Somebody somewhere said, “I think, therefore I am”. I think it was Descartes, but I don’t remember and I’m too lazy to Google. I believe that’s only partially true. The truth is we are a sum of our habits. Our habits, are acquired behaviours through frequent repetition. For most people, they aren’t aware of their habits. Its a shame, because habits can make or break you.

Some habits are good, some habits are bad. A bad habit I have is writing poorly and never looking over what I wrote. After years on instant messengers, and writing things like roflmao and wtf, I have developed a nasty habit of bad writing. In IM I write everything in lowercase and sometimes don’t even end my questions with a question mark. You can look at my first blog post to see what I’m talking about. Its a bad habit that I developed over the years. I have to break this habit, especially if I am going to write something coherent on the GMAT. I have been aware of this habit for quite a while and have consciously started to rid myself of it and form a new, better habit.

Better habits are habits that serve you. Self defeating thoughts are a habit. Why not give yourself self empowering thoughts instead? That will involve ridding a bad habit and creating a good habit. I will say this, if you’ve never broken a bad habit before its really tough. Forming habits take time and removing those habits can take just as much time. Watching TV is a habit. Surfing the net all day is a habit. Do they serve you? Probably not very much. Instead, why not try exercising? That is a habit. And it is a very rewarding habit at that.

Don’t try and change all your habits at once. You’ll fail miserably. Instead, focus on one habit and try and change that. Make sure its something you can do. Start small and build up. For example, if you want to exercise for 30 minutes a day try 10 minutes a day at first. 10 minutes is a lot easier to do. Once you start the ball rolling then you can up the time and it becomes much easier. Make it a game, like a 30 day challenge. You’ll notice by the end of the 30 day challenge you’ll have a new shiny habit within you. How cool is that?