On my last post I discussed how having healthy habits will see us through to success during times when our motivation is at a low point. This time I will be discussing some healthy habits that we can form to help up succeed in the different aspects of our life.

Perhaps one of the most popular books ever written about habits is Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. There he elaborates on the 7 habits that he says effective people. According to Covey the 7 habits are:

1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the end in mind
3. Put first things first
4. Think Win/Win – teamwork
5. Seek first to understand – communication
6. Synergize – cooperation
7. Sharpening the saw – renewal or continued development of the 7 habits

As you see the first three deals with self-mastery (he calls it dependence to independence), which is something we all should strive for first. Without the first three it would be hard to follow through on all our tasks, which will of course affect our relations with other people as well as our jobs. Another thing you would notice is that Covey approaches the habits not with a list of tasks but with our mindset. I believe that we should develop specific tasks as our habit but he is very correct in putting emphasis on making sure that we have specific mindsets as a habit, after all our actions are determined by our thoughts. So to be able to develop habits like going to work on time or speaking more positively we need to develop the habit of choosing to be proactive, thinking of our end goals, knowing hoe to prioritize, and all the other things that Covey says we should develop.

There are no strangers to loneliness, after all we have all experienced how to be lonely at some point in our lives. Thomas Dumm recognizes this fact and delves on what it really means lonely in his book “Loneliness as a Way of Life”.

According to the Harvard University Press, Dumm “takes us beyond social circumstances and into the deeper forces that shape our very existence as modern individuals. The modern individual, Dumm suggests, is fundamentally a lonely self. This book challenges us, not to overcome our loneliness, but to learn how to re-inhabit it in a better way.”

This takes me back to one of my favorite poet’s work – Letters to a Young Poet (Letter Number Six). There Rainer Maria Rilke tells us to embrace solitude and why. Here’s a snippet from letter # 6:

But when you notice that it [solitude] is vast, you should be happy; for what (you should ask yourself) would a solitude be that was not vast; there is only one solitude and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear…be attentive to what is arising within you…What is happening in your most innermost self is worthy of your entire love; somehow you must find a way to work at it…

And letter #8:

So you mustn’t be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall.

Now if ever there was an expert in loneliness I would say that would be Rainer Maria Rilke.