A man once said, “To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be.” A very true statement in most cases, unless you have good habits. The lives of humans are consumed by process of routine. From the moment we wake up in the morning to the time we go to bed, most of us are ruled by the practices we have developed. Webster defines the word as: a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiologic exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance. The second definition is: an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary. Good tendencies are more difficult to develop, it seems, than bad ones; whereas bad tendencies are more difficult to break than good ones. This is all a matter of perception.
Good habits are processes that are done in a regular manner that promote positivity in life. These are the things that get you through your day in a healthy and necessary manner. For example, something that would be considered a good routine, by most, is brushing your teeth. Every morning, before you leave for work, you brush your teeth. Every evening, before you go to bed, you brush your teeth. Many people do this a time at midday as well. This process is positive in ways such as it preventing bad breath, and keeping healthy teeth. Forming good tendencies makes life easier in many ways.
Some practices that may be helpful to form are eating healthy, becoming organized, and performing regular maintenance on your vehicle. By having healthy eating habits, you will live longer, be more active, and feel less self conscious about your appearance. A negative consequence to not eating healthy comes in the form of a heart attack or stroke that might have been preventable. Becoming organized can save you time and money spent looking for things that have been misplaced and purchasing these same things again when they can not be found. For example, if you need to find a tool to fix a leak, and you have not organized your tools, you may have to purchase another tool like that, which costs more time and money than is necessary.
Performing regularly scheduled maintenance on your vehicle can save you time and money spent letting car problems go until they are no longer small and cheap to fix. For example, changing the oil in a car in a timely manner normally costs 30-60 dollars and about an hour of your time every 3,000 miles. When this good routine is regularly ignored, the result can be detrimental to the health and life of your car. One negative consequence is that eventually, you may have to rebuild your engine at a time and money cost much greater than you would have spent on routine maintenance.
Bad habits are things that are done on a regular basis that do not improve upon or prove to be detrimental to forward movement in life. These are things that when done on a regular basis are generally bad for you and completely unnecessary, no matter how necessary they seem at the time. An example of a bad practice would be biting your fingernails. Besides being completely unsanitary, biting your nails leaves unsightly ragged edges to your nails that are very unattractive. Biting your nails is only destructive and serves no good purpose. This is the way many bad tendencies are.
If we are not careful, bad tendencies can turn into addictions. Smoking, drinking excessively, and overeating can all become processes that are highly addictive. These type of addictions can be harder to get rid of than most bad routines. Breaking the habit of biting your nails is a far cry from trying to stop an addictive practice such as smoking.
Look at your life. Decide which if you have a habit you should break. Conversely, decide whether you have any you would like to form. Constantly working on improving yourself is a great process to begin. There are always personality traits and routines to develop. The process of self-advancement should be a never-ending process that we pursue.