Every day, in the morning, I do a little bit of yoga. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I just do some stretching. If you know what I’m talking about, it’s just a few Surya Namaskar, a tree, frog and sometimes a headstand asanas. In a year, I don’t think I skip more than 4-5 days, when there are some emergencies, or I travel, or some unseen, unpredictable circumstance hits from nowhere.
It just dawned upon me that I’m doing this for more than 6-7 years now. Probably 8.
As a matter of fact, I’m doing it for so long, that I don’t remember when I started. There is no clear boundary between “now” and “before”. For what is worth, I might have done this for more than a decade. It just became invisible, it blended with my lifestyle.
And that’s what I mean by “an invisible habit”. Things that you do so easily, you don’t even remember when you started to do them. They’re part of your life, not something you aim at introducing into your life.
You see, every goal we set is intrinsically “outside”. It’s outside of our reach, outside of our possibilities, outside our life. Once we reached it, once we master it, it’s inside. Inside our routine, within our reach, part of our life.
Too much energy spent into reaching “outside” stuff will steer us away from a balanced life. Too much searching for the next best habit, or for the next best diet, or for the next best project, will keep our focus pointing “outwards”. It will be a life of longing, of not having enough.
Whatever we do when we’re not relentlessly searching for something we miss, is our life as we know it. It’s what we consider “normal”.
In the end, it’s not about relentlessly chasing our first million. It’s about implementing habits that will eventually lead to that. Habits so ingrained in our life that they’ll become invisible. At that point, having our first million will be invisible too. We won’t need to chase it anymore, it’s inside. We will just feel comfortable there. As comfortable as we feel right now, living from paycheck to paycheck. It will just feel natural.
It goes the same for the best relationship, or for the best career.
Once you had that, just let it blend. Enjoy it as it is. As boring or as natural or as standard it may feel.
Keep remembering that once, this boring, natural, standard goal was something unachievable. Now, that you have it, let it disappear, let it be invisible, let it evaporate into your normal life.
Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash
