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Are you a create of old habits that you can’t change. As we get older, we develop habits, or ways of doing things we can’t easily change.  These habits involve everything from the way we eat, to our daily morning ritual.  My old habits include, every morning waking up, drinking a diet coke, and turning on the computer.

A New York Times article went over exactly what old habits mean what they mean and some tips for taking control of them. The article found here explains a few ways you can get into new habits.

Why habits are a good thing
Up to 90 percent of our day can be spent in old habits and routine.  We brush our teeth without thinking, we create our habitual breakfast and even drive without thinking.  We practice the same activity so many times that we can repeat the habit over and over without much thought.

Habits Can Be Bad Too!
We might have habit of thinking poorly.  We might have the habit of completing activities without using our entire effort.  Maybe we have bad eating habits and tend to eat the wrong things.  We might have habits of laziness and often leave our apartments dirty rather than developing habits of cleaning up messes as they happen.

I often find myself repeating the same mistakes over and over.  I’ll promise myself to start running everyday, but that promise becomes quickly broken.  I’ll promise to start cleaning my messes as they happen, but before I know it, my room is trashed.

The Science Behind Old Habits
Researchers at MIT found that “Important neural activity patterns in a specific region of the brain change when habits are formed, change again when habits are broken, but quickly re-emerge when something rekindles an extinguished habit — routines that originally took great effort to learn.”

The performed a study on mice, trying to teach them habits in a maze.  By the end of the study they discovered that “If a learned pattern remains in the brain after the behavior is extinguished, maybe that’s why it’s so difficult to change a habit.”

Basically, we learn habits, and even if we stop them, they often still remain in our brain.

Changing Old Habits, the Struggle
After you’ve discovered just what those bad habits are, write them down.   When you notice that you are about to repeat that bad habit, I often tell myself “This is habit I want to change and I will not do it again.”  Strive to break that habit, even though it will be hard, just keeping telling yourself no.

It’s easy to blame other people, but with hard work, you can do it!

This is my short guide to accepting yourself. Sure we all get depressed, and often you might not like yourself. Accepting yourself is one important step towards being happy and being successful. It’s difficult to hate yourself and be happy…

Accepting Yourself as a Success
You might often see yourself as a failure, nothing you ever do is good enough. Instead of focusing on this negative image, focus on the times when you have been successful. Imagine that time when you succeeded.

Accepting Yourself: Self Confidence
It’s easy to let other people tear us down. Maybe you’ve been rejected in dating, maybe someone called you a bad name. Don’t worry about these people. You wouldn’t want to be around these people anyway. It’s often not the way we look that’s important, but the

radiance of success we carry with us. People will often want to be around a successful person, rather than someone who’s always depressed.

Accepting Yourself by Being Happy
Though they say it’s money=happiness, it’s not money that makes people happy, it’s what

you can buy with money. But, put money aside, a great way to make yourself happy is

simply by helping other people. Simply helping people has so many positive aspects. You’ll find a reason for living, you’ll feel good inside for helping someone else, and you’ll meet a lot of friends. If you ever feel truly depressed, simply volunteer! You’ll realize there are people that have it a lot worse than you.

Do you control your own fate, or do you let the forces that be decide your fate for you?  Did you try to achieve something, fail, and just give up and decide, this is not my fate?  It’s time to take control of your fate and do the things that you want to do.

My fate is their fault!
I often hear people blaming supernatural forces like God, society, or even their parents for the way their life is going.  Blaming these three things is like saying that your fate was set the day you were born. W.E. Henley said: “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul”.

Take control of your fate
If you just drift along, certainly it’s easier to blame everyone other than yourself for your crappy life.  Rather than blaming everyone, why not find ways that you yourself can help the situation rather than relying on everyone else to do it for you.

Brad Pitt, the Chicken Man
Yes, almost everyone knows the name, but how did Brad Pitt became such a big actor?  Did someone just say “Hey Brad want to be big?”  No, certainly not, he had to work for it.  Brad Pitt majored in journalism at the University of Missouri, but dropped out when he decided to become an actor. As a struggling actor, he worked as a refrigerator deliveryman, limo driver, and wore a chicken suit to promote El Pollo Loco, a chain of Mexican restaurants.

If you want something, find a way to get it!  Don’t let the forces at be step over you… Everyone struggles, but in the end the reward is much sweeter!

Discovering your purpose in life doesn’t just mean life responsibilities, or discovering your long term goals, but how to discover why you actual exist (aka your purpose in life).

Easy Steps to Start Discovering Your Purpose in Life

1. Get a piece paper or use a writing program where you can freely type away.

2. At the top simply write, “My Purpose in Life is:”

3. Just write any answer or even short phrase that could be a purpose.

4. Keep writing answers. Write them until you find that answer that really makes you cry. That is your purpose in life. (No one ever said your purpose in life was going to be easy.)

This could take 20 minutes to clear your mind and come up with the answer. Just clear your head and think about your purpose in life. Think about your mind, memories and everything in between.

For others, it could take even 100, 300, maybe even 1000 answers to find that one answer that really makes you cry.

Life Doesn’t Have a Purpose
So maybe that’s your stance in life, but that’s ok. You can participate in this exercise as well. Simply start off your paper with “Life has no meaning.” But, keep writing more answers. You too, can find your purpose in life, even if you believe it’s utterly meaningless.

Buck minister Fuller
Buck minister Fuller was one of the greatest thinkers and inventor of the 20th century. He concluded that we are not meant to go after money. Rather he believed that instead we set a goal that ‘adds value’. That we should effectively improve the quality of people’s lives or of the earth.

So you might never find you’re “true” prupose in life, but if you strive to improve the lives of people around you, as well as the planet, then you’ve found purpose in your life.