TheBetterWarrior

Welcome Back, Warriors! Powerful habits make powerful people, or do powerful people have powerful habits?

Think over it, while understanding ‘How do powerful habits actually work for you?’.

Habits are instrumental to our daily life. No matter the age of a person, our habits drive us towards the future.

Fortunately or unfortunately, our good and bad habits do define us to some extent.

But what are powerful habits? Powerful habits are otherwise known as ‘Keystone Habits’.

Keystone habits are “small changes or habits that people introduce into their routines that unintentionally carry over into other aspects of their lives” according to Charles Duhigg in his book, The Power of Habit.

Humans are an astonishing species, we have our limits and we can break them. But it is hard oftentimes, and almost crushing to change our habits.

Let us not give up, because understanding how habits work can help in changing them efficiently.

How do powerful habits work

Our habits were quite a mystery for us, but research and science have come a long way. It has helped us to understand the basics of habit formation and its workings.

Our habits work primarily on 3 important aspects: Cue – Routine – Reward.

• Cue: The context cue can be a prior action, time of day, location, or anything that triggers the habitual behaviour.

• Routine: The behaviour you exhibit after a specific cue. In simple terms, this is the habit itself.

• Reward: What you gain from behaving in a certain way. The Gold we get from our habits.

This is the habit loop itself, brought to a mainstream audience by Charles Duhigg.

A very simple example would be: You are in a place, and you suddenly smell a delicious dish being prepared nearby. Cue – The Smell.

Suddenly, you feel the hunger growing in your belly, and you want to eat some food. You may order some food or make your own.

Routine – The Process of ordering or making a delicious dish for yourself and starting your feast.

And now at the main event, you finally enjoy your delicious meal. And that my warriors, is the reward – the delicious meal and how you feel or think after your meal.

Sounds simple, right?

Why is this tough to achieve then?

Well, if only our brain was not so stubborn, everyone would be a master in changing their habits. Imagine you are in a game, it helps to have increased strength, and other character abilities to win a level.

Well, for tweaking our daily behaviour, there is a secret, hidden in plain sight.

This secret is ‘Keystone Habits’.

Focusing on one keystone habit will help you change other habits.

And the best part? It happens mostly on a subconscious level because we focus on creating the keystone habits first, your mindset towards your life will change.

Few keystone habits to aid your journey

Meditation

Meditation is a practice that allows you to be aware of the present moment and increases your attention and awareness. It is practised by plenty of great warriors, saints, yogis, and philosophers to increase their understanding of their reality. 

There are many types of meditation, but the general technique is to be mindful or focus the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity. 

Meditation allows us to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm, and stable state by decreasing stress, anxiety, depression, and pain.

It will increase your perception, self-concept, and well-being to aid in efficient decision-making and attain mental peace to some extent.

Meditation is a keystone habit because your serene mind and increased decision-making skills will slowly influence other important decisions in your life.

Exercise

Exercise, Exercise, Exercise! It almost sounds tyrannical when someone tells us to exercise, repeatedly. But what if you were to exercise by making a choice by yourself for your health and adopting a keystone habit?

It has been proven that regular exercise helps to decrease your risk of cardiovascular diseases and other physical ailments.

After exercising, your stress levels decrease and your health increases as your immunity rises, and insulin, free radicals, and hormone levels regulate.

We all know the various fruits, exercise bears for us, but it is more than our health when you think of it as a habit. You can start with the basic exercises like jumps, push-ups, squats, or better yet, go for an exciting and life-changing run.

Running can also be considered a keystone habit but it does fall under the umbrella of exercising. If you want to know more about how running can better your life, take a look at this article.

Exercise is a great keystone habit because the mindset of achieving goals, persistence, and pushing your barriers will eventually shape your life.

Journalling

Journaling is simply writing down your thoughts and feelings to better understand them. This practice can provide you with a unique insight into your psyche.

Journalling is the best way to organize our thoughts and write what we think. This will allow you to reframe your mindset to your preferred goals by helping you understand yourself better.

It will assist you in tackling and prioritizing your thoughts, beliefs, fears, and problems.

It is also a great tool to organize your day, and it helps to maintain a morning routine.

And if you struggle with stress, depression, or anxiety, keeping a journal can be of great help.

Journalling is a great keystone habit because it can help you gain control of your emotions and improve your mental health, relieve stress, organize your thoughts and feelings, and set up goals for your day.

Having a Morning Routine

Humans are unequivocally creatures of habit. Having a morning routine aids in maintaining our habits and helps us set the tone for the day, allowing us to control our schedules rather than our schedule controlling us.

Having a morning routine will help you to give time to yourself and get ready to live the day of your choice.

In the chaos of our daily life, a morning routine brings much-needed order; Not too much, not too little, but a balance between order and chaos of our life.

Your morning routine can be curated for you, it can be anything from journaling, meditating, bathing, breakfast, perhaps a walk, or some jumping jacks.

You get to choose.

Having a morning routine is a keystone habit because it will help you to get in the mental flow to live your day as per your priorities and allow you to start your day proactively instead of reactively.

Reading

Perhaps my favourite habit is reading instead of running! I get indecisive when choosing between both. Because both running and reading are of tremendous help in being a better warrior.

Your reading habit will also help you as a topic of communication in social situations.

Reading every day, or once in a while will change your brain – according to ongoing research. Reading is our brain food, as our brain activity and connectivity increase when we read.

Another benefit of reading is, it allows us to empathize with people on a better note. This ability to empathize allows us to build, navigate and maintain our social relationships.

It is always better to have a good vocabulary, which is what reading does for you as it introduces you to more distinct words.

Reading is a great keystone habit because it helps you in improving your brain activity, reduces stress, builds vocabulary, helps us empathize, and helps alleviate symptoms of depression. 

Reading can be your greatest friend, an immense source of knowledge, and will make you powerful beyond measure.

How powerful habits can help

As you may have understood so far, each keystone habit brings with it, a reward.

The Reward is at times immediately experienced and at times in the long term. One thing is for certain, these rewards are obtained through keystone habits.

Instead of focusing on simply getting rid of your bad habits, focus on adapting powerful habits, which in turn will help you to be a better person and a powerful warrior.

Note: Summary of the keystone habits in this article.

Back to our question, do powerful habits make powerful people or do powerful people have powerful habits? 

Personally, I think powerful habits make powerful people.

What do you think? Comment Below!