Habits are behaviors wired so deeply in our brain and unconsciousness, that we perform them automatically. This allows you to follow the same route to work every day without thinking about it, liberating your brain to ponder other things, such as what to make for dinner.
To better understand how the mind works, concerning habits, the concept of The Chimp Paradox is introduced below, and followed up with lists of great habits.
THE CHIMP PARADOX
For simplicity, imagine your mind as 3 separate entities
- The Human - Rational thinking - (Frontal lobe).
- The Chimp - Emotional, unconscious and immature toddler - (Limbic lobe / amygdala).
- The Computer - Processing and interpreting somatosensory input - (Parietal lobe)
To function properly, emotions should have the primary control over your mind and body, so you won't think too much and too long, when your life is on the line, but instead act instinctly and choose between fight or flight.
Your inner Chimp represents the very powerful protector and gatekeeper of your body and Computer. The Chimp controls access to your Computer input, body, emotions and neuro chemistry, with pre-programmed and primed habits, behaviors and purpose, like fight, flight and reproduction.
Human thoughts needs acceptance from your Chimp, before it's allowed to change any default emotional response or action, before the necessary neurotransmitters are released.
If you don't help your Chimp mature, it will continue to be a childish, selfish, neurotic, fearful, irrational, pleassure graving and risk averted chimp/toddler.
It takes a lot of self-awareness, courage and persistence to connect with your inner chimp and inspire it to change fundamental habits.
To reach your chimp, you communicate a language based on desires, faith and emotions, which is the native language of inner chimps.
When you've managed to connect with your chimp, you'll be amazed with the power and knowledge it possesses, and it's much better at finding creative and novel solutions to the challenges it's given.
Listen to Professor Steve Peters, the author of The Chimp Paradox, reading his book in this audio version, which will enlighten you and give you a much better understanding of how your mind works.
7 habits of highly effective people (Stephen R. Covey)
- Be proactive.
- Begin with the end in mind.
- Put first things first.
- Think win-win.
- Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
- Synergize.
- Sharpen the saw.
12 RULES - AN ANTIDOTE FOR CHAOS IN LIFE (JORDAN B. PETERSON)
- Stand up straight with your shoulders back.
- Treat yourself like you are someone you are responsible for helping.
- Make friends with people who want the best for you.
- Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.
- Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.
- Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.
- Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient).
- Tell the truth — or, at least, don’t lie.
- Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.
- Be precise in your speech.
- Do not bother children when they are skate-boarding.
- Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.
BEYOND ORDER - 12 MORE RULES FOR LIFE (JORDAN B. PETERSON)
- Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative achievement.
- Imagine who you could be and then aim single-mindedly at that.
- Do not hide unwanted things in the fog.
- Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated.
- Do not do what you hate.
- Abandon ideology.
- Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens.
- Try to make one room in your home as beautiful as possible.
- If old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and completely.
- Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship.
- Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant.
- Be grateful in spite of your suffering.
GREAT INVESTMENT HABITS
- Track your spending.
- Pay yourself first.
- Be aware of lifestyle inflation.
- Always think long term.
- Invest time first, money second.
- Get paid on results - not time. Because time is a finite resource that has a fixed maximum.
- Spend what your investments make to acquire more passive income assets.
- Start investing as soon as possible.
- Don’t time the market. Time in the market is more important.
- Invest in what you understand.
- Don’t invest money you need short term.
- Invest consistently ($100+ per week).
- Think for yourself, instead of only listening to others.
- Give before you take.
- Work with what makes you happy.