It’s not that difficult!

Good habits are as easy to form as bad ones
– Tim Mc Carver

All of us are computer programmers and our mind is a computer! Every day we are programming our mind. In fact we are all expert programmers and we do the job so perfectly that we are doing our job so perfectly! In addition to working and doing our everyday chores, we are forming our own habits. We are so good in this portfolio that our habits are formed so well that it is very difficult to alter the same.

Many of us are under the impression that good habits are difficult to form and bad habits are very easy to form. Nothing could be far from truth. It takes the same efforts to form a good habit that it takes to form a bad habit.

The formula for habit formation is very simple: Behaviour when happily repeated several times becomes a habit. You will notice three components in this process of habit formation. Behaviour, happy feeling and the repetition make it a habit.

Get up every day at 5 am and enjoy the same. Over a period of time it becomes a habit. Or get up at 8 am everyday and enjoy the same. Over a period of time it also becomes a habit! There is no question of which is easy. Both of them are a pattern of behaviour.

The same applies to keeping things in their respective places or strewing things all over the place. Orderliness is as easy as becoming disorganised. It’s what you do repeatedly.

May be you can do an exercise. List three habits which you want to get rid of and write down one activity which, when repeated several times will make it a habit. eg. Developing a reading habit, and reading a book everyday at a fixed time. Do it regularly for 21 days and see what happens! Why 21 days? Research says that it takes 21 days to form a new habit or break away from an old habit!