The single bad habit slippery slope:

November 12, 2021Leave a comment

We all have a list of bad habits that is longer than we would like, and honestly, if you say you don’t I not only don’t believe you but I think you might need to check your pride.

I currently have a daily check list on my phone of habits- it has good daily habits that I’d like to pick up and a series of bad habits to cross off when I don’t do them. It’s been the only system I’ve found that helps, though of course it isn’t a magic solution and I still fall short of checking all my boxes a lot of time.

There are arguments about how many habits you should try to pick up and drop at the same time, and this post isn’t really about that. I don’t have an answer to how much you can personally take on at a time, I think a lot of it has to do with how linked your habits are. What this post is about is doing one bad habit can lead to a day of all your bad habits coming out.

I think a lot of us have an all or nothing mindset, in some ways that might be a good thing, if you’re checking off good habits to do today it certainly is! But it also applies to your bad habits, and once we’ve fallen short we tend to think the day is lost and spiral.

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Practicing your habits and creating pathways.

August 18, 2020August 18, 2020Leave a comment

I’ve been working the last three weeks on minimizing my screen time. I’m not doing great at it if I’m being honest, I’m still on social media a lot. I work online and I spend a chunk of my down time online. I like feeling informed and I work in marketing, of course I like consuming media!

But in this process, though I haven’t gotten rid of a ton of screen time, I have been spending more time on my hobbies. I’ve been seeing the horse more for longer stretches of time. I might get online afterwards, but the extra farm time counts for something when it comes to my goals and it counts as a lot when it comes to my mental health.

Even slight improvements turn into bigger strides. I’ve read a number of books on forming habits, and I can’t remember which one it came from, but a book introduced me to a new way of thinking about habits. You have to practice them like you do your skills. Even small steps are setting up links in your brain, creating pathways so next time you take another step you can build out even more. Practicing your habits. It’s not that novel of a concept, but as someone who always thought about habits as complete reforms it gave me an insight to how I could realistically improve.

Small steps, always moving forward. I can do that.

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Adding Good Habits vs. Removing Bad Habits

February 21, 2019Leave a comment

Bad habits die hard, it’s universally known. I’ve never met someone who had an easy time getting rid of a habit, they become part of our wiring, and undoing that isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s one of the main reasons that people give up on getting rid of them. It can seem just too difficult, and I get that. I’ve given up on a few of mine as well. I’m not exactly proud of it, but they felt to hard to change.

Is there an easier way to get rid of them? It’s a question that a lot of people have asked, and nobody really has an answer too, but there is an argument for pushing your bad habits out simply by forming good habits, but that too can be complicated because good habits are also hard to form. It takes time and repetition to create the wiring that all our other habits have. It requires forcing yourself to act and getting down right angry with yourself when you don’t want to. It requires self-discipline.

But is it the better alternative? Is it even true that you can push your bad habits out by replacing them with better habits?

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