Habits

I once heard a saying that it takes two weeks to form a habit, or to break one, whatever your intention - although really in either case you are trying to make someone, usually yourself, behave in a given way so in essence whether forming a new habit or breaking an old one the objective is the same - to alter behaviour.  I decided to do a little research on the subject and what I came across first of all was that there was already some disagreement as to how long it actually takes, with the sayings most prevalent being a combination of two and three week periods.  What I stumbled across was an article that actually cites some scientific research on the matter.

The article cites a study by University College London which concluded that it takes around 66 days for a new behaviour to become a habit - in other words just over two months.  I am interested to put this to the test however I am not sure what I want to choose as the subject of my experiment.  The thing about behaviours that we exhibit and continue to do so, is that ultimately we do them because they give us some sort of reward, whether that simply be pleasure or some other need that we have being fulfilled.  When it comes to altering our behaviour however it becomes a lot harder to determine what we would like to change.

I don't have any addictions - not that I know of at least, isn't that what they say is the biggest problem with addiction, recognizing that you have a problem?  As for life goals, as melancholy as it may seem, as I have said before, I don't actually have that many.  I want to be happy more than anything else and I can usually find happiness in what I already have so there's little motivation or aspiration when it comes to my ambitions in life.  You can call me complacent and to be honest I probably am, but at least that's coming from a place of happiness and not a place of misery.

There also comes the question of what a habit actually is and whether that is good for you or not.  The word certainly has negative connotations but does that mean there are no positive habits?  Is the word synonymous with routine and repetition, if so there are many habits I already have but I wouldn't consider them things which are destructive to me personally or anyone around me.  The word 'habitual' is less assertive and causes less offence when we contemplate it, in its case the word implies routine more so than implying any positive or negative connotations.

What are your habits?  How do you actually identify them and how do you assess the impact on your life that they have?  I don't know the answers to those questions right now, I'm still working on it.