Is forming habits really that important?

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Habits.

What are they and is it really that important that I form habits?

If I could pin point one area of my life that I struggle with the most, it is self-discipline and consistency. Can anyone else relate? I have something that I want to start doing or incorporating into my life, I go all in and start doing it, and then a few days go by and “boom”, it falls by the wayside.

But what I am realizing is that I have not allowed myself the time to form habits.

One of the principles that drives all I do here on my site, is that when you have systems in place, when you have made decisions ahead of time and decided how you are going to do something or handle an area of your life, that your days seem to go much smoother.

But you really have to move beyond just deciding on systems to put in place, and beyond even starting to implement these systems. You have to move on to forming habits!

What is a habit?

A habit is something that you just do without thinking about it.

It is when you do something over and over again long enough that you don’t have to be reminded or even think about what you are doing.

Why are habits important?

Removes decisions you have to make – As moms and/or homemakers, we have many decisions that need to be made every day — What will I fix for dinner tonight? What appointments do we have this week? Where should I file this bank statement I got in the mail? I need to go get some milk for tomorrow, but where should I write myself a note so I’ll remember?… and the list goes on and on.

When we decide ahead of time how we are going to handle some of these areas of our lives, it takes so much stress off of us. We don’t have to think about and make a decision in the moment, because we already know what we are going to do and we just do it. We have already formed a habit!

Takes less brain space – This one is big! The older I get it seems that the more important it is for me to write things down. I just can’t remember everything that I need to remember! When we form habits — when we get systems in place for handling areas of our lives — it frees up brain space. We don’t have to think and make those decisions over and over again, and it frees up brain space to focus on other things.

Helps you get important things done – If you think about the areas of your life that you want to form habits in, they are probably areas that are really important to you. Things like getting enough sleep, exercising, reading your Bible and praying, drinking enough water, spending quality time with your husband and kids, etc.

I think that is why we can get so frustrated and defeated, because the very things that we feel are so important to us, are the very things that we try and fail at over and over again. So as you can see, forming habits can be a huge answer to this!

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I am going to be writing some more on forming habits in upcoming posts. This is an area that I am personally working on, and I feel that the Lord wants me to write on it some more. We will be discussing what key habits you should have in place to start with, and some resources to help you form those habits.