This is the third day of the new year. Are you still reminding yourself to write 2024 instead of 2023? Habits allow us to do things without thinking about it.
Sometimes, that could be embarrassing. For example, at home, Ken and I always wipe our dishes with our paper napkins when we finish eating. I have this horrible vision of being in a restaurant with friends and while engrossed in conversation at the end of the meal, we rub our plates with our cloth napkins.
According to experts who study us, about 40% of our daily actions are driven by repetition. It’s easy to think the words routine and habit mean the same thing but they don’t. Routine refers to an involved task like cleaning the house. Yet, according to journalist Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit,” we must establish a routine to form a habit.
An action I’ve been working on for several months is putting my hearing aids back in my ears when I leave the bathroom after taking a shower. Last fall, I thought I would ‘kill two birds with one stone’ by doing needed shopping before attending the afternoon meeting of Authors Supporting Authors in Rockford. I finally realized that people in stores weren’t mumbling–I’d forgotten my hearing aids. I just had time to make a quick, twenty-mile-drive back home to get them and return to the city for my meeting.
With the new year, many people have made decisions pertaining to their habits. The brain can’t tell the difference between trying to drop a bad habit or add a good one. The time it takes to develop the act of doing something new varies from person to person and whether it’s pleasurable or not.
Have you made a new year’s resolution regarding your habits? Reward yourself for making a baby step toward change and don’t be too hard on yourself if you slip.