Guest blog - The H-Word

I think the word “habits” has a bad reputation. It seems to carry with it a sort of negative connotation. Makes you think of “smoking” and “addiction.” Or maybe that’s just me, because I have some experience with bad habits. When I read Nicole’s latest blog, “You May Ask Yourself…” at the bottom she questions the formation of habits, how they come to be and why we get stuck in them and how we stay clear of those unhealthy ones. It inspired me to pursue the conversation because I have a few thoughts to share on that subject.

There’s a saying that a ladder of success has three rungs: unconscious incompetence, conscious competence and unconscious competence. We can move through being unaware of our inability to being unaware of our ability – or, in this context a bad habit versus a good one where, eventually, it won’t even be a habit anymore but just a positive piece of your life.

I spent most of my 20s in unconscious incompetence. Since this is a "family" rated blog I won’t go into the gritty details but suffice to say I enjoyed living a life of excess, of a lack of responsibility, the sort of perennial teenage dream. Credit card? Nope – bad credit. Nest egg, or savings account? Nope – spent it going out with friends to the local watering holes after work. I basically thought the term “mutual fund” was actually “mutual fun” and had no concept of thinking about my goals beyond getting to the party on the weekend (despite the fact every day was the weekend in that state of mind).

I don’t really know how I got out of it, but I did. It was tricky. I had to say goodbye to some close friends who, ironically, I’ve never seen again. I moved. I started to focus on my career. I stopped drinking – that was the big one because everything else was attached to it… every night of overindulgence always started with just a few beers.

Making the decision to stop was the hardest part. But once I’d said to myself, “This isn’t working anymore” and moved into conscious competence, I started to look at my options. I figured out what I needed to do to break the bad habits and the easiest part, by far, was just sticking to the plan.

A year and a half later I’ve learned a lot about habits. Old, bad habits can be broken if you just stick with it. And you know what else? There are a ton of great, positive habits out there that can be learned. Habits are a way of acting that can be adapted – sure it’s difficult at first but if you keep repeating the action one day you won’t even notice what you’re doing. I’ve since made a habit of walking to work and back every day. I’ve made a habit of recycling, buying organic/local foods and paying attention to green cleaning products. I’ve made a habit of taking my vitamins and drinking water throughout the day. They were all small changes on their own, but with each I’ve watched them change from conscious effort to second nature. Just like the metamorphosis into unconscious competence that was breaking my worst bad habit - the destructive course of my life - and finally growing the hell up!

So I guess at the end of the day, I would answer Nicole by saying: no, we don’t need to just wait for our bad habits to consume us, and yes we can avoid them. We just need to get to that first level of consciousness, and be aware of what we want to change - like she has done with her decision to stop driving to yoga class. :) Once we take that first big step toward our goal, the rest will fall into place. 

Emily Kendy lives in Vancouver, BC. She is the Project Coordinator of Renewable Energy Projects for Eaga Canada. She likes to write fiction (and sometimes non-fiction) in her spare time.