Development of Habits and their Effects

When it comes to making our beds, there's three types of people; and here are some examples, so you can see and relate. Take a person and put him in three different scenarios and let him repeat this over and over again and see how this habit influences his life. Here are the three examples; 

the same person, but three different habits and we'll see how it then influences the rest of his life.  

Scenario 1

The first person, just like everyone else goes to sleep, wakes up and upon waking up, he's kind of groggy, he takes his time, he rolls around in the bed, checks the phone a little bit. When he lays there enough time then he gets up and slowly makes his way to the bathroom, brushes his teeth, washes his face and just takes his time. After he is done, he comes back to the bedroom where he starts to fix his room. He starts to make his bed. He takes that time and then he leaves the door.

Scenario 2

This person goes to sleep like the first person. Upon waking up, this person immediately, hearing the alarm clock wakes up. He makes his bed very nicely. Organizes everything and then goes to use the bathroom, brushes his teeth, combs his hair and then he's out the door. 

Scenario 3

This person goes to sleep. Upon waking up, he just takes his time. When it's time to get up, he, like everyone else, goes to use the bathroom, brushes his teeth and then unlike all the other scenarios, does not come back to the bedroom and he just leaves. He's out the door and you never see him again. 

These three gentlemen, the same person, have three different habits, three different lifestyles and then it has an effect because we do this over and over and 30% of our life is spent in the bedroom. So it will have an effect on our habits. So the next question is what does it reveal? What does all this have to do with your habits, your behavior? And the actions that we do just have consequences. They're not good, they're not bad, but just consequences. It has an effect. And for the first person, who wakes up, takes his time, goes to the bathroom, then eventually, after some time, he comes back and eventually gets around to making his bed and then he is out the door. And the habit that this person will cultivate is procrastination. So as a result of the way this person makes his bed, he goes out into the world, to his job, to his school and then the pattern is repeated regarding homework, regarding group projects, regarding any little tasks he just thinks and says, “ I’m just going to take my time. There's no rush. I'm going to wait as close as I can to the deadline. This is how it shows up in this person's daily life. The second person, who immediately, upon waking up, right at the snooze button not a second time but on a snooze button wakes up. He has this habit of just immediately making his bed then going to use the bathroom and then he is out the door and does not come back to sleep in the bed until that evening. This person then develops the habit of knowing how to solve problems easily and clearly. He can see the issue and  takes it one step at a time. He  solves one problem, fixes it, compartmentalizes, and then goes to the next. And it's clean. “So it's not just messy and wishy-washy. He doesn’t say, “let me take my time, let me procrastinate”  but already he trains his mind. And the mind says: “oh, no! Let me finish this task.” Task one;  let me do my best and I’m going to complete this assignment then go on to task two.  Once task two  is complete I’ll go on to task three.” This is  because the mind is already structured and trained that way.

In the third scenario, the person upon waking up  takes his time, goes to use the restroom, and then out the door. And like anyone else he doesn't even make his bed.. And what does this person cultivate? What habits? What characteristics? And what it reveals is that this person develops the habit of being careless.  He takes this attitude like “if I don't even have to make my bed as I’m going to come back here anyway. What's the point? It's the same sleeping area. It does not affect anything. I’m coming back here at night already. So why would I do double the work? Just come back.” So this is how he carries this attitude and it can be dangerous, but he doesn't even know what it translates to. He carries this carelessness  when he is out with friends, he thinks that he can say whatever he wants to,he can do whatever he wants to, he can come in late to work, it doesn't matter, he can turn in the paperwork late, but again he  brings this habit, brings this carelessness and not knowing how to compartmentalize things, and bring these types of habits into his daily working life. And his relationship with people around him. 

 These kinds of things; or making your bed, looks like it's not a big deal, but it's the biggest deal because we do these actions over and over and 30% of your life is spent here. And we're not even aware of it. Can you imagine? if one third of your life is spent here how ingrained that would be into yourself, into your habits. So it has an effect and we're starting to feel those effects and many people do not even know where it's connected and this is where it's connected. Our actions have consequences. No judgment on your lifestyle! not good, or not bad; you can figure that out, but really it is these things that we do or do not do that influence our habits which get trickled down into our daily life and our interactions. And if you want to change and improve because you know that what we do affects our habits then great! 

Take this advice. And if you don't that's okay too. If you feel like there's no need to change; “I can do what I want, making my bed is not important to me and I’ll just carry on with my day,” not a problem! But with that, just be careful! When people practice these habits for a very long time it affects their life. They come and they want to do something about it and then they get surprised and not sure of “How come I have bad habits? How come I do these maladaptive behaviors? And I don't know how I got there! Why are my personal relationships, interpersonal relationships suffering? I’m not sure why.” It's because of this. And people struggle to connect the dot of where did it come from, “Was I born like this? Is someone trying to punish me?” But we get into this cycle, but it's really everything that is going on has been bleeding through and it started one way, that it started is through what we did in the bedroom and this is how we made or did not make our bed and it cultivated and solidified a habit that translates to every aspect of our life.