Truths of Habits You Never Realized

According to Dictionary.com, habits are an “acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.”  This definition reveals some of the truths of habits you never realized before.  

One truth of habits is that they are acquired behaviors.  This means that habits are not formed immediately; they take time to become ingrained in our actions and routines.  Therefore, habits are not formed overnight, and they can’t be changed overnight either.  Habits will gradually come upon you, often without consciously realizing it.  As a result, the actions that become habits are ones that you repeat over and over again over a period of time to where they become almost automatic and even natural to you.

Another truth of habits is that they are a pattern that is regularly followed.  As described above, habits are actions that you continue to do over a long period of time, oftentimes where you don’t even realize you’re doing them.  Habits are NOT patterns that just occur all of a sudden; it takes time to form them, and it takes as much or even more time to break them.  Therefore, habits are repeated actions that you do over a period of time until they become almost ingrained in our daily activities to where we almost don’t even realize we are doing them.

A third truth of habits is that they become almost involuntary.  This relates back to the last paragraph in that we almost don’t even realize that we are doing these actions.  To us, it’s almost as easy as breathing, another action that we just do and don’t think about.  However, the habits we form and do repeatedly are more easily noticed by other people, which is why they will often be the ones to point them out to us.  Very rarely do people notice the same actions they take over and over again and recognize them as a habit, which is why bad ones can be very difficult to recognize and break.

Three truths of habits you never realized are that they are acquired behaviors, they are patterns that are regularly followed, and they are actions that become almost involuntary.  It takes time to form habits (both good and bad), these habits become ingrained in our daily routines, and we do them virtually automatically without realizing it, much like breathing.  This is also why usually other people will notice your habits and let you know about them (especially the bad ones); this is also a key reason why bad habits are hard to break, as one’s habits are very difficult for himself/herself to recognize and change.