HABITS ARE HABITS – GOOD OR BAD!

Good Habits, Bad Habits – are they any different?

I’m sure most of us have bad habits we would like to alter or stop?

I know I do, we keep them to ourselves, hide them from others, and lets be honest, aren’t proud of them at all. On the other hand, our good habits are things we do in our lives that we pride ourselves on, and we feel these habits keep us moving forwards, and enjoying life.

But, is there a difference between creating or removing good or bad habits from our lives? When you actually think about it, there are no such things as good or bad habits when constructing these acts.

To develop a good habit, we must be consistent with our practice, and disciplined in our approach to these rituals. For some, these actions may even become autonomous, and simply become part of who we are, and how we live our lives.

Now, if you think of the bad habits you have, to develop these you initially started by doing them a few times, which snowballed into you doing them consistently. They may or may not be daily, but you know all too well (from how long they’ve lasted) that you will be disciplined with carrying out these habits, whether you like it or not.

There are usually two differences between these two variants of habits.
1) We tell or showcase our good habits to the world, whereas we try to hide and keep our bad habits to ourselves.
2) Bad habits are usually destructive, whereas good habits are usually constructive.

To create habits we need to be consistent with our thoughts and actions, disciplined in our approach when carrying them out, then what usually happens is we either share or hide what they are. 

Is this about right?

The beauty of this equation is that if you want to create more good habits in your life, or begin to remove bad ones, the same actions are needed.

Example.
Let’s say someone drinks 12 cans of fizzy drink a day, I’ve met several people who do…
They could start by consistently lessening the amount they drink each week by one can.
Week one: 12 cans daily.
Week two: 11 cans daily.
Week three: 10 cans daily, and so on.
Now this may not seem like a big change, but if this person consistently removes one fizzy drink each week, and stays disciplined in this action for 12 weeks, then how many cans of fizzy drink might they consume each day in week 13?

When this person is offered a can of fizzy drink, instead of accepting and pretending like they have not drank any fizzy drinks that day (which they would know is a lie) and opts for water instead, they will be more likely to tell those around them that 12 cans used to be their usual daily consumption, instead of what could have been the truth prior to changing this habit, that it was actually their seventh!

Is this an exact science, of course not, but what I want to showcase is that there is actually no real difference (on the surface) when it comes to creating or removing good or bad habits from your life. Although, getting the balance right can be the difference between feeling positive or negative about yourself, so this is something to take into consideration.

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