Pathwalking 112
People are creatures of habit.
The question we have to ask of ourselves in this matter is – are we creatures of good habits, or bad habits?
To get to the root of this, it is important to ask – what ARE my habits?
To identify habits, it is best to define just what a habit is. Dictionary.com defines habit thus:
noun
1.an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary: the habit of looking both ways before crossing the street.
2.customary practice or use: Daily bathing is an American habit.
3.a particular practice, custom, or usage: the habit of shaking hands.
4.a dominant or regular disposition or tendency; prevailing character or quality: She has a habit of looking at the bright side of things.
Acquired behavior, customary practice, prevailing quality. All of these combined describe a person’s habitual ways.
We all have these, some are extremely conscious and thought out. Some, though, are ingrained, deep beneath the surface and sub-conscious at best. As such, we all have habits that we do not readily recognize as habits.
As a Pathwalker, I am working on acquiring and taking control of my life, and how I live it. Along with this it is surprisingly important that I learn to identify my habits, both conscious and unconscious, and learn whether they are good habits, or bad.
The problem with bad habits is that they can be very hard to break. Like almost everything in life there are minor habits and major habits, but no matter if the habit is great or small it is important to identify if it is a good habit to have or a bad one.
What’s the difference, and why should this matter? The trouble with maintaining bad habits is that they can interfere with good things you want to make of your life. If a habitual behavior is bad, it can prevent the good things you want to make and draw into your life, and when you are unaware of it you may easily fail to recognize the problem.
Bad habits can be insidious. They can provide interference with what you are trying to do. For example, let’s say you are a procrastinator. Procrastination is a habit, and a very difficult habit to break. It can cause you to miss opportunities it can get in the way of things getting done that will help you go where you intend. Obviously this can interfere with any given path you may choose.
Let me present an example from my own life. I am a writer, I am a reader. Yet I will go a day or two without writing, and even longer not writing fiction. There are long periods where I do not read (specifically reading for pleasure). I consider reading and writing daily to be a necessary habit. As such I am now working on restoring this, writing fiction daily and reading at least a chapter a day for pleasure until I can make this a habit, and a good habit again.
This is a conscious habit I am working with. Last year I chose an unconscious one. For as long as I can remember I have chewed on my fingernails. I would chew them off out of boredom, sometimes not even realizing I was doing it. Then I encountered from an odd source an idea on how to stop this, and I applied it – and it worked. I still find myself occasionally chewing at a nail, but overall I have to clip them regularly now.
The point I am making here is that any habit can be broken. Any habit, good or ill, can be changed. It is simply a matter of identifying your habitual behaviors, examining if they are good habits or bad, and if they need to be altered taking action and changing them.
To change any habit is relatively easy, it just requires the following: 1) Identify the habit. 2) Evaluate the habit and decide if you want to keep it or change it.
If it’s a good habit, and it works for you, you’re done. But if you want to alter it: 3) Determine how to change the habit. 4) Take action and make the change you desire.
The steps are really that simple, but the action and the effort to make the change and alter a habitual behavior can be a challenge. If you put the energy into the matter and do what you have determined you need to do, you can make the change.
I am walking my own path in life, and as such I am studying who I am to be who I want to be. That means knowing what my habits are, and how they do or do not serve me.
Do you know your habits?
This is the one-hundred twelfth entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Thank you for joining me.
The first year of Pathwalking is available in print and for your Kindle.
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