The definition of habit is something that we do regularly as a routine almost throughout our lives. In other words, we can say it is a regular practice of any person. Regular exercise and doing yoga every morning and brushing our teeth every morning and every night is an example of a good habit. A habit, which may be a part of any activity of human being, that ranges from eating and sleeping to talking and reacting. Normally habit is developed from our childhood through reinforcement and repetition.
The American Journal of Psychology defines a "habit, from the standpoint of psychology, as a more or less fixed way of thinking, willing, or feeling acquired through previous repetition of a mental experience. It is a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up”.
Identifying Good Habits-
Good habits are fundamental to becoming successful in life. A behavior that is beneficial to one's physical or mental health, often linked to a high level of discipline and self-control. Good habits are often recognized when we are getting the results we want from a certain aspect of our life. Developing a new habit can take a long time. Here are some tips that help us to identify and develop good habits in our own.
- Focus on one habit at a time. Forming a new habit is a lot of work and takes considerable time for it to become automatic. Trying to take on too many changes at once can overwhelm (overpower) us. Start with one, even a small one, before moving on to another.
- Gradually work up to it. It will take time and willpower to keep up with it every day in the beginning. For example, if our goal is to be organized at work, we won’t be able to be instantly organized every day. There will be days we slip and leave an unorganized mess on our desk. Just keep at it until it becomes a habit.
- Build the good habit into our routine of regular habits. For example, if we want to start taking vitamins every day, put the bottle in our coffee cup so whenever we grab our mug for coffee in the morning, we can take our vitamin as well.
Get an accountability partner. In our business, we probably have someone to stay accountable to that keeps us on track. The same is true when trying to create a good habit. Trying to change on our own can be difficult but if we have someone who can do it with us or keep us motivated, we are more likely to continue doing it.
Give time to develop self-discipline. Developing good, positive habits helps us to reach our goals. Interestingly, we follow this routine every day without thinking twice. Our unconscious daily habits create room for our brain to perform more advanced activities like problem-solving and choosing what book to read.
Everyone has habits, and several of those habits are activated every day. Here are three groups in which these habits are classified.
- Habits that we hardly notice as they have become a major part of our life, such as brushing teeth or getting well dressed.
- Good habits to have, to be more successful, like eating healthy, exercising, and reading good books.
- Habits those are harmful, like procrastinating, smoking, or overeating.
- It is important to focus on good habits to have and cultivate in our daily routine.
Identifying Bad Habits-
A bad habit is an undesirable behavior pattern. From nail biting to being perpetually late, we all have little behavioural patterns that we could definitely live without. Being human is often used as an excuse, but we are here to argue that human self-awareness and resilience is also the best defense against unhealthy and unwanted habits.
Other bad habits include procrastination, fidgeting (be restless) and overspending. Again, it is important to identify the essence of willpower when addressing these repeated routines. If someone has no willpower to control a pattern of behavior, then it becomes reassessed as an addiction or mental illness. It is important to distinguish a bad habit from an addiction or mental illness, as there are a number of factors that differentiate them. The fact is that bad habits are bad for us and this affects mentally, physically, emotionally and even socially in some cases, while some bad habits are harder to quit.
Everybody has bad habits. This is true that, some of us have more bad habits than others, but we all have them. Most of us also wish we could quit those bad habits. It is hard at first to see and admit bad habits. Like eating out too much or not spending enough time being active or just being outside. They do not seem so bad at first. Bad habits waste money, strength and time.