The Truth About Habits

We all have them but most of us will deny it. Especially when it comes too bad habits. And many times the good habits we have we don't often acknowledge. The truth is we go about our day to day business in kind of a fog just walking or running through it without giving it much thought.

Many times when we do think about our behavior as being a habit, we excuse it as just being the way we are. In most cases it is others who observe behaviors we do regularly enough to be considered a habits. Because we do these things so often we don't notice them.

This is the very reason that it is so hard for us to develop good habits. We don't know how many of them we are presently practicing or, how many bad habits we have. Most of the time we just do what we do without thinking. This day to day zombie state is our daily existence. Many of us are unhappy with it but, we don't know how to change.

There is a myth that any habit can be established or broken in ninety days. The truth is you have to acknowledge the habit and then replace it with another habit. In other words every time you think about doing the negative habit you replace it with the positive habit. Most of the time our actions are in response to something we are experiencing or someone we are dealing with. In most cases the people we are around and the environment we are in determine the things we do and the habits we develop.

Here are is the summery of this exercise.

Observe and take honest notes of what you do daily, if possible minute by minute. Circle the negative things you did. Some examples would be time wasters (doing nothing or something none constructive, when you have other important things that need to be done). Notice who you where with or what happened to distract you from positive action. Next look at what you could have done to correct this. The same is true about smoking or any other bad habit. At the end of the week review all of the negatives and replace them with positive things that you could have done instead.

Now the next week do the same exercise but review your notes daily. Make your positive corrections the next day.

Note:
Dealing with people and environment is a little different and much harder. Unfortunately we can't always change our environment or the people we are around, but we can change how we respond to them. Most of the time we don't do this because we are not aware of how they effect us. Many times our habits change when we become aware of what is making us do the things we do negatitively. The truth is you can do whatever you really want to do, you just have to know you want to do it. Do you want to change then try this exercise it may seem simple, but there is power in the simple.