I, am trying to understand if I have habits. My definition of a habit is: “Something that you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that you are doing it” from the Harvard Dictionary

And It might look weird written here, but, I am not certain I have Habits. The most classic example is “Brush your teeth every night and morning”, but I don’t see myself naturally going to do it and most of the time I forget this and can’t seem to do it everytime a lot. So I can’t take that as an example of a Habit.

I eat everyday. But I don’t naturally go unconsciously eat every day. I forget every morning to eat, which makes me hungry at 12h, and at night I go est because I feel in my belly I need food, or because my Girlfriend is angry I didn’t eat yet very late because she asks me almost daily.

Hell I adore coffe, but in the morning I can just fully not think about doing a coffee. And I do take a coffee almost daily but because I think about all my pack of coffees that I putted behind my monitor with my grinder. It’s not a “natural thing I go do”? Because I can forget it if there is no joy stimuli for a coffee.

Ok last thing. I try to go swimming, but it’s because my girlfriend reminds me I really wanted to delete my belly, or because I think about my ideal me being more in shape and less tired everyday (which I’ve seen results on that part before stopping for no reason 2 weeks). When I go to the swimming pool, I put my stuff in the same area of Lockers, not always the same but the same area because I won’t forget. And I then go put my towel near the exit of the pool to dry myself when getting out of the water. Are those two things habits, or are those things logical choices that make sense in the current situation and I am overthinking this?

This is the longest question ever, but yeah, what’s a Habit I think, I’ve been running the question in my head for a few weeks now

  • @[email protected]
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    fedilink
    37 months ago

    I usually think of habits in terms of willpower. It’s just one perspective, which is focused on the development of positive habits and routines.

    Willpower is like muscle. You can only use so much before you get tired and it stops working, and if you regularly use it eventually it will get stronger. So, the strength of a habit depends on how much willpower it takes to complete. If you go for a run every morning without even thinking about it, that’s a strong habit. If you do it regularly but have to drag yourself out of bed, it’s a weak habit.

    Worth noting that a key to building habits is to work on one at a time until it takes very little willpower.