Unlock Your Potential and Build Better Habits

you want active habits in your life so you need to do that on a daily basis with baby steps so for instance one thing you can do is you can try to slowly eliminate the bad habits the addictions [Music] so another question I'm getting from my audience here is what can I do to develop daily habits and become more productive the first thing I would say is you already have daily habits and they're probably not good habits the human brain operates by patterns or established certain neural Pathways happen if you do something and the pathway is established and you're inclined repeated over and over and over again that's how the brain operates the brain operates through patterns and habits it's inevitable so there's not a single human being on the planet who does not have habits it's ingrained in your behavior in human nature but there are two kinds of habits that you must understand there are active habits and there are passive habits all right passive habits are bad generally active habits are good you want the active habits passive habits are addictions is like I've got to check my Instagram feed every five minutes you know you know I've got to eat this I've got to drink that kind of thing these kind of addictions are habits that are imposed on you you're doing them over and over and over again they're not leading to anything they're a waste of time they're freeing away your brain power they're draining you emotionally of energy that you need in life negative habits have a drain on you emotionally and they waste valuable space in your brain active habits we all have engaged in active habits at some point in our lives and they are learning something okay so you learn a foreign language you learn how to play the piano you learn how to do a sport right and in the beginning it's difficult and slowly as you do step one step two step three these kind of pathways are established in your brain and they become automatic and when something becomes automatic you can go on to the next level and you know you can become more and more proficient okay so you want active habits in your life so you need to do that on a daily basis with baby steps so for instance one thing you can do is you can try to slowly eliminate the bad habits the addictions you disconnect from the internet for several hours a day or longer if you can you stop spending so much time you know looking at the same sites or whatever right you've already freed up a few hours you've got to now fill up that time with something productive with something active will take up something new that will force your mind to be active learn a new skill learn a new language try to take on something that you've never done before and then you'll discover that slowly in this way you're developing this discipline inside yourself that will allow you to take on other challenges Etc you want continual challenges for yourself that is what develops these active habits so if you're on a project of some sort give yourself a deadline so let's say you have a month to get a project in right the bad habits the procrastinate the unproductive way you'd waste several weeks you'd kind of dawdle here and there etc etc and then maybe a week before you start getting the energy up and then like the final few days you cram and you get the damn thing in and maybe it's not so good all right challenge yourself give yourself only a week to finish what they should normally take a month right that's going to force you to now like get into a higher gear to work really hard day by day by day by day and the thing is when you're in the passive mode of habit you think that pleasure comes from wasting time from watching internet porn from spending time hours watching sports from checking on the Instagram feed that seems kind of relaxing kind of fun or socializing Etc and you think of discipline working hard is not fun at all you've got to change that you can never develop healthy habits unless you change your notion of pleasure pleasure isn't getting immediate rewards and immediate gratification it's in one month or in one year I will have finished this project and it'll give me a sense of fulfillment and happiness it'll be far greater than anything I could have got from that instant kind of gratification that my bad habits gave me right so alter your sense of pleasure so if you give yourself a challenge I was gonna start this business in a year and you say no I'm going to start it in two months everything will kick into gear and you will develop these habits because you have to now how do you create deadlines for yourself well that's a whole other subject you tell people about it you announce that you're going to start this business in a few months you announce that your book will be finished you announce that and to not do that it will be kind of humiliating it'll be shameful so you sort of force yourself into that but working hard on something has to become a form of pleasure oh you're never going to be able to develop the requisite discipline to get anything done in life and so what will happen is and you can practice this on small levels you can practice this like in one week I want to accomplish this and I don't know if I can do it in a week you tell your wife your husband your boyfriend your girlfriend or whoever your dog you're going to finish it in one week in a way you know it's going to be different test yourself you try and you'll notice that you're working hard and if you don't quite reach it well wow it was kind of I I did more than I thought I could do if you do reach it you feel Pride you feel excited about yourself you learned you've pushed past your limits and you understood that doing this has rewards and that's how you'll gain these other forms of habits and become more productive by giving yourself these kind of large-scale rewards and seeing the true pleasure in life lies in delaying gratification and working on something longer term

Channel: Robert Greene

Views: 184,913

Keywords: robert greene, habits, daily habits, the daily laws by robert greene, robert greene books, productivity, productive, self help, self help books, nonfiction books, nonfiction, books, book, learning, potential, build better habits, youtube

Id: 4gGZKBA_hyw

Length: 6min 48sec (408 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 25 2023