Habits

Stop and think for minute...

In which drawler do you keep your socks?  

Where is the trash can in your kitchen? 

How do you take a picture using your phone? 

Have you ever wondered how you know the answers to these very simple questions and even how you do these things in your life everyday without even thinking about it?

The answer is because your mind has made finding your socks in right drawler, throwing the trash away in he right place, and clicking on the gray camera app on your phone a habit. Your mind and body has worked together to do these things so many times that you do not need to think about how to do them anymore.

So then, a habit is something we do over and over again without even thinking about. We have developed hundreds of habits throughout our lifetime. Many of those habits are probably good ones, while some may be bad and need to be worked on a little bit. Either way, good habit or bad habit, we have done these habits so many times that at this point we don't even realize we are doing it!

Take for example, the way we fold our hands before we pray.

Do you interlock the fingers together?          
Do you cups your hand together?
Do you keep your hands straight and point them up to heaven?

There is not wrong way to fold your hands for prayer, but you fold your hands the way you do now because you have made it a habit. Your folded your hands the same way for so long that it feels "natural and more importantly right."

But, what if you wanted to change the way you fold your hands before prayer. The good news is that you most definitely can because your are stronger than your habits! At first it will feel "weird and awkward" and you will have to think about it the way you want to fold your hands each time you pray. Along the way you may even go switch back to the old way your folded your hands before pryer. Eventually, folding your hands in the new way you choose will begin to happen without you thinking about it!  Folding your hands for prayer the old way you did it may actually feel weird now!


In order to continue to grow, our job needs to be to work on turing our bad habits (the things our parents and teachers remind us to do differently each time we do them) into something that can help us to be more successful each day!

As mentioned, there are some habits that we have that we are definitely in tune to, but most of the habits we have developed are ones that we are hardly aware of! Check out these read aloud books on Habits. See if you can pick out some of the Good and Bad Habits of the Brother and Sister Bear and Sam and his animals!

The Berenstain and The Bad Habit

Sam Who Never Forgets