06.18.06
New (Good) Habits Can Be Difficult to Build
Though it’s never fast enough for us, whenever you add something to your daily list of tasks to accomplish, it takes some time for it to become a habit.
We’re all given 24 hours in a day, and then left to determine just what we’re going to cram in there.
Some work, some play, a little nourishment, and rest. Then we connect those dots by filling all the nooks and crannies of time in between with as much as we possibly can.
Just 24 hours.
It’s not hard to see why it takes time to create a good habit. First you have to figure out where in your schedule you’re ever going to find a place to stuff your new, sought-after self-discipline.
Then you have to remember that you’re doing it, while continually reminding yourself “why” you’re doing it, so that you’ll continue doing it.
(By the way, if it takes 30 days to both create or break habits (and I’m not sure if personality types are a factor), why is it that it’s so much easier to form a bad habit than a good one? Just food for thought.)
As an idea of where I’m going with this, I’ve tried the blogging route before.
A couple of times.
Something more important always seems to interfere.
You would think that something as important to me as writing would overcome those obstacles, and I would “just do it.”
You’d think.
Just like you can probably justify things that you should do but don’t, or don’t do but should, I do the same thing.
I can list all of the reasons for plugging in a daily note to my readers, or even to myself, but when it comes to actually doing it, well, justifiable “things” seem to get in the way.
For instance:
I’m working on several projects right now, and there are a few things that simply must get done.
- I’ve got several email accounts that need checking -
- Affiliate software (several) that I’m studying, learning, and trying to decide upon -
- A variety of courses that I’m studying -
- Articles I’m writing -
- Snippets of books here and there -
- etc…
Plus all of the , personal tasks that a husband and father has to perform:
- Providing -
- Counseling -
- Discipline - (Not much of that anymore, thankfully;-)
- Filling the gas tank - again!
- Getting a new set of keys made (also again), because another set has disappeared and nobody seems to know anything about it 8^\
So you see, I can justify away the time that I could have, or should have spent writing.
If you don’t practice your new habit, it has no chance of becoming habitual.
You’ll be glad to know, that little task of posting what I’ve written has finally worked it’s way up in priority on my daily “to do” list, and that I’ve determined myself to “just do it”…
Starting tomorrow, right after I check my email, software, and…:-/
Happy Father’s Day ~ Dave Franzwa
If you like my style and think you might be interested in a project I’m currently developing, pick up a no-cost, pdf excerpt that I have waiting for you here. My readers are the first to lay eyes on it, and since you’re reading this, I guess that includes you;-) Check it out!
Thanks, DF