LIFE HACK – Habit Hacking and Becoming Superhuman

Who doesn’t want to be like Batman or Superman or be as focused as a Jedi?   Who doesn’t want to take a little pill and be awesome like Bradley Cooper was in the movie Limitless? (I love that movie.)

Man, I’d love to be able to not only get more things done but also, be the best me I could be.

Eat right, be healthy, have energy, know a lot of things, have a great prayer life, have great skills to draw upon at my finger tips.  Be at my peak and always keep getting better.

Well, it turns out there’s a way to do this. You do this by hacking your habits.  You replace your bad habits with great habits and then you add more great habits on top of those.

Why Habits?

What exactly are habits? Habits are like programs that your body runs on automatic whenever an exterior or interior cue is triggered.  It’s what you do on autopilot under certain circumstances.

This is a HUGE deal.  Imagine being able to practice drawing, eating healthy, thinking good thoughts and being happy, effortlessly because your body just goes and does it without thinking about it. That’s what habits have the potential to do.

The reason you’re not doing many of the things you’d love to do right now, is because, over many years, you’ve involuntarily programmed bad habits into your brain.

Therefore, the best way to get yourself to become your best self is to reprogram and override your bad habits with new good ones.

The problem is most of us don’t know much about habits at all.

So What to Do?

There’s way too much to know when it comes to learning about habits, so I’m going to recommend three great sources to get you started on the right path and I’ll add a few tips of my own.

My first recommendation is to watch the video below.  It’s amazing, short and gives you a list of pragmatic steps to take (thanks to Jeff Wamester for the link):

Second, use the habit forming technique above to read two great books on habits (and yes, they’re affiliate links. Thanks for your support). One great habit to pick up is reading good books.

The first of these books is:
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

And if you don’t like to read and would rather listen to the book it’s also available on Audible.

This book is great in showing  you how habits work in the mind and the science behind the discoveries. It also shows you how to breakdown habits to their component parts in order to be able to manipulate and change them.  It’s well worth reading.

The second book I’d recommend reading is:

Superhuman By Habit: A Guide to Becoming the Best Possible Version of Yourself, One Tiny Habit at a Time

Unfortunately, this book has no audio version, so you’re going to have to suck it up and read it.

It’s well worth it though. Unlike the Duhigg book, habits aren’t really broken down scientifically.  Instead they’re broken down more practically. It’s a bit more, step by step, “this is how to you go about breaking and creating habits”. Which is fantastic.

In fact, it’s a more developed version of the tips in the video above.

Both books compliment each other immensely well.

My Personal Habit Making Tip

I’m going to add my two cents here. Just some thoughts building off of some things written about in the two books based on my experience.

Make absolutely sure you find out what exactly  is the triggers  that trigger the bad habits you want to change. Sometimes the trigger for ONE habit may have multiple cues.  You need to find them all.

Once you do, pre-visualize your course of action. Yes, you know the habit you want to install or supplant is. And yes, you have an action planed, BUT your original bad habit may come to mind more often than you want.  Make a habit of pre-visualizing the positive good habit whenever you think about the cues that trigger the bad habit.

You will act upon the action you think about most, and if that thought is more often about the bad habit, it will be far more difficult to install the new one.  It may very well cause you to go back to the bad habit. So, keep your thoughts in check. Visualize yourself succeeding with the good habit and your body will automatically follow.

I hope this has helped. What good habits are you most interested in acquiring? Let me know in the comments below.