Habits: How to Make Them and Break Them

By Caroline Patafio

Do you ever find yourself sitting in your room or in class subconsciously biting your nails or doodling in the margins of your notes? Maybe you tend to leave your dirty clothes on the floor or find that you almost never finish drinking a bottle of water throughout the day. These actions are called habits, or in other words, tendencies that we regularly participate in without necessarily being aware of them. It’s important to recognize that not all habits are bad. For instance, always making your bed when you wake up or waking up at a consistent time are great habits. There are many habits like these that we may not notice ourselves doing that can help with productivity throughout the day and make us feel organized and accomplished. Regardless of the pros of good habits and cons of bad habits, it can be incredibly difficult to change them.

There is no perfect solution to making and breaking habits other than being fully committed to changing them. As a rule of thumb, it takes about 21 days of consistently doing something, or not doing something, to break or change a habit. So an example could be, “I want to drink one 32 ounce water bottle everyday.” For the next 21 days, you would consciously make an effort to finish that water bottle by the end of the day. The idea is that by the end of the three weeks or 21 days, you would not have to consciously remind yourself to finish the water bottle, and instead it would happen naturally.

I like to work on my habits by picking two things that I want to focus on at the start of every month. Then in my journal or on a piece of paper, I write the numbers 1 to 31 down the page and check off every day that I was successful at doing this throughout the month. Something else that I have tried is setting a reminder on my phone or downloading habit tracking apps that I check off whenever I complete the task. My most recent endeavors have been making it a habit to journal everynight before bed and trying to spend time outside every day. 

It can be hard to recognize our bad habits and it may feel daunting trying to change something that we do subconsciously. Try to remember that making changes is not impossible, and building good habits will be worth it. Small changes that seem insignificant can completely change how you feel throughout the day, and can increase productivity and feelings of accomplishment.