On Habits

I'm learning that habits, good or bad, are pretty powerful things. They're so powerful in fact, I've recently come to admit that some of mine have involved behaviors I didn't even enjoy, but simply felt compelled to repeat regardless of knowing I'd just feel like crap in the end. From oversleeping to letting people regularly waste my time, my actions and interactions weren't benefiting me at all, and I only felt regret and anger with myself for allowing them to continue. Problem was, however, I didn't know how to make myself stop.

I spent a lot of time and energy trying to find the big cause... that subconscious, psychological need now manifesting itself as said habits, but you know what? I finally just woke up and realized they were all just simple practiced actions, and like all animals, I'd been trained.

I did some reading up on habits then and learned they take about two weeks to form, which, when looking at it from another perspective, includes breaking a habit as well. For example, if you want to break your habit of oversleeping in the morning, you just make a new habit of waking up early (my mom invited me to call her at whatever o'clock, as she wanted to wake up earlier too). After the new habit is established, give it another two weeks to reinforce and cement. From there on out, as long as you don't create any new habits over top of the one you've just created, you're set.

Do you know how simple my life got as a result of this??

By breaking it down into a two-week interval instead of looking at it as this overwhelming force upon my life, change has become much easier to manage. Now I can wake up earlier in order to have more time in the day, I can tell people who interrupt me that I'm busy and invite them to come back later, I can catch up on email on Sunday nights, and read a chapter of my book du jour everyday. Whatever it is I want to do or undo is entirely DOABLE if I just take it two weeks at a time.

And well, I can certainly do that.