Habits

I always admire people who run at anytime and day. Sometimes in a cold dark windy night and sometimes when the sun is scorching like crazy but they keep running no matter what. Why don't they take a break when the weather is not okay? Obviously, they understand the power of "momentum" what stays will stay and what moves will move. It is easy to start running today but to keep running everyweek at exact time no matter how the weather condition would be that is a different story. I even saw one of my friends still running on a treadmill after a long hard course while I was drinking next to the hotel poolside.

Actions would become natural just like brushing your teeth every morning once you have developed the habit. It will be hard at first but there will be time when you will do it unconciously yes if you do it often enough it will become that way and the key is never ever skip even for one time. This is why you will see people are still exercising even on their vacation.

2 weeks ago in a dark cold morning, I decided to snooze for another 30 minutes and next thing I know it becomes habits now I have 30 minutes time wasted everyday just because the momentum has kicked in. I even try to fight it by not having this 30 minutes but it end up I could not concentrate in the office because of lack of sleep. Today is the biggest setback I end up waking up at 10.46 AM and I excuse myself by saying that it is weekend. Having this bad habits would mean that I need to readjust my sleep gradually by decreasing the length of snooze until it fades away from my system.

It is much easier to create bad habits than to create a good habits (stronger momentum). It is much harder to eliminate bad habits than a good habits (stickier). So always check and re-check your habits, are there other bad habits that keep holding you from your dreams.

I have spotted some of my bad habits and it ain't pretty, time to work on it!

Discipline, discipline, discipline

Office Boy Syndrome

Purnomo, who is an office boy, was working with a decent salary of Rp 300.000,00. After one year he had an increase of 10% that would be Rp 330.000,00. The second year he had another 10% increase doing as expected job no additional job, learning, skills or knowledge outside office boy speciality. At 10Th year he was happy earning Rp 770.000,00 while he was doing the same old job. Until one day when all office boy are outsourced, poor Purnomo had to find another job but he didn't have any other skills. "No worries I have 10 years experience as an office boy, I should be able to find another job", he comforted himself. Unfortunately most company do not have permanent office boy anymore, all office boy are outsourced. He had to apply to one of outsource company. Alas! Nobody would hire him with the same salary he had before. All outsource company can only offer him Rp 250.000,00 because he is old and his productivity is lower then a young man. This is an example of "office boy syndrome".

Do we enrich ourselves with knowledge and skills? Are we prepare to move to other company at any given time? Remember there are no lifetime job guarantee even the biggest company can collapse or downsizing. So whenever you feel comfortable with your life, it's time to do a reality check. Is it time to move? Is it time to learn something new? By not taking a decision is a decision in itself. Don't let another office boy syndrome ever happen again let poor Purnomo's experience be our lesson.

State of Mind

There are many times when I was caught in the swirl of stress. So many times I have fought these battles. So many books, tips and guidance that I have tried to stay away from stress but none really succeeds. Until one day I had a simple question from my friend, she asked me "What kind of things do you do back home to stay away from stress?". I replied spontaneously "What are you talking about? Stress? Most of us back home are lucky to even get by another day with 3 meals a day. We simply don't have time for yellow mellow stuff"

My own answer struck me like lightning, the reason why I got caught in stress mode is because I have so much time too waste, too much time to spend on enjoying the misery and getting addicted to it. Now everytime stress state of mind comes (you can actually tell when it's coming) you just have to smile and say " Stress, I am sorry but I don't have time for you now, yesterday and tomorrow." Yes it is that simple nothing fancy no degree needed to follow this process.

There are 2 occassions where I had the same stress situations. One was handled by meditation, taking a deep breath. listening to slow music and try to focus on something else. It did not work at all the mind still lingered around the problems and I even got moodier. The effect was getting larger and larger by the minute, it's like a snowball effect it got bigger and bigger to a point of overwhelm. The second time was handled in a very simple manner more like an accident. I was in the stress situations but at the same time I was on a deadline to prepare and perform a meeting so I concentrated all my mind to make sure all are done in professional manner (one of the reason of course to make sure I still have job). By the time I finished the meeting, the stress was gone. It was gone because the stress failed to take the momentum needed to become a big snow ball.

Always know when the stress is about to come and simply do a pressing deadline job to kill the momentum and you have won half of the battle. Do you have time for stress? If not please repeat after me "Stress, I am sorry but I don't have time for you now, yesterday and tomorrow".


Disclaimer: This is just a simple tips which may not suitable for everyone and the effect of stress may vary from person to person.