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
Read the complete The Chautauqua here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R6yQMRNhN6LH28IIJiMSmIzuuxuakCaM/view?usp=sharing
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