We’re Sick of Reading About Your “Good Habits”

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“You can’t create goals without building habits.”

That used to be my golden mantra every time I wanted to get all positive and spiritual. There’s always been a ton of advice online about habits. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to write an article or two about it since that’s the type of stuff that goes viral. Lately, I’ve been bored out of my mind trying to write about it.

Allow me to show you the dark side of habit advice, my young padawan.

No amount of “good habit” articles can teach you how to stick with a habit.

I can hear the voices in my head right now.

“Exercise one hour a day.”

“Wake up at 5 am.”

“Meditate for twenty minutes.”

“Eat two vegetables a day.”

I roll my eyes when articles spew advice like this. Yes, I’ve done it myself, and I’m regretting that. Why? Because it’s not good.

I could tell you to wake up at 5 am all the time, but what compels you to follow through? I’m just a random stranger on the internet. What do I know about your life? It’s so easy to tell someone “6 Constructive Habits That Can Increase Your Happiness”. So? Just knowing those habits won’t do much for the reader.

I wish there was some sort of course on creating a habit of sticking with habits.

That sounds like a huge pyramid scheme, but hey, I’d buy it.

Telling everyone that it takes 90 days to fully implement a habit feels like a cop-out at this point. Most people won’t do it so what’s the point?

Your environment causes you to have bad habits — and you can’t control that.

We’re all different people depending on the type of environment we place ourselves in. It’s like being in class vs. the playground. The atmosphere is quite different, and that prompts you to act a certain way to accommodate it.

I’m way more productive in my college dorm as opposed to my mom’s house.

When I’m in my college dorm, I wake up at 5 am, go to class and study, get some homework done, write, shower, and go to bed.

When I’m at my mom’s house for the summer… it gets rough. I wake up at 10 am, watch YouTube videos on my phone, eat breakfast, take a few naps during the day, write, and go to bed. I’ve tried getting out of those bad habits, but I’ve given up.

Sometimes your habits won’t budge because they are just a product of your environment.

That’s okay.

As long as you’re fulfilling your essential activities, it shouldn’t matter what “bad habits” you’ve contaminated yourself with. Notice how I still write in both versions of my routine. Your routine should get you one step closer to your end goal.

That’s all that matters.

“Bad habits” are subjective.

A lot of bad habits can lead to good ones.

Your bad habit might even be a lifesaver. For example, I got into the habit of drinking more water (good habit). I started drinking water right before I went to bed (bad habit). I woke up at 4 am because I had to use the latrine. I didn’t feel like getting up to use the bathroom so my dumb ass thought I could hold it and dozed off again (bad habit). This led to a pool of urine in my bed. So I officially woke up at 4:30 am to wash my bedsheets (good habit). I got a bunch of work done that morning.

So what is a “bad habit”?

We must find a better way to analyze our habits so we can truly see if our “bad habits” are detrimental to our lives.

Here’s how to do it:

• Create a list of your current habits
• Make categories for your good and bad habits
• Write the costs and benefits for each habit over time (more than a week so you can get a nice chunk of data) — if the costs outweigh the benefits of that habit, it’s detrimental and drop it

We should test our habits of more logically rather than reading what strangers on the internet think is bad.

Recap For Your Memory

• The ultimate key to habit-building is sticking with habits, not reading about more “good habits”
• Sometimes your habits won’t budge because they’re a product of your environment
• Bad habits are subjective, you can analyze them over time to truly see if a habit is bad or not

Hope this helps more than telling you to wake up at 5 am again :)

Get my free writing guide that can teach you how to build a writing habit in 90 days or less here.