. E.g. go parachuting; confronting a tiger; getting stuck in quicksand or jumping a cleft.
  6. Exercise. Doing sports and exercise indirectly improves your self-confidence because being physical active has a wide range of advantages: It keeps you both mental and physical fit.
  7. Recall past successes. A bad experience leaves a greater impression than does a good experience. As a rule of thumb you need 10 good experiences to cancel out the impression of a bad experience.
  8. Keep cool. I am cool! I can say that for sure and so should you. I was not able to say so 15 years ago but today I can. I have had experiences where I needed to keep cool.
  9. Stop Worrying. Worry is a negative way of thinking that will bring you to a dead end. There are two kinds of worries and that some people prefer to distinguish the two by calling one for worries and the other for concerns.
  10. Be specific. You can have high self-confidence in one area but low in another; you have to be specific about the area of life you are working on an improved self-confidence.
  11. You get what you ask for. Have you noticed what happens when you walk into a shop? A sales assistant will greet you and ask if you need help finding what you need.
  12. Positive language. I know I have said it many times and I will continue repeating because it is very important: You need to have a positive focus
  13. Visualise. You have probably experienced the feeling of picturing yourself in a desired situation. It is almost is if you were there.
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