The kind of person you become and the quality of life you have has much to do with your habits, they can be positive or negative. They are the things you repeatedly do and the small actions that dictate how your day pans out, especially your responses to events and people.
Some you may do totally unconsciously because they have become a fully automatic part of your routine. Habits can be instinct-driven, pleasure or pain-driven, goal-driven, or love-driven.
When you want to develop positive habits and break the bad ones, a purpose is what gets you started, and motivation keeps you going. It also helps to know what influences your habits and your perceived importance of them. These will be useful when you set your goals of developing good habits and how you plan to exercise them to succeed.
Let’s talk about the four types of habits.
Instigating – Your Measured Actions
Instigating habits are the actions that you do because you are well-aware of why you have to do them. You don’t perform these behaviors just because you have been doing them for so long and that they have always been that way.
Instead, you know pretty well the benefits of keeping these habits, that’s why you consciously choose to do them. Some examples of instigating habits include eating a balanced diet, exercising, and spending quality time with your loved ones. Instigating habits are always positive.
- Regimental – What You Always Do
Regimental habits are closely similar to instigating habits. These are the habits that you have been doing for a long time, and because of that, you keep doing them regardless of whether they are beneficial to you or not. They often become automatic, which may prevent you from living in the moment. Regimental habits include taking the same route every day, drinking a cup of tea or coffee every morning, or as routinely as showering or brushing your teeth. Depending on the situation, regimental habits can be good or bad.
- Avoiding – What You Try to Move Away
Avoiding habits are often the ones that you most often wish you didn’t have. They are the habits that you should break, such as smoking, drinking alcohol, procrastinating, gossiping, and gambling. Avoiding habits tend to steer you away from the things that you have to do or should do and they are mostly negative.
What you need to do is to reframe these habits in your mind so that they can move to being instigating habits. You have to be more mindfully aware of the effects of such habits, so you can be motivated to replace them with those that will have a positive impact on you.
- Unconscious – What You Do Without Realizing
Unconscious habits are the things that you without realizing them. They are often negative as well because you don’t usually have control over them. Unconscious habits may include biting the top of a pencil when you are thinking, or biting your nails when you are nervous, or frowning when you’re very focused on what you’re doing. These unconscious habits may send negative impressions to people around you, especially those who do not know you. Who knows? You might be missing out on opportunities, or alienating others because of these.
Wrapping Up
These are the types of habits, and knowing where your current habits fall under these types will help you reframe them. In the case of bad habits, this understanding will make it easier to replace them with good habits. Ideally, you should have more instigating habits than the other three types of habits.
Be careful with the regimental habits because they can become unconscious and negative. You also need to face the habits that fall under the avoiding type. For the unconscious type, you may need the help of a family member or a close friend who knows you really well to remind you when the behavior is being exhibited. They can point out the negative habits that you are not aware you are doing.
Ultimately, developing the habits that you want will depend on what you want to achieve in life and as a person. Hopefully, you will lean towards creating positive habits and breaking the ones that are not doing you any good. Know the purpose of the habit you want to develop and get started. Then find more reasons and motivation that will keep you going until the habits are formed and become second nature to you.