1. Why Important
2. How to Form and Change Habits
3. How to Change Habits
4. The Danger of Habits
5. Helping Children Form Useful Habits

Habits are the foundation-stones of our behavior and character. They control our lives as we grow to become adults. If we develop major bad habits, they will trouble and upset us for the rest of our lives. If we develop major good habits, they will be our angels and benefactors for as long as we live. It is therefore very important that we determine what habits we wish to develop in us, and know how to form or change them. This is an important part of Self-Mastery.

The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. - Samuel Johnson

Habit is a cable. We weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it. - Horace Mann

The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half. - Feodor Dostoevski

• Clarify your basic values - these should be the true roots of our habits. Determine what are important and have priority in our lives.
• Review personal habits - determine which ones are compatible with our basic values, and which ones are not.

Example: You may have the habit of complaining about the traffic or the weather, and thereby make yourself miserable. You may decide that being positive is a better habit.

• Make a decision to form the habit - make it clear and decisive, for the clarity will be crucial during times of temptation to backslide. You may even announce it to your family or friends so that you will become publicly committed.
• Seek the cooperation of family and friends - Their support and encouragement can help a lot. Example: the decision to exercise regularly will be easier it someone does it with you.
• Repeat the behavior regularly until it becomes a habit - This is a crucial key.

Do not make exceptions or excuses that will make you skip the behavior. This weakens the new habit. Some habit takes weeks or months to really settle in. Hence be persistent during the first few weeks or months.

Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again. - William James

• Read and discuss about the advantages of the new habit you are forming.

Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter. - Paxton Hood

Habits can be changed, even those which are deeply ingrained. Here are some approaches.

• Be aware of the habit and decide that you want to remove or replace it.

Every grown-up man consists wholly of habits, although he is often unaware of it and even denies having any habits at all - Gurdjieff (quoted by P.D. Ouspensky)

• Use substitution - Supplant the habit with one that is incompatible with the old.

Example: a smoker chews something whenever he feels the desire to smoke.

• Change the environment - get away from the source of the stimuli that feeds the habit.

Example: avoiding company of drinkers to stop alcohol intake.

• Encouragement - Introduce a pleasant result, such as a praise by spouse or friends, when an undesirable habit is not done, or when an opposite habit is exhibited. Positive encouragement is better than punishment, for punishment can sometimes be resented and may even strengthen the habit through retaliation.

While we regulate our habits, we must also be aware of a potential disadvantage of habits in general. When we are too fixed and rooted in our habits, even constructive habits, we may lose spontaneity, creativity, and may find ourselves unable to adjust to changing circumstances. While good habits are extremely useful slaves, we must take care that they will not imprison us exclusively in their worlds. Hence the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno wrote "To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be."

Habits are invariably formed in childhood and youth. Hence it is essential that parents and elders know hot to handle the habit-forming stages of growing up.

• Discuss values and habits with them not preach. Let them share their own ideas and act as a moderator or guide.
• Join them in forming the habit whether brushing teeth, doing assignments, taking a bath, etc. Modeling is one of the best ways of developing a behavior in children.
• Compliment them - each time they perform the desirable behavior.

Every attempt to give honest praise is a solid-gold investment. - Linda and Richard Eyre