Friday 2 April 2021

April 2, 2021 Chautauqua



Beth's Ponderings

   The other day, I was reading a bit about the science behind habit formation.

   Now we all know that “good” habits are hard to form, and that “bad” habits are even harder to break.  We’ve all heard that it takes 21 days (though some experts say it’s more like 90 to 120 days) to form a new habit, and the easiest way to make a new habit stick is to toggle it onto an existing habit.  And, most of us (adults) have been told at least once that there is a particular habit (or more than 1) we “should” or “must” change or implement for better health, or lifestyle improvement.

   But no matter what we’ve been told about habits, I realized that the habits that really and truly stick, are not the ones we think we “should” have, or have been told we “have to have,” but the ones that we just do because they are so enjoyable.

   Think about it, why are bad habits so easy to pick up and oh-so-hard to put back down?  It’s because on some level the habit is making us happy in some form, AND we don’t feel pressured at all to do the habit.

   Instead of trying to create a new habit in 21 days, we’d be better off if we could find the particular FORM of the habit we want to create that is easy and fun for us.  For example, rather than forcing ourselves to do a specific type of exercise for 30 minutes per day because we’ve been TOLD we should, we would be much more successful if we find a type of movement we enjoy doing, and then do it more often during the day.

   For me, I’ve created habits both ways.  I’ve implemented habits I’ve been told I needed to (and most I dropped as they didn’t work for me), and I’ve created long-term habits out of something that interested me.

   Last year, just for fun, I decided to draw a very simple cartoon/comic drawing (in ballpoint pen on plain white paper) that I could complete in 5 minutes or less.  By the time this is published, I’ll have competed approximately 267 of these drawings, completing one EVERY DAY (see below).  Now, if I had wanted to create the habit of doing these drawings I’d have probably made it much more complicated than it ended up being.  That’s another secret - besides fun, make your habits super simple!



Beth

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