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The One Habit That Makes All The Other Habits Easy
Habit formation or habit-breaking is a universal human struggle. There are countless books written on the topic. Experts outline the best strategies and defenses for making and breaking habits. Like most people, I find it to be an up and down roller coaster ride. I slide in and out of habits, both with great ease and great difficulty. The bad ones happen with great ease and the good ones come with great effort.
For most of my life. I’ve tried to create the habit of losing weight.
It’s taken me years to realize that losing weight is not a habit but a goal. There are plenty of ways we can create habits to achieve the goal of losing weight, but losing weight itself is not a habit. But for a long time I was convinced that if I constantly ate healthier and worked out harder, that I could eventually just be in the habit of losing weight. I wanted it to be happening automatically so I wouldn't have to keep thinking about it.
Automatic behaviors are helpful when it comes to some things. Of course, we are happy that once we learn to walk, we don’t have to make the decision to put one foot in front of the other over and over again, each step we take. But when it comes to more complex habits that we want to cultivate or break, the automated part is not always useful.
