Habits to Grow On

We all have our habits.

Like the doctor who drinks Mountain Dew on a daily basis.

Or the child that absolutely has to wear rain boots on the sunniest of days.

Or the woman who has to carry honey to add to her movie theater popcorn (guilty).

What's the problem with habits? Habits give us a sense of safety, even in the most mundane of ways. Habits help us make sense of the sanity, right?

Okay, so if habits are not helpful, at least they are neutral, right?

But, what if habits are unhelpful? What if it is the very things that we do day after day that are the very bullets that kill us softly?

For me, my favorite habit is observing people. Daily, I observe others decisions. I observe the potential of a couple flirting. I observe and decide whether or not that was a winning action or not. The problem with that is that I struggle with actually DOING things. Especially after I have observed others make seemingly poor choices.

So, I have decided to break that habit. I decided to step out of the glass box because I was keeping myself from valuable experiences. By not allowing myself to fail, I was forbidding myself from experiencing new successes. Now, this does not mean that I take a risk with everything that I do. I try to be thoughtful and somewhat safe in each experience. But, sometimes the lesson is simply in our ability (or our willingness) to break the mold. 

Napoleon Hill once stated that the only way we are limited is in our willingness to allow our minds to grow. So, this month's challenge is to create a habit of doing something new regularly. Make it a priority to re-evaluate habits as helpful/unhelpful and move forward knowing that you are your only limit.