Why Are Good Habits So Elusive?

The number one reason I am writing a daily blog is to establish a good habit of writing every day. Putting it up for everyone to see keeps me accountable. At least I hope it will.

It seems I have no ending of bad habits that have grown on me like fungus, in the middle of the night without my even knowing. Smoking? Check. Drinking too much? Check. Eating crap instead of healthy food? Check. Sleeping too late? Check. Finding excuses to avoid writing? Check.

Why are bad habits so easy to form, and not good ones?

I'm worried the accountability part of the daily blog isn't going to work. I've joined Weight Watchers three times now, and I while think that having someone else weigh me every week will keep me accountable, sometimes it doesn't. If I don't like the weight they see too many times in a row, I just don't go anymore. That's where I am right now. Smack in the middle of a bad habit.

What happens if I think you don't like what you're reading too many times in a row, so I just stop writing?

The challenge of this exercise is to strike a balance between writing about my process, which is inherently selfish, and writing about something that other people will enjoy reading. Hopefully the two coincide somewhere in there.

So far I've been successful at establishing a new, good habit of getting out of bed an hour and half earlier, so I can sit down and write before I check email or Facebook or even get dressed. But how long will that last, before an insidious bad habit takes over? They seem to do that, you know. Creep in silently like a squatter in an empty house and set up residence before anyone knows they're there. Once they're discovered they can't be evicted because they've established squatter's rights.

Bad habits are my homeless squatters.

Lifehack has a great article "18 Tricks to Make New Habits Stick". It has fair dose of good advice, and I'm trying to stick to the guidelines, like starting simply, making it daily, and getting a buddy (in this case, that's you).

Are you trying to establish a good habit, and break an old one? How do you try to do that, and have you been successful?

Until I figure this out, I'll keep getting up at 7am (I hope!) and writing a post every day (again, I hope!).

See you tomorrow!