I have a (human) friend who was (trying) to read the other day. This is the same friend who was also (trying) to work on her laptop the other day, you know before I started chewing on the edge of the screen. Anyway, she was (trying) to read Change Your Habits, Change your Life by Tom Corley. Apparently, the book contains interviews of hundreds of self-made millionaires about their daily habits and compared the answers to 128 individuals with incomes less than $35,000. Or something like that – I really just got the gist of it while sitting on it and then licking the edge of the pages which really seemed to irritate my friend. She should read a book on stress relief maybe. Anyway, the book offers the usual pointers about changing habits and reading and exercising more, sleeping more (that one I can totally get behind), avoiding wasting time, building positive relationships, and so on.
This got me thinking about writing a book for cats on the same topic – only I would call it Have Your Human Change Your Litterbox, Change your Life, by Jean Luc. Since I am not sure I have the time or attention span to write an entire book, I thought I could juxtapose the habits of people with those of their cats. FYI – I learned the meaning of the word “juxtapose” by sitting on a dictionary one day!
- Reading – According to Corley’s book, 88% of successful people read at least 30 minutes or more each day. Mostly biographies and self-improvement book and surprisingly not 50 Shades of Grey. It’s a well-known fact that cats can get the same bang for the buck just SITTING on a book, but for it to be really effective, it should be done while the human is trying to read it.
- Exercise – Seventy-six percent of people spend at least 30 minutes each day doing aerobic exercise. Here cats and humans can work together because each time I jump up on the counter (which is aerobic activity) my human also gets up to get me off the counter. So basically, cats can act as coaches in this area and create a win/win scenario!
- Build Positive Relationships – Successful people find a way to make connections with other highly motivated people and limit their time with negative people. I agree with this except I try to make connections with people with canned food and those that know how to operate a can opener (or have opposable thumbs).
- Pursue Specific Goals – Most wealthy people make detailed plans for every day and even every hour of their day. Eighty percent of them are “obsessed with pursuing goals” and focus regularly on both daily and long-term goals. This sounds stressful not only for me but for every cat I know. I would say that cats should “purr-sue” annoying someone (by perhaps sitting on their book or chewing on the computer) until they get a cookie. Works for me almost every time!
- Sleep Well – Eighty-nine percent of successful people make sure to sleep at least seven or eight hours a night. Sleep is crucial to success; it impacts human creativity, memory and moods. I’m pretty much in agreement with this one, except I would say 22-23 hours is the target range for all cats – more if you are a kitten or a senior.
So, there you have it! Five tips for every cat to change their life. These five habits are not limited to attaining financial success like they are with humans, but they can be used to reach many other kinds of goals such as getting more canned food and even more cookies! And a having a more productive human in your life can definitely lead to a fresh litterbox on a more regular basis (see #4 – Pursuing Specific Goals). Finding a way to live our lives with these five habits can lead to significant changes in every area of our lives, but to be honest, if we don’t incorporate them, we will most likely be asleep and will hardly notice!