31 Days of Journaling Prompts: Habit

Day 3: Habit

How many can identify with being a creature of habit? I think most everyone is to some extent. We find comfort in repetition and knowing that what we do will generate the same results. Or maybe that’s just me.

My husband has the same pancakes for breakfast and the same sandwich for lunch every day during the week. I’ve been known to do this for several weeks or months at a time, too, then suddenly one day I want something different. I like that my husband is predictable in that way. It certainly makes it easier for me to plan meals when I know what he likes and doesn’t like. We do our grocery shopping together, but if I ever had to do it on my own, then I would know exactly what to get for him.

But what happens when that ritual is broken for some reason? Do we get bent out of shape? Can we handle the change?

The sandwich that my husband used to buy for lunch suddenly started dwindling from the freezer section of the grocery store. He talked to the grocery manager, and they said they weren’t ordering it any more. Something similar had happened to him once before with some chicken pot pies that he liked for dinner when he was still single, but he found out that the company stopped making them. This time, however, the store just stopped ordering it, but oddly enough they told him that they would go to the competitor store and buy theirs to sell to him. Seriously? It was a little (no, a lot) weird that they would offer that, so we declined. He was somewhat bent out of shape when this first happened, but he ended up finding another sandwich to start taking for his lunch. Let’s hope they don’t stop making this one!

Good habits to get into are making schedules so that you’re never at a loss of where you’re supposed to be or what you’re supposed to be doing. I’ve been using Google Calendar since 2006, and it has saved me many times from missing out on something that I likely would forget. Making commitments to exercising on specific days has helped me, though I’m still working on it. I find that the less I dwell on making decisions and just doing things automatically, the better off I am at keeping with those good habits. If I know that every Thursday I am going to go to water aerobics, it makes it easier for me to not make other plans on Thursday evenings. I simply work better on a schedule and get more accomplished.

“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” – Samuel Johnson

Are you more of a scheduled person or someone spontaneous? What habits have you formed that have been good for you? Do you have any bad habits that you need to change?

Today’s recommended 31 Day Blogger: 31 Days of Good Books @ The Pentriloquist

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5 thoughts on “31 Days of Journaling Prompts: Habit”

I try to be a scheduled person, but it never sticks. I have a routine of sorts, but it’s a loose schedule where I work in what I need or want to do for the day at whatever time I get to it haha. Maybe it’s because I am a creative person, but I have a hard time staying disciplined on certain things. The bad habits I need to change is that I need to be more disciplined. I need to exercise more, work on personal goals more, and somehow go to bed earlier and rise earlier. I got in a bad late night pattern from when my fiance worked the night shift and am having trouble changing it.

Tonya

October 6, 2012 at 9:58 am

We joke that my OCD is all things related to time. I like to have everything planned and scheduled in advance. I am not all that much of a spontaneous person. I definitely prefer structure. David says that it’s good, in a way, because I pretty much always know what we’re doing and what’s going to be next. If I forget to put something on the calendar, he jokingly chides me about it.

I tend to be a late night person, too, though as I am getting older it’s been a little less so. I was in bed around 9pm last night to read, then the lights were out before 10. That’s far from how I used to be when it was more like 12 and 1. Unfortunately, I require A LOT of sleep.

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