Hi.
In my search to pursue happiness and pursue my goals, I looked up different ways people studied and lived their daily lives. There was one common variable among all of these generally happy people. How did they all build good such well-rounded lives? They developed habits.
A habit is an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary, according to the definition on Dictionary.com.
This is crucial because small habits, small consistent actions are what develop a person. Once we formulate something as a habit, we no longer have to spend energy making the choice to do that action and we have more energy to make better-informed decisions on more important things in our lives, this is all part of the will-power theory. You can find more information about the willpower theory through the American Psychological Organization: http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/willpower.aspx
So, how do we create habits? How can we use our bodies natural ability to form habits to our advantage? Why are habits so important?
We create habits through constant repetition. We can use habits to make tasks such as studying, exercising, healthy eating, easier for our bodies and seem like less of a daunting task. Habits are crucial because every small act, every choice, every single decision will build our character and eventually who we are as people. Habits can be good or bad. Our ability to manipulate good habits and remove bad habits is what makes them so important.
It takes time to build an action into a habit. But if we can take that time to help us develop something that will benefit our future, why not?
If you're interested in learning more about habits and research conducted on the subject I recommend the book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.
A.
