Installing a new habit and breaking an old one

by Stephanie Burns

As part of the original Goal Achiever's Program (and now the Labyrinth online course) I had been teaching the students how to install new useful habits and to break existing useless or undesired habits.

In the context of the goal achievement having strategies for this type of learning is useful because some goal activities are suited better to being a habit than to being an activity which requires active motivation.

In this context the students decided what activities they wanted to become part of their life for a long period of time, or for which they would need to do with high frequency. Who wants to have to motivate themselves each time they need to drink water, or take a walk, or stretch, or write another piece of the book? These repetitive long-term activities are less likely to be avoided, forgotten or abandon if they become habits.

http://www.stephanieburns.com/articles/article06_habit.asp