We had stopped in How to program your self ? Part I at the point where we were discussing what can detour us from a track we had selected by our free will. You are now in a better condition than millions of other humans because you know the track to program a new habit into your life. Steps are clear; you need initiation (willing and intention), startup, commitment, consistency, looking at the benefits & parenting yourself. We also know that we shall feel that this new subroutine is normal or natural to us after programming it into our life. When we reach to the normal feeling toward this subroutine, then we start to unfold its benefits. But, after you had made your mind to add a certain habit into your life, why you may give up on your free will?!
Is it really your own will or desire?
That’s one of the first illusions you need to be aware of. You are now aware of how to program yourself. But, the media, social media and business owners have the same information. They don’t use it to program themselves but, to program me and you. They use the same steps your parents were using to teach you a new habit. And, those are the same steps that you will be using to make your own new habit your second nature. Let us start by a code that is currently developing so that you are aware of that and you continue following it.
- Introduce a new idea like having a microchip implanted in your hand
- They work consistently on spreading the idea, You can read this article from 2016 on CBS website Meet the humans with microchips implanted in them and then in 2018 This company embeds microchips in its employees, and they love it
- Explaining the benefit in 2020, Will microchip implants be the next big thing in Europe?,
- Parenting stage is yet to come when some companies or governments will force certain people to have those implants.
Maybe you think this story is too far ahead in the future but if you know that the Washington Post announced in 2004 that FDA had approved it for medical reasons. The remaining step is the creation of a need for it. In other words, to make it attractive to consumers as a solution to a problem or adding a competitive advantage.
A more common example.
What about another simpler example, Keto diet. The Ketogenic diet was long ago known as a Low Carb diet. Low Carb diets were associated with Diabetes. Till 2016 NYTimes wasn’t having any article about the Keto Diet. in 2017, it started to write the name and not only Low Carb diet. in 2018 it was the trending diet of the year. Nowadays if you search about it you will find -after 2018- articles from Hearvard Health, Mayo Clinics, NYtimes, WebMD and all major famous sites. Did you think lately about giving a try to Keto Diet?
If this happened or you had heard about it from your friends, You were under the influence of the continuous trials to shape the community through programming using the famous steps: initiation, consistency in repetition, focusing on the benefits & parenting. Parenting here appears in the sense of feeling guilty towards yourself for not taking this important action. Or, feeling inferior relative to others who had grasped its benefits.
I believe those two examples are enough to clarify the media steps to imprint the need for a specific thing in your life. Then you subconsciously follow the crowd as this new comer became a natural thing. You can have some fun relating to other topics as new beverage flavors or new sports shoes model.
How to know that it is my own will and desire?
- If you don’t try to show off what you are doing,
- You feel contented while doing it even no one will know,
- You compare yourself to no one and,
- Not afraid to lose or miss something
Then it is your own will and desire.
Are you ready for the extra effort?
In other words, are you ready to pull yourself out of your comfort zone. Take care that the word “Comfort Zone” is a little deceiving. Your comfort zone can be uncomfortable, tiring or irritating. However, once you got used to this uncomfortable feelings it became natural to you and that’s your comfort zone. A worse comfort zone is the complaining one. It is when you do something that hurts you on the emotional or physical levels but you need the relief that complaining brings to you.
When you feel an AHA moment and you get inspired to do something new to you, that’s your initiation moment. Writing or fitness exercising are good examples for the activities that may come to your mind and stimuli a desire to incorporate them in your daily life. Let us see some of the challenges that may cause you to give up on your desire for adding a fitness time to your life.
- You need to pull yourself out of the bed or couch. Whether you had decided to exercise early in the morning or after you return from work, in both times you are pushed to rest more than action.
- This time slot is already filled with other activities, where can they go?
- Exercising needs special outfit, cost?!
- You need to drive or walk to a fitness club
- You are not sure if you would enjoy the place there or the trainer
But, why we need to program ourselves in the first place?
To live holistic well-being life, our target should be to program as many helping routines as possible in our life and have enough patience to tune them till we reach a final satisfactory and beneficial version. When this stage is reached, this habit becomes natural to us. Natural here means:
- Harmonious with my other daily routines.
- I feel no resistance towards doing it
- Others’ opinion whether good or bad are not of a big value to me
- I miss it in case I skipped it for a day or two due to travel or other unscheduled urgent or mandatory events as getting married.
- I follow what’s new about it.
The consistency will make the benefits out of this new habit as fitness or flexibility exercising sustainable.
Start small but consistent and committed then grow and benefit. Got 15 minutes? Try hundreds of trainer guided HIIT workouts.
In Conclusion,
As of now you know how to decide if this new track or habit is stemmed from your own will and desire or implanted in your way via the media. You also understand that you need to put some effort to give life to this new track. Then, you have a free will to commit to your track or give up and return to a previous state that might not serve you. There are forces and distractions that tends to mess up with our efforts to create new useful code lines in our programs. Some of them are like computer viruses, landed on our operating system at a stage of our life and works in the background to undermine the building efforts of a new version of us. We shall chat next about this. Stay Safe.