Renewal, Reconnecting

I'm excited for a season of renewal and reconnecting to many things and people:

- my cellgroup friends who've returned home from afar or resurfaced from busyness of life
- reading - happy to share that I've just finished reading The Power of Habit and have finally started on To Kill a Mockingbird
- the Bible - not proud to confess that as I lost my habit of reading since the beginning of this year, I also neglected the Bible
- exercising - just began two weeks of regular exercise now. Hope to find a swimming coach and learn freestyle

I guess a few things came together this season to push me to a position where I had to decide if I wanted to remain as I am or be revived. And god knows deep down we all prefer a more disciplined, successful, energetic, opposite-of-couch-potato version of ourselves. It's a chicken or egg thing OR it could be a big bang theory thing but one of the few factors for my rejuvenation is this book -

One main learning I took away from this book was the power that Keystone Habits have over us. And if we can identify those Keystone Habits and adjust them to create our desired lifestyle, we're on the road to personal discipline and in the longer run, personal success.

One example given in the book is exercising. That is a keystone habit for many people and I am one of those. It so happened that I was trying to build a regular exercise routine to get rid of some excess rims, that I read about keystone habits and the spillover effects of having such habits in place. Basically, the keystone habits sets you on a row to realign other areas of your life, in a ripple effect manner. From getting back to exercise, you'll crave neatness and find yourself tidying up your room (check room is clean), you'll want to be a better steward of your finances (check thanks to finance guru in my life also), and you'll want to use your time more wisely (check reading mode is back on) etc etc etc etc.

Basically, building keystone habits is a shortcut to rebuilding your life. I'm quite sure that the way I'm articulating it is making no sense to some and to others it would look blasphemous to the original ideas Charles Duhigg meant to impart to us readers. But you get the gist - I've benefited from this book and think it might help you too.

Pick it up at the library if you've some time. Most copies are on loan though. I'm returning a copy tomorrow. Good luck.