What’s the Connection Between Training Elephants and Your Habits?

A few days ago, I read about how people train young elephants in India.

They tie the young elephant to a tree. It tries to free itself, but it cannot get loose since it is not strong enough.

After trying a few times and discovering that it cannot get loose, the elephant accepts the situation.

Afterward, when the elephant grows and becomes big and strong, it doesn’t try again to get itself loose, even though now, it is strong enough to pull and tear the rope easily.

The elephant learned that it cannot free itself, and therefore, it never tries again. It believes that it’s not possible to get free.

It’s the same with people. We form habits at any age, and we form many of them at an early age. We all act, think, and believe in accordance with their habits.

Everyone has good and bad habits, which they never question.

Habits are like imaginary ropes that you believe to be real.

How is a Habit Formed?

• A habit is formed when you repeat a certain act over and again, repeat the same thoughts, or go through a repeated experience.
• A habit ties you to a certain behavior like a rope, the same way a rope ties the elephant to the tree.
• When you are tied to a habit, you enact the habit automatically, without thinking. In this way, people are enslaved by their habits.

However, habits can be broken, and new and better ones created, but for this to happen, you must be aware of the habit, and realize that you are letting it control your life.

You also need to believe that you can get rid of the habit.

When you realize that you can be stronger than your habits and that you can change them, you begin to tear the ropes that are tying you.

The understanding and the belief that you can overcome habits and the willingness to do something about this take you a long way forward. This is more than 50% of the way.

Most people prefer the easy way of not confronting the habit and letting it continue, even when they see how detrimental it is.

I don’t know if the story about training elephants is true, but the story helps to understand how habits are formed, and how they rule everyone’s life.

Habits affect your thinking, your attitude, and your beliefs. To change them, you need to change your thinking, attitude and beliefs.

You don’t have to behave like the elephant, and stay tied.

You can free yourself!

With a little willpower, self-discipline and focus, together with the use of the certain mental tools, like affirmations and visualization, you can free yourself from the habits that tie you down, and create new and positive habits.

3 Tips to Untie the Ropes of Habits

1. Look at habits as software installed on your mind. You can uninstall the software on your computer, and you can also uninstall the software in your mind.
2. View habits as thoughts and as attitude. Thoughts and attitude are a form of energy, which can be changed.
3. If you are able to look with just a little detachment at your habits, it would be much easier to change them.

Freeing yourself from habits might take some time, but my experience with habits showed me that if one is determined enough, it is not difficult at all to untie or tear unnecessary ropes.